Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JULY 1, 2009

When I talk about designing participatory experiences, I often show the above graphic from Forrester Research. The point, in the context of this conversation, is that a minority of social media users are creators—people who write blog posts, upload photos onto Flickr, or share homemade videos on YouTube. Consider a mural.

Participatory 50

Participatory Experiment Museum Teen 50

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 3, 2014

For those who can''t see the image, the card reads: When I first saw the "pastports" I didn''t really understand, but after reading what people wrote in them I felt an overwhelming connection to all the words of so many random people. People could take the pastports home or hang them, open to a preferred page, on a clothesline.

Participatory 45

Participatory Museum History Arts 45

Museum 2.0

JUNE 25, 2014

How do you measure the value of that experience? Two years ago, we mounted one of our most successful participatory exhibits ever at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History: Memory Jars. Over three months, about 600 people filled mason jars with personal memories and put them on display. He puts it on the wall. What was it?

Participatory 52

Participatory Evaluation Project Museum 52

Museum 2.0

APRIL 2, 2014

Beck''s project is unusual because he deliberately resurrected a mostly-defunct participatory platform: sheet music for popular songs. In his thoughtful preface to this project, I reconnected with five lessons I''ve learned from participatory projects in museums and cultural sites. Constrain the input, free the output.

Participatory 52

Participatory Arts Music Learning 52

Museum 2.0

MARCH 16, 2009

When I talk about designing participatory experiences, I often show the above graphic from Forrester Research. The point, in the context of this conversation, is that a minority of social media users are creators—people who write blog posts, upload photos onto Flickr, or share homemade videos on YouTube. Consider a mural.

Participatory 44

Participatory Experiment Museum Teen 44

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

This exhibition showcases collectors from throughout Santa Cruz County--people with collections from animal skulls to dryer lint to priceless historic flags. This exhibition represents a few big shifts for us: We used a more participatory design process. Without further ado, here's what we did to make the exhibition participatory.

Participatory 44

Participatory Museum History International 44

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

MAY 7, 2010

Nina has written a fantastic book engagement called The Participatory Museum. A third argues that the project won’t be truly participatory unless users get to define what content is sought in the first place. I’ve been using these participatory categories to talk about how we’d like users to participate in different projects.

Model 98

Model Activities Active Activism 98

Museum 2.0

MARCH 3, 2011

In 2009 , students built a participatory exhibit from scratch. Thirteen students produced three projects that layered participatory activities onto an exhibition of artwork from the permanent collection of the Henry Art Gallery. When activities were not facilitated, people were often too timid to interact.

Participatory 51

Participatory Arts Audience Museum 51

Qgiv

JULY 10, 2023

Whether your donors are transactional or high value (including mid-level and recurring donors) or participatory (like event participants and volunteers), building healthy relationships with them today—and retaining them—recognizes the responsibility we all have to our constituents, our communities, and, ultimately, to ourselves.

Storytelling 75

Storytelling Donor Cancer Guidelines 75

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 18, 2011

We’ve been doing a little experiment at our museum with labels. We decided to approach the label-writing for these boards in a participatory way. We can certainly write a decent label based on this activity. It was the activity that drew this person (and probably others) to the surfboards—not the objects themselves.

Participatory 48

Participatory San Diego Museum History 48

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 15, 2009

Over the past year, I've noticed a strange trend in the calls I receive about upcoming participatory museum projects: the majority of them are being planned for teen audiences. Why are teens over-represented in participatory projects? The first of these reasons is practical. The first of these reasons is practical.

Teen 24

Teen Participatory Experiment Museum 24

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 13, 2011

The best participatory projects are useful. Rather than just doing an activity, visitors should be able to contribute in a way that provides a valuable outcome for the institution and the wider museum audience. Yes, this activity is political. From a design perspective, this activity is scaffolded for success.

Participatory 44

Participatory Museum Action Experiment 44

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 3, 2014

I saw how participatory techniques were working in diverse museums around the world. What may be culturally-determined, however, is HOW people want to participate. In different countries, I''ve noticed broad trends in how people feel most comfortable sharing their voice. Is that activity an opportunity or a threat?

Culture 49

Culture Participatory New Zealand Museum 49

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 29, 2010

This question is a byproduct of the reality that most participatory projects have poorly articulated value. When a participatory activity is designed without a goal in mind, you end up with a bunch of undervalued stuff and nowhere to put it. It's not just a personal activity; it's an opportunity to be part of something.

Participatory 48

Participatory Music Project Video 48

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

OCTOBER 26, 2006

" Taking it a little deeper, organizations should not go in the other direction - and be strategic in friending people. Another point of intersection here for me is Henry Jenkins recently published 72-page white paper " Confronting the Challenges of Participatory Culture: Media Education for the 21st Century."

Participatory 50

Participatory Teen Vlog Mashup 50

Museum 2.0

JUNE 24, 2010

The new building was designed to meet neighborhood needs--not just in the content covered, but in the inclusion of spaces made for particular kinds of activities sought by locals (i.e. She did several things over the course of the tour to make it participatory, and she did so in a natural, delightful way. The exhibits are exciting.

Museum 51

Museum Participatory Model Seattle 51

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 1, 2014

They designed a participatory project that delivers a compelling end product for onsite and online visitors… and they learned some unexpected lessons along the way. Also, on a personal level, I had this really powerful experience with my mother in a Storycorps booth in Grand Central years ago that had a profound impact on me.

Museum 43

Museum Story Project Design 43

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 21, 2012

I am fascinated by the incredible differences in what people contribute based on format and phrasing of the invitation to participate. Our current exhibition is about why people collect things. Both these lists are interesting, but the "we" list invites spectators into the experience a bit more than the "I" list.

Participatory 39

Participatory Difference Analysis Museum 39

Museum 2.0

APRIL 7, 2009

Which of these descriptions exemplifies participatory museum practice? But the difference between the two examples teases out a problem in differentiating "participatory design" from "design for participation." In the first case, you are making the design process participatory. In the second, you make the product participatory.

Participatory 27

Participatory Design Difference Museum 27

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 30, 2013

Earlier this year, I was fascinated to read the account of a participatory project at the Morrison County Historical Society in Minnesota, in which community members were invited to write essays about “what’s it like” to have various life experiences in the County. You have to remind people, keep reaching out.

History 51

History Museum Minnesota Participatory 51

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 30, 2013

Earlier this fall, I read this headline: "Stanford study: Participation in a cultural activity may reduce prejudice." I eagerly read about a new social psychology research study in which whites, Asians, and Latinos engaged in a simple collaborative activity--making a music video together. I wanted to know more.

Measure 47

Measure Arts People Museum 47

Museum 2.0

APRIL 20, 2009

I’d never attended before and was impressed by many very smart, international people doing radical projects to make museum collections and experiences accessible and participatory online. The people at Museums and the Web are on the forefront of web-based innovative museum practice. You join the Brooklyn Museum’s posse.

Participatory 35

Participatory Museum Web Indianapolis 35

Museum 2.0

JUNE 10, 2015

And so, one of the most successful, accidental, and fraught participatory projects of the past decade comes to an end. No one planned the love locks, but their success is rooted in the same principles that make all the best participatory projects work: it requires no instructions beyond its own example. Nor are they historic.

Participatory 20

Participatory Project Artist Instruction 20

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 10, 2014

Engaging new people. Engaging more diverse people. Engaging people actively in the arts. Here, in no particular order, are ten different kinds of quality in arts experiences: AESTHETIC: is it beautiful? INTERPRETATIVE: can people understand it? EDUCATIONAL: can people learn from it? Any questions?

Participatory 55

Participatory Museum Arts Culture 55

sgEngage

MARCH 27, 2023

Foundations and grantmaking organizations are trying to untangle some of the world’s messiest problems: homelessness, food insecurity, climate change, and the rights of people who are often overlooked, to name a few. That’s where participatory grantmaking comes in. What is Participatory Grantmaking?

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Participatory Trend Community Grant 73

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 26, 2012

Visitors bond and bridge through participatory experiences at MAH. Assess and Respond to Community Assets and Needs If you want to activate community engagement in your programs, you first need to work together with your communities to determine their diverse needs, assets and interests.

Museum 49

Museum Program Participatory Community 49

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 18, 2013

This post shares some of the most interesting questions I''ve heard throughout these experiences. Granted, I live in an increasingly narrow world of people who are exploring these topics and want me to work with them, but I still learn a lot from the questions and struggles I hear from colleagues and people who comment on the blog.

Museum 45

Museum Question Participatory Evaluation 45

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

This simple participatory project invites visitors to contribute their own small objects in little alcoves in our bathrooms. But people have participated in completely different ways. People like participating, we take them seriously, and they take us seriously. The participation is almost 100% on-topic and appropriate.

Museum 47

Museum Difference Examples Participatory 47

NTEN

NOVEMBER 4, 2014

Last year, NTEN Community Champions helped to raise over $36,000 to help support the NTEN Community Challenge , which helped to enhance NTEN''s program accessibility, including sending over 50 people to the 2014 Nonprofit Technology Conference (14NTC) and the 2014 Leading Change Summit (14LCS) with scholarships.

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Donation Share Impact NTEN 64

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

The Leading Change Summit was more intimate (several hundred people), participatory and interactive, intense, and stimulating. And while anything you do the first time will not be perfect and in many cases stressful, in the end it was a good experience. What makes for a good team experience is a good on-boarding process.

Reflection 124

Reflection NTEN Change Facilitation 124

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 16, 2013

This past weekend, in conjunction with our exhibition about Ze Frank's current participatory project, A Show , we hosted " Ze Frank Weekend "--a quickie summer camp of workshops, activities, presentations, and lots of hugging. Then again, Saturday was hardly normal at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History.

Reflection 43

Reflection Community Museum Participatory 43

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 25, 2015

For the past two years, I''ve been working on a project to activate the concrete space adjacent to our museum as a vibrant, community plaza. We are hiring a temporary contract curator to activate the plaza this summer with 25+ cultural events. How do you experiment and course-correct as people wear their own paths into the space?

Public 20

Public Activities Active Activism 20

Museum 2.0

APRIL 25, 2011

This post shares some of the most interesting questions I've heard throughout these experiences. Granted, I live in an increasingly narrow world of people who are exploring these topics and want me to work with them, but I still learn a lot from the questions and struggles I hear from colleagues and people who comment on the blog.

Question 49

Question Participatory Museum Evaluation 49

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 11, 2012

We just started to try to live up to that vision, partnership by partnership, activity by activity. We're hearing on a daily basis that the museum has a new role in peoples' lives and in the identity of the county. I can't believe it when I hear words from the strategic plan come out of people's mouths.

Audience 47

Audience Museum Participatory History 47

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 16, 2010

While for me meandering was mostly pleasurable, if I were there with a particular goal or a group of people, I would have been stressed out. So when the folks at the think tank asked us to make a media piece to address one problem we saw with the current setup, I decided to do a little experiment in visitor-driven navigation.

Experiment 44

Experiment Lesson Learning Museum 44

Museum 2.0

JULY 23, 2019

Today, I wanted to think about participatory elements, something so essential to this blog. If all museums get better, we have more people who like going to museums, which increases museum revenues, and makes the field more stable. People go to school because they have to or want to in order to get to their goal.

Museum 35

Museum Participatory Interaction Classroom 35

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 18, 2012

When talking about active audience engagement with friends in the museum field, I often hear one frustrated question: how can we get adults to participate? The common museum knowledge on this issue is that adults are timid, that we have lost some of the wonder, impulsiveness, and active creativity of childhood days.

Interaction 47

Interaction Design Museum Participatory 47