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

MARCH 28, 2008

Being a trusted source of information can be a barrier that keeps us from sharing content with visitors that might be more contemporary, more ambiguous, more contentious--information that may not be trusted. It makes us uncomfortable with opening museum content up to comment, tagging, and alterations by visitors. In the Web 2.0

Participatory 20

Participatory Museum Teen Voice 20

Museum 2.0

MARCH 18, 2015

The people were of all ages--moms with babies strapped to their fronts, six year-olds using skillsaws, pre-teens building robots, teenagers doing homework. The design and feel of the place was different than any science center I''d ever experienced. What unique design elements make Community Science Workshops work?

Green 20

Green Interview Share Community 20

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 1, 2006

Ready to turn your institution into a site of participatory engagement? specializes in designing museum experiences and exhibitions that are community informed, socially stimulating, technologically ambitious, and intriguingly experimental. Want to bring the spirit of this blog to your colleagues and projects?

Museum 21

Museum Professional Service Participatory 21

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

DECEMBER 14, 2009

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. I worked on one project in which the client institution thought they wanted unfettered teen expression. It invites people to play.

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Project Museum Teen North Carolina 22

Museum 2.0

MAY 5, 2009

I led two sessions, one on visitor co-created museum experiences, and the other on design inspirations from outside museums. 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! More on that in months to come.

Slides 20

Slides Participatory Museum Children 20

Museum 2.0

MARCH 27, 2009

It’s a thrilling challenge to the traditional form of art museum exhibit design, and better yet, visitors like it. There are two aspects of Side Trip that really stand out: the immersive environment and the design of the interactives. The experience was comfortable, diverse, authentic, content-oriented, and deep.

Denver 21

Denver Museum Arts Remix 21

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 7, 2010

I'd always joked that my dream job was to design pinball machines--a technical problem wrapped in creativity and pleasure. At the big one, I worked on a small project with teens to design science exhibits for community centers in their own neighborhoods. I designed electricity workshops for families.

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Museum Boston Participatory Job 52

Museum 2.0

APRIL 6, 2011

Let's say you spend a year working with a group of teens to co-create an exhibition, or you invite members and local artists to help redesign the lobby. In many cases, once the final project is launched, it's hard to detect the participatory touch. Not every participatory process has to scream "look at me!"

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Participatory Process Museum Children 48

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 18, 2008

On 8.16.08, the Museum of Art and History (Santa Cruz, CA) hosted FreelanceCamp, a free unconference that brought 150 designers and techies from the south bay area together to talk shop. Heck, it doesn't even attract the museum exhibit designers. The key to these benefits is not the volume of online content produced but its reach.

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Museum Hosting Model Community 22

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 21, 2016

Every other year, they convene TUPAC, a group of 35 outside advisors, including teens, college students, Temple University professors, artists, philanthropists, and community leaders. Give people the exhibition but not the debates about content development. How do we resolve this? This approach is straightforward.

Process 20

Process Share Philadelphia Arts 20

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 3, 2009

While there is much talk about supporting participation and making museum content relevant, the word "community" hangs like a poorly-defined carrot on a shtick. We're always happy for more bodies in the door, but if supporting teens means alienating seniors, there's a problem. Tags: participatory museum inclusion comfort.

Community 22

Community Museum San Diego San Francisco 22

Museum 2.0

MAY 16, 2007

The irritating design? The recent flurry of restrictions that has sent teens fleeing? I want to see more multi-person exhibits, more prompts for discussion about content, more tools to facilitate connecting wtih other visitors whose interests are similar or in some way useful to your own. Or is it the stalkers?

Museum 20

Museum Myspace Facilitation Social Network 20

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 18, 2008

In many museums, comment cards are currently the most "participatory" part of the visitor experience. It's the one place where visitors can offer direct, open-ended feedback on the institution's content and services. It may be useful if you want to ask "What kind of teen programs should our museum offer?"

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Comment Tools Museum Conversation 20

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

The sensibility is the content and the style with which the engagement happens. I've written before about the difference between participatory processes and products , but this question of frameworks and sensibility is more broadly applicable to community engagement strategies. Adam is a master of sensibility.

Voice 42

Voice Los Angeles Denver Museum 42