Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JANUARY 19, 2017

As a long-time trainer, professor, and teacher, I feel strongly that interactive learning activities – going beyond the death by Powerpoint Lecture – is the key to retention and application for participants. Your room set up can support your instructional activities that engage participants or get in the way.

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Lecture Classroom Experiment Learning 91

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. This post shares my reflections on the projects and five things I learned from their work.

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Participatory Arts Audience Museum 51

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

The content focuses on the question of WHY we collect and how our collections reflect our individual and community identities. This exhibition represents a few big shifts for us: We used a more participatory design process. This is the first time we've had an ongoing activity with a lot of materials (Memory Jars).

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Participatory Museum History International 44

ASU Lodestar Center

JUNE 3, 2020

Embrace multiple time horizons, especially long term. Organizational effectiveness researcher, Jim Collins reminds us, ironically, that the key to embracing long-term time horizons is the understanding that the path will be one of incremental adjustments along the way. Actively evaluate PM processes and metrics.

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Measure Create Arizona Participatory 52

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JANUARY 5, 2018

I used my holiday break as an opportunity for a brief digital detox and time for family, travel and fun. During the first week of January , I use the quiet time for three New Year’s rituals that help me prepare for the year ahead and identify professional growth areas. I wish you a very happy and healthy 2018!

Professional 0

Professional Finland Journal Reflection 0

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

FEBRUARY 8, 2018

Going beyond content delivery, I also use a lot of participatory and hands-on learning techniques to help students gain a deeper understanding. I’ve spent a lot of time trying to understand how the feng shui of a classroom impacts learning. Circles without tables, just chairs helps promote group discussion.

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Learning Classroom Classes Student 84

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

OCTOBER 26, 2006

Here's the key takeaways for me: * The capacity to be successful is an investment in time. "While none of these approaches cost a lot of money, they certainly require staff time to support. This case study, " Using Network to Stop Genocide ," by Ian Boothe was published on Idealware a few days ago. Go read it.

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Participatory Teen Vlog Mashup 50

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. The activities had a really low barrier to entry. The museum itself was well-integrated into the event.

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Reflection Community Museum Participatory 43

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. Are participatory activities happening on the web because that is the best place for them? I showed up at the IMA expecting innovation.

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Participatory Museum Web Indianapolis 35

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 18, 2013

I like to use half of any allotted time slot to talk and half for Q&A, so we usually have time to get into meaty discussions. Have you seen attitudes in our field about visitor participation shifting over time? Are there certain kinds of institutions that are more well-suited for participatory techniques than others?

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Museum Question Participatory Evaluation 45

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 29, 2009

MuseumNext had four main sections: Interactive activities , including an opening workshop with a group of designers associated with an extremely wonderful exhibition called Doing it for the Kids featuring sustainable toy designs. Vary the activities. Facilitator bits.

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Facilitation Reflection Museum Participatory 32

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 28, 2011

We've been offering a host of participatory and interactive experiences at the Museum of Art & History this season. I loved Jasper Visser's list of 30 "do's" for designing participatory projects earlier this month. Different activities need different levels of materials to appear "open for business." We throw those away.

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Design Participatory Learning Instruction 45

Museum 2.0

JULY 23, 2019

In reflecting on the sample, I’ve made some broad reflections on museum workers and visitors. Today, I wanted to think about participatory elements, something so essential to this blog. People go to school regularly over a period of time (and to museums intermittently, occasionally, sporadically, or rarely).

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Museum Participatory Interaction Classroom 35

Museum 2.0

APRIL 25, 2011

I like to use half of any allotted time slot to talk and half for Q&A, so we usually have time to get into meaty discussions. Have you seen attitudes in our field about visitor participation shifting over time? Are there certain kinds of institutions that are more well-suited for participatory techniques than others?

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Question Participatory Museum Evaluation 49

Achieve

NOVEMBER 15, 2016

Last year I spoke at more than 75 events and I can always guarantee at least one of the questions will be: “Please tell me what issues the 80 million people in the United States who represent some of the largest and most diverse opinions and demographics want to spend their time, activism, and dollars with.”. So what have we found?

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Issue Brain United States Participatory 52

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

SEPTEMBER 8, 2016

Each year they bring together diverse, passionate people for a sleep-away camp for adults where they learn together through active, creative workshops and activities. This means there is little down time for reflection and thinking. With so many demands, it is harder and harder to carve out that time without overworking.

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Causes Change Museum Social 50

Museum 2.0

MARCH 27, 2013

There's a constant dialogue in participatory work about how to make peoples' contributions meaningful. I've written about different structures for participatory processes (especially in museums), and recently, I've been interested in how we can apply these structures to the design of public space. Non-Participation 6.

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Design Participatory Children Museum 49

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 11, 2012

We just started to try to live up to that vision, partnership by partnership, activity by activity. It also feels amazing to see some of my theories validated in this way--that giving people the opportunity to actively participate does really transform the way they see the institution and themselves. It feels pretty amazing.

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Audience Museum Participatory History 47

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

APRIL 5, 2010

So expect some live blogging, and reflections. The format, the physical space, and network weaving activities were extraordinary. It was the first time I ever gave a talk on a cat walk stage. I'm always up for a conference that has been designed to be participatory and offers a creative format. My slides are here.

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Conference Long Beach Slides Lecture 85

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. Sometimes, this has led to an unreasonable amount of stress for an entirely extra-curricular activity.

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Museum Participatory Reflection Conference 35

Museum 2.0

APRIL 26, 2018

At the time, we thought it was financial trouble, but it turned out it was much deeper than that,” Simon says. She says that the museum made changes in hiring and board recruitment practices, and invited the community in to help reshape the facility into a place that reflected and represented its people and their interests.

Audience 49

Audience Washington Museum Intergenerational 49

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? For this reason, I see history museums as best-suited for participatory projects that involve story-sharing and crowdsourced collecting (e.g.

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Museum Difference Participatory History 29

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

NOVEMBER 19, 2013

The convening used participatory methods to identify topics for small group conversations related to the theme and was expertly facilitated by Allen Gunn from Aspiration. ( I wrote a reflection last week about the facilitation techniques here ). The American Red Cross can’t be everywhere at the same time. Disaster work.

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Social Media Channel Data Media 100

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 5, 2008

Cultural Connections is a group of museum professionals who meet up a few times a year and host excellent programs on a variety of topics. I was captivated by Chris Alexander 's story about participatory online/onsite efforts at the San Jose Museum of Art (SJMA). By the time he got home, 10,000 new people had seen the video.

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Case Study Participatory Studies Museum 20

Museum 2.0

JUNE 12, 2012

It is multi-disciplinary, incorporates diverse voices from our community, and provides interactive and participatory opportunities for visitor involvement. The exhibition is far from perfect, but it's a big step towards reflecting the "thriving, central gathering place" of our strategic vision.

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Participatory Museum Blackboard Game 51

Museum 2.0

JULY 17, 2012

actively sought out community needs to respond to. focused on specific audiences and consistent time slots. We realize that asking people to volunteer their talents is not always respectful of their time or skills. We tried with every event to meet a clearly-expressed demand or interest in the community.

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Museum History Arts Artist 47

Museum 2.0

MAY 21, 2014

It has some of the same feel as the disconnected affection of people wishing you a happy birthday on Facebook, with professional reflection baked in. Seeing so many cheerful one-liners in my inbox made me think about how different my work situation is today than the last time I reflected on it in public in 2012, at my one-year anniversary.

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Museum Director History Teen 49

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 16, 2010

I spent some time playing with this question last week at the Milwaukee Art Museum, a large general museum that is moving toward redesign of the permanent galleries. Bambi noted that she felt like she learned a lot more talking to twenty people for just a minute than trying to administer a two-page survey in the same amount of time.

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Experiment Lesson Learning Museum 44

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 6, 2009

This post shares her reflections on the project, its design, and its impact. Unlike many museums that just ask for comments or set a fun little “activity corner,” the DCM gave over complete control and that’s part of the reason it worked. I never knew what my contents were until it was time to create the display.

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Denver Museum Community Participatory 29

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 20, 2013

Every time we collaborate, we learn new ways to improve our process, organization and communication. We never received a “how-to-guide” for collaborating with community members here at the MAH, but over time, we have acquired some basic tools that have shaped our approach. Make time for them. Get ready to talk.

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Collaboration Community Tools Museum 55

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

SEPTEMBER 29, 2015

What if a funder got real-time input from its grantees and other partners to develop its investment strategy? In some ways, a design lab can be thought of as “participatory research and testing.”. We finished with a group photo and fun co-creation reflection. New Technology for New Power Movements.

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Design Strategy Facilitation Advocacy 50

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 20, 2017

I've asked myself this a thousand times in the past month. Igniting events and activities? Our participants reflecting local age/income/ethnic diversity? Other times, a visitor might use the exact language of our strategic documents. Each time you bake a loaf, you use a little bit of the starter to get it going.

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Turkey Model Museum Delicious 26

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

AUGUST 29, 2006

Ever since, our paths have crossed several times in nonprofit technology circles online, most recently via the Digital Divide Network listserv and the online forums at TechSoup. I figured out that I could offer teaching, training, consulting activities online. I designed the course to reflect lessons learned from my doctoral research.

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Arts Community Online Intergenerational 50

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 5, 2008

But last year, over Thanksgiving, I sat next to a man who was working on his laptop (not an activity that invites conversation), creating a presentation on elementary education and technology. All of these have gone through a series of movements in the last 30 years reflecting cultural shifts and expectations.

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Classroom Children Museum Model 22

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 14, 2009

The end of a conference is often a time of great enthusiasm quickly followed by a gaping maw of inability to act on that enthusiasm back at work. What new projects might allow you to better reflect those aspirations? Or maybe education staff are not willing to engage real-time visitors in dialogue around controversial issues.

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Project Museum Teen North Carolina 22

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 2, 2008

Institutions tying their online and onsite activities, as the Ontario Science Centre did when it hosted a YouTube meetup , or the Smithsonian American Art Museum did when they developed an alternate reality game. But enough of these experiences have convinced me that the participatory museum is not a fringe concept. There is funding.

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Museum Voice Minnesota Participatory 20

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 7, 2010

This seems like an appropriate time to share the story. In DC, I worked half-time for NASA as an electrical engineer and half-time for the Capital Children's Museum (now defunct) as a science educator. Every time a kid said, "I never knew science could be like this!" Last week marked four years for the Museum 2.0

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Museum Boston Participatory Job 52