Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

OCTOBER 26, 2006

offers personal insights in opening up to new ideas and letting go of information, hierarchy and "proprietary" thinking. 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

MARCH 16, 2009

When I talk about designing participatory experiences, I often show the above graphic from Forrester Research. Museums see open-ended self-expression as the be-all of participatory experiences. You have to have an idea of what you’d like to say, and then you have to say it in a way that satisfies your expectations of quality.

Participatory 44

Participatory Experiment Museum Teen 44

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 25, 2012

A few weeks ago, the MAH Director of Community Programs, Stacey Garcia, came to me with an idea. Stacey has been collaborating with local artists to produce a series of content-rich events that invite visitors to participate in a range of hands-on activities. full description here , photos from the event here ).

Activities 50

Activities Active Activism Participatory 50

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 2, 2013

In this post, George grapples with the challenges of balancing the care for a museum collection with that of contemporary artists-in-residence who are constantly reinterpreting it. Every Saturday, the curatorial team at Elsewhere , a living museum in downtown Greensboro, NC, reviews the project proposals of its artists-in-residence.

Artist 49

Artist Museum Proposal Participatory 49

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?

Teen 24

Teen Participatory Experiment Museum 24

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 29, 2012

In particular, we want exhibition collaborators--artists, researchers, historians, collectors--to understand our goals and how we intend to steer the exhibition development process. We knew internally that we wanted our exhibitions to become more interdisciplinary, more participatory, and more responsive to audience needs.

Museum 38

Museum Artist Participatory History 38

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 15, 2012

This internship is for the truly self-motivated person out there with a brilliant idea for making museums more participatory, welcoming, community spaces who just lacks an institution at which to try it out. Special Projects interns, who will do, well, whatever you want. Our internships have generally gotten more structured.

Museum 34

Museum Participatory Arts Attitude 34

Museum 2.0

MAY 3, 2017

Working with creative people taught me to think like an artist: observe, explore, dive in, look out. We develop the ideas. The “we” isn’t always staff; in most cases, our staff work with community partners in a participatory, co-creative model. An artist says: “I’ll explore the world, pull ideas from it, and craft a response.”

Develop 20

Develop Artist Participatory Blended 20

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

SEPTEMBER 18, 2013

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."

Museum 45

Museum Question Participatory Evaluation 45

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 30, 2013

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. Earlier this fall, I read this headline: "Stanford study: Participation in a cultural activity may reduce prejudice."

Measure 47

Measure Arts People Museum 47

Museum 2.0

MARCH 28, 2012

After several months of planning massively collaborative programs (a typical monthly event might involve 50 partners), we've realized that the people who are best at helping us come up with ideas are not necessarily the people who are best to help us execute them. In the end, we came back together to share our most promising ideas.

Program 49

Program Community Design Museum 49

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

SEPTEMBER 29, 2015

I’ve been facilitating design labs for nonprofits and foundations, and continue to be excited about them because it is a way to generate feedback and ideas that can improve a strategy or program in service of the participants being served. In some ways, a design lab can be thought of as “participatory research and testing.”.

Design 50

Design Strategy Facilitation Advocacy 50

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.

Museum 29

Museum Difference Participatory History 29

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 12, 2017

A cheerful curly-haired deli owner stands in front of 30 of us and shares a quote he loves: "Artists live in the present and write detailed histories of the future." It was even more useful to learn how participatory writing visions can be. Something tells me this is not the business visioning workshop I anticipated.

History 26

History Pennsylvania Michigan Indiana 26

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 21, 2016

They were there for artist talks. Every other year, they convene TUPAC, a group of 35 outside advisors, including teens, college students, Temple University professors, artists, philanthropists, and community leaders. I saw slices of something interesting, but I had no idea how to piece them together. Empty pegboards.

Process 20

Process Share Philadelphia Arts 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. This post focuses on one aspect of the exhibition: its participatory and interactive elements. So many museum exhibitions relegate the participatory bits in at the end.

Participatory 51

Participatory Museum Blackboard Game 51

Museum 2.0

APRIL 29, 2015

For years, I’ve been associated with the idea of “visitor participation.” We invited community members in, to be active contributors, collaborators, and co-creators in our museum space. For example, in Santa Cruz there is a huge community of creative people who identify as artists in non-traditional media. And so on.

Build 20

Build Community Museum Artist 20

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 22, 2012

What happens when a formal art museum invites a group of collaborative, participatory artists to be in residence for a year? Will the artists ruin the museum with their plant vacations and coatroom concerts? Will the bureaucracy of the institution drown the artists in red tape? No, this is not a reality TV show.

Artist 39

Artist Museum Project Public 39

Have Fun - Do Good

JULY 31, 2009

Freelancers literally put their story ideas and their pitches up on our site, and they say, "This is the story I want to tackle." Where did the idea come from? The big advent of freelancing, since the Internet, is that instead of snail-mailing my story ideas to editors, I would email them.

Interview 40

Interview Fund Report Community 40

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. We invited a cross-section of artists, filmmakers, and advertisers to join us for a think tank. How and why did Object Stories come to be? So what did you do next?

Story 53

Story Interview Museum Audio 53

Museum 2.0

JUNE 27, 2008

The groups can use three different approaches: physical, artistic, or traditional word presentation. Then at the last luncheon, we’re encouraging conversations based on ideas that emerge from the talkback walls. This is the cocktail party, the hallway conversation, a structured time to meet and talk.

Studies 20

Studies Associations Houston Museum 20

Museum 2.0

JUNE 12, 2009

Here’s what happened: an art critic named Jerry Saltz posted an incendiary note on Facebook about the very low representation of women artists on the 4th and 5th floors (painting and sculpture) of MoMA. We welcome the participation and ideas of others in this important conversation. Let’s start there. They met in person.

Conversation 21

Conversation Museum Artist Minneapolis 21

Museum 2.0

JUNE 6, 2008

Ultimately, what The Tech Virtual community contributed was great ideas for exhibits. One exhibit designer told me, "we never seem to lack for good ideas. If good ideas are easy to come by, why not let other people contribute them and focus our time on the hard work of execution? Some museum pros have been puzzled by this.

Virtual 21

Virtual Tech Lesson Develop 21

Museum 2.0

MAY 8, 2013

One of our core programming goals is to build social capital by forging unexpected connections between diverse collaborators and audience members. I''m still chewing on the idea of "bonded-bridging" and the limitations and possibilities of a bridging strategy in a diverse community.

Museum 55

Museum Social Arts History 55

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. aspect of the Forum Gallery by motivating visitors to share their own ideas and interpretations of the artwork with other visitors in physical and virtual formats. Reassert the "forum"?

Museum 45

Museum Arts Problem Design 45