Museum 2.0

APRIL 4, 2012

Museums have been grappling with this question for years ( here's a 2007 roundup of such projects ), most aggressively in zoos and natural history museums where staff hope to inspire conservation and in history/concept museums that focus on civic engagement and activism. The largest was a "wish canopy" that hangs above the entire gallery.

Story 47

Story Participatory Museum History 47

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 7, 2010

Part 2: It's How Aggressive You Are My first year in museums, I tried to get as much broad experience as possible. Six months in, the Museum committed to creating a highly interactive, separate ticket "you be the spy" experience (now open and named Operation Spy). The blog started with a conference experience.

Museum 52

Museum Boston Participatory Job 52

Museum 2.0

MARCH 28, 2008

Museums aren't the only venues facing this question: news outlets, corporate brands, and educators are also grappling with the question of trust in the participatory age. You may remember the NPR stories in 2007 about changes in the way that doctors acknowledge mistakes and offer apologies. Be honest about mistakes.

Participatory 20

Participatory Museum Teen Voice 20

Museum 2.0

JULY 31, 2013

You''re in for a treat, with upcoming posts on creativity, collections management, elitism, science play, permanent participatory galleries, partnering with underserved teens, magic vests, and more. The total readership from 2010-2012 was more than double that of 2007-2009 (and has been flat since 2011). As the readership for Museum 2.0

Museum 35

Museum Participatory Reflection Conference 35

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JULY 28, 2009

My experience has informed me over and over again that you will fail. It is my hope, my prayer that I can use these god given communication skills, our not so new world of participatory media, and make green something so compelling that it cannot help but become an all powerful movement. Don’t make that mistake. And control?

Create 94

Create Green Social Media Structure 94

Museum 2.0

JULY 1, 2011

But the point is that the MAH, like just about every other museum in the known universe, was content to define the museum experience as something removed from the outside world, a rarefied church-like space of refined artistic reflection. Her blog, "Museum 2.0," is one of the leading forces working to remake the museum experience.

Museum 31

Museum History Arts Work 31

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 5, 2008

They were ahead of the museum curve, using language like "participatory learning environment" (Brooklyn Children's Museum, 1977) that is still thick in the mouths of contemporary museum directors in other fields. Who cares if children's museums don't change as long as the content and the experience is good?

Classroom 22

Classroom Children Museum Model 22

Museum 2.0

MAY 26, 2009

I've seen several museums experimenting with inviting visitors to take action, make promises, and join communities of intentionality (here's a post with examples from 2007 ), and the USHMM effort is particularly compelling for some specific design choices made in the development of the pledge wall. That's not to say it's perfect.

Pledge 23

Pledge Museum Digital Indianapolis 23

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 4, 2010

What's the best way to share information about your experiments--what worked and what didn't? I want to share a few fabulous evaluation and research studies that have greatly informed my work (and specifically, the development of The Participatory Museum , which is going to the printer this weekend).

Participatory 20

Participatory Evaluation Project Report 20

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

The Story of Electronics is part of a series of short films created and released by the Story of Stuff project since 2007. This organization is one that was born as networked nonprofit, in part, because of the experience and vision of its leader, Annie Leonard. 2) Networks are participatory.

Story 99

Story Network Action Examples 99

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 15, 2007

I've been arguing that "visitors as participants" means participating BOTH with content and with other visitors, but that begs the question: do visitors really want to have social experiences with each other? Enabling that creation to be social helps cement the uniqueness and inclusion of the museum experience.

Museum 20

Museum San Jose Participatory Social 20

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 11, 2008

In May of 2007, Woody Sobey released a wiki for science museum educators to share their demos. The participatory "ask" is high--to create original content. After the conference, the wiki switched from being a participatory site to a useful record. Consider these two stories of museum-related wikis that struggled.

Wiki 23

Wiki Wikipedia Museum Doc 23

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 6, 2019

At the start, the blog was an experiment. I spent 2007-2011 traveling the world, doing participatory projects and consulting gigs, and writing my first book. You gave me support as I struggled to lead a museum through a participatory rebirth. is about participation, but I never fully succeeded in making it participatory.

Museum 27

Museum Reflection Participatory Attitude 27

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 15, 2009

It launched in October of 2007 with a very simple and understandable idea: to produce a global map of pieces of art made with stones on beaches. The World Beach Project is a gem hiding in a vast space populated by other objects and experiences. Maybe that's where all great museum experiences live.

Project 38

Project Museum Artist Map 38

Museum 2.0

JULY 17, 2008

MN150 is a newish permanent exhibition (opened in Oct 2007) at the Minnesota History Center that marks the sesquicentennial of Minnesota with 150 of “the most influential forces in the state’s history.” We had success with another exhibit with an unusual format called open house in which the visitor experience is pretty open-ended.

Interview 21

Interview Minnesota Museum History 21