Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

This simple participatory project invites visitors to contribute their own small objects in little alcoves in our bathrooms. We have seven participatory elements in our current exhibitions on three floors, ranging from voting to talkback walls to an in-depth "make a memory jar" craft activity.

Museum 47

Museum Difference Examples Participatory 47

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. This week, I saw a great example at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum that blew me away with its power and simplicity.

Participatory 44

Participatory Museum Action Experiment 44

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 26, 2012

Visitors bond and bridge through participatory experiences at MAH. The purpose of my thesis was two-fold: To research and analyze community and civic engagement practices, methods, theories and examples in other museum programs. We continuously and actively respond to requests as well as invite people to be a part of our programs.

Museum 49

Museum Program Participatory Community 49

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 21, 2012

This week at my museum, as we are wrapping up our current set of exhibitions on collecting, I noticed a simple, subtle example of this that I thought might interest you. This activity has been incredibly popular, and about every three weeks we replace one of the lists with a fresh copy so there is always space for some new contributors.

Participatory 39

Participatory Difference Analysis Museum 39

Museum 2.0

APRIL 26, 2018

One that has found remarkable success is California’s Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. This list doesn't include many approaches that I see transforming museum audiences, like political activism, multilingual programming, intergenerational events, or cultural festivals. What does this list have in common?

Audience 49

Audience Washington Museum Intergenerational 49

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 18, 2013

Originally posted in April of 2011, just before I hung up my consulting hat for my current job at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. In 2008 and 2009, there were many conference sessions and and documents presenting participatory case studies, most notably Wendy Pollock and Kathy McLean''s book Visitor Voices in Museum Exhibitions.

Museum 45

Museum Question Participatory Evaluation 45

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

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 24, 2012

To that end, our exhibitions are full of participatory elements. We actively seek participation and develop structured opportunities for visitors to collaborate with us. the most powerful evidence of it happening is when our active role as designers/facilitators becomes invisible.

Platform 41

Platform Open Museum Participatory 41

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 9, 2010

Recently, I was giving a presentation about participatory techniques at an art museum, when a staff member raised her hand and asked, "Did you have to look really hard to find examples from art museums? History Museums OPPORTUNITIES - History museums are in many ways the best-suited for visitor participation.

Museum 29

Museum Difference Participatory History 29

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 23, 2014

They give high-energy, interactive tours of the Metropolitan Museum and the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH). We interacted with the art and with each other through dynamic photo challenges, kinesthetic activities, and conversations. Here’s an example that I experienced on that first tour of the Met.

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Museum Interview New York Interaction 55

Museum 2.0

APRIL 25, 2011

I've seen this line of questioning almost completely disappear in the past two years due to many research studies and reports on the value and rise of participation, but in 2006-7, social media and participatory culture was still seen as nascent (and possibly a passing fad). In 2008, the conversation started shifting to "how" and "what."

Question 49

Question Participatory Museum Evaluation 49

Museum 2.0

JULY 23, 2019

Today, I wanted to think about participatory elements, something so essential to this blog. With this in mind, when we produce participatory experiences, while our impetus is to serve our power users with extra content or “check for understanding” interactives, there are so many other ways to use interactives.

Museum 35

Museum Participatory Interaction Classroom 35

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

DECEMBER 3, 2019

I love alternative history novels. I was thinking I’d do a few alternative histories of museums for the first post of the last month of the decade. As I imagined a world without Nina Simon ’s Participatory Museum , I felt sad about all the visitors whose voices (and post-it note comments) weren’t honored.

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Museum Work Social Media History 21

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 14, 2013

For example: We worked with a local psychologist to create an implicit associations-based game called "Smart, Hot, Honest or Not?" He''ll be able to watch how certain activities evolve into coordination and what kinds of histories the people who most easily coordinate have in common. as a part of Experimonth: Race.

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Museum Roles Game Participatory 51

Museum 2.0

MARCH 21, 2012

At the museum of art and history where I work, we are grappling with the question of how to help people enjoy themselves while keeping the art and artifacts safe. In the history gallery, we have some blended props and artifacts, and it's rarely clear what is and is not ok to touch. Art, however, does not come to museums pre-hardened.

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Museum Denver Artist Milwaukee 49

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 16, 2010

It's not topic-specific; I've done these exercises with art, history, science, and children's museums to useful effect. What's the value of this activity? But watch visitors move around a museum, and you'll quickly see the activity flare up around specific exhibits and not others. To me, emulation is a kind of learning activity.

Museum 41

Museum Technique Taiwan Social 41

Museum 2.0

JULY 20, 2016

My career first got moving at a brilliant example of the customer-centered museum: the International Spy Museum. These museums were terrific examples of customer-centered institutions because: They engaged our curiosity. When we say we want our museum to be "audience-centered," what do we mean? They care about visitor comfort.

Museum 20

Museum Audience Music Arts 20

Museum 2.0

APRIL 29, 2015

These are the slides and notes for the talk I gave at the American Alliance of Museums conference on Monday, April 27 about the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. When I became the director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History four years ago, I took this work with me. We exist for people who live in Santa Cruz County.

Build 20

Build Community Museum Artist 20

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 14, 2009

I used the example of the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, which has a mission statement that includes unusual words like “bold” and “fearless.” I used the example of two very different exhibitions that solicited visitor-contributed content: Playing with Science at the London Science Museum, and MN150 at the Minnesota History Center.

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Project Museum Teen North Carolina 22

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 20, 2013

The majority of our public programs at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History are created and produced through community collaborations. For example, a few months ago we had a couple approach us to propose a Pop-Up Tea Ceremony. Share your resources and connections that can help make their activity/collaboration stronger.

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Collaboration Community Tools Museum 55

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JUNE 5, 2006

Concrete examples were needed. As I am an avid viral video fan and spend way too much of my own time seeking and sorting out great video and audio about sustainability, science and activism (primarily) I started two tagged feeds called " I Like To Watch " for video and " Juicy Pods " for audio. What results?

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Feeds Green Brain Audio 50

Museum 2.0

MARCH 27, 2009

The primary interactive activity is one in which visitors can make their own rock posters. The results of this physical “remix” activity are beautiful, intricate posters. I saw teens and adults who sat and did this activity for 45 minutes and wasn’t surprised to hear that some people spend over an hour on it.

Denver 21

Denver Museum Arts Remix 21

Museum 2.0

MAY 5, 2009

Visitor Co-Created Museum Experiences This session was a dream for me, one that brought together instigators of three participatory exhibit projects: MN150 (Kate Roberts), Click! In the case of MN150, staff historians worked actively to verify and connect with contributors on any contentious topics.

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Slides Participatory Museum Children 20

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 20, 2009

While the majority of experience-based museums like children's and science museums have unrestricted noncommercial photography policies, many collections-based art and history museums continue to maintain highly restrictive photo policies. I respect the first and second arguments. I understand the third, though I think it is misguided.

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Museum Photo Policy Open 54

Museum 2.0

MAY 3, 2011

They designed a participatory project that delivers a compelling end product for onsite and online visitors… and they made some unexpected decisions along the way. First, the screen asks if you want to watch an example story. How and why did Object Stories come to be? If not, it says “let’s get started.” Who was there?”

Story 53

Story Interview Museum Audio 53

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 18, 2008

This month brings three examples of museums hosting meetups for online communities: On 8.6.08, the Computer History Museum (Silicon Valley, CA) hosted a Yelp! Consider the experience of the Computer History Museum and their Yelp! event, the Computer History Museum had 15 reviews on Yelp! meetup for Elite Yelp!

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Museum Hosting Model Community 22

Museum 2.0

JULY 2, 2009

We've all become familiar with online retailers who address you by name and offer suggestions--some helpful, some annoying--based on your past activity and purchases. There are many lovely example of museums providing quirky tours based on particular interests. Netflix knows that good recommendations are key to their bottom line.

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System Design Movie Museum 22

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 5, 2013

--Elaine Heumann Gurian, The Importance of "And" Recently, I''ve been embroiled in local and national conversations about the relationship between active participation and quiet contemplation in museums. Our museum in Santa Cruz has been slammed by those who believe participatory experiences have gone too far.

Participatory 53

Participatory Museum Arts History 53

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 2, 2008

And when I think back on the last year and how it compared to year one of blogging, the shining difference is you--your interest, your comments, and most of all, your extraordinary example. at the Brooklyn Museum , Tech Virtual at The Tech , and MN150 at the Minnesota History Center. (By I started the Museum 2.0 There is funding.

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Museum Voice Minnesota Participatory 20

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 24, 2014

Inspired by Stacy, I wanted to share some of the work we are doing at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History to clarify what we mean by engagement. In early 2014, we developed a set of five engagement goals: Relevant, Sustainable, Bridging, Participatory, Igniting. That said, our process and goals may be useful examples for others.

Goal 48

Goal Museum Evaluation History 48

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 15, 2008

The Brooklyn Museum of Art is a great example of a museum really embracing these environments for community-building purposes. But for some institutions or projects, being under a big tent that includes millions of people, groups, and activities is not appropriate. Why might a museum create its own social network? Some reasons include.

Museum 20

Museum Social Network Case Study Discussion 20

Museum 2.0

MARCH 10, 2010

This is the first of a four-part series on the behind-the-scenes experience of writing The Participatory Museum. Overview: Stages of Development and Participation Types The Participatory Museum was written over a 15 month period that began in December of 2008. Next week, part 2 will focus on participants' experiences.

Participatory 21

Participatory Museum Statistics Process 21

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 6, 2012

In a straightforward way, Marilyn explains how her team developed a participatory project to improve engagement in a gallery with an awkward entry. This is a perfect example of a museum using participation as a design solution. Inspire visitors to look, think, and respond actively to the works on view? Reassert the "forum"?

Museum 45

Museum Arts Problem Design 45

Connection Cafe

NOVEMBER 8, 2017

It is made by many; it is open, participatory and peer-driven.” With only two digital staffers the campaign hosted the largest distributed political event in history with 2,700 kick-off parties in one night! “Old power works like a currency. This was accomplished by trusting volunteers to run events traditionally executed by staff.

People 25

People Structure Influence Voice 25

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 26, 2009

For example, check out this personal webpage I produced with my partner, Sibley, at the Experimentarium yesterday. In some cases, we were provided with the same results we saw onsite ( Sibley's time in a learning curve activity. When you augment a photo in the Chicago History Museum's Get Lincolnized!

Personal 34

Personal Museum Pledge San Jose 34

Museum 2.0

JUNE 2, 2010

Kathleen McLean (Independent Exhibitions), Dan Spock (Minnesota History Center), and Kris Morrissey (University of Washington) all shared thought-provoking and useful insights on visitor participation in museums, but Mark Allen and Emily Lacy brought down the house with their bluegrass rendering of the Machine Project and its engaging, quirky work.

Slides 22

Slides Museum Los Angeles San Jose 22