Museum 2.0

JANUARY 11, 2012

For years, I'd give talks about community participation in museums and cultural institutions, and I'd always get the inevitable question: "but what value does this really have when it comes to dollars and cents?" We're hearing on a daily basis that the museum has a new role in peoples' lives and in the identity of the county.

Audience 47

Audience Museum Participatory History 47

Museum 2.0

APRIL 25, 2011

I've spent much of the past three years on the road giving workshops and talks about audience participation in museums. The Museum 2.0 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.

Question 49

Question Participatory Museum Evaluation 49

Museum 2.0

JULY 1, 2011

I've now been the Director of The Museum of Art & History in Santa Cruz for two months. But the point is that the MAH, like just about every other museum in the known universe, was content to define the museum experience as something removed from the outside world, a rarefied church-like space of refined artistic reflection.

Museum 31

Museum History Arts Work 31

Museum 2.0

MARCH 4, 2009

Jane McGonigal and the folks from IFTF have released a new future-casting game/collaborative experience called Signtific Lab. In other words, a new kind of talkback board or participatory educational program. In other words, it's way better. If Signtific just asked the "What if?" machines) for informal learning environments?

Game 24

Game Experiment Participatory Museum 24

Museum 2.0

MAY 9, 2012

Last week, I was in Minneapolis for the American Association of Museums annual meeting. Kathleen McLean led a terrific session called "Dangerous Ridiculous" about risk-taking in museums. Interestingly, at my museum, our team is naturally better at ridiculous than we are at dangerous. I host dating games.

Reflection 43

Reflection Columbus Museum Participatory 43

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

SEPTEMBER 22, 2009

What does the word "participatory" mean to you? The various definitions of participatory projects can lead to confusion and misunderstandings. Participation in science research is a good basis on which to develop a framework for participatory models because it is based on a consistent scientific process with many steps.

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Public Research Participatory Report 36

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

Today, the Luce Center at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) is launching what they claim is the first ever alternate reality game (ARG) in a museum. Why would an art museum create an ARG? All motivation to play comes from the players themselves, since it's not clear where the game is going or what the point is.

Game 20

Game Museum Arts Alternative 20

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 5, 2008

I was fascinated by our discussion, and Bob came to mind last month, when I was asked to write an article for the Association of Children's Museums quarterly journal, Hand to Hand , about children's museums and Web 2.0. To understand more, I turned to Elaine Gurian's article The Molting of Children's Museums? Why the uniformity?

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Classroom Children Museum Model 22

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 18, 2008

I've long believed that museums have a special opportunity to support the community spirit of Web 2.0 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! Me: Have you ever been to this museum? meetup for Elite Yelp!

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Museum Hosting Model Community 22

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. This week, they hosted "Let Them Be Heard: Visitor Participation in the Museum Experience," featuring four presentations on incorporating visitors' content into museums.

Case Study 20

Case Study Participatory Studies Museum 20

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Imagine that your museum is ready to start creating content on a small-scale in Web 2.0. You're ready to write commentary about content related to your institutional goals. efforts than you can if you focus on creating your own little world of content. You're ready to make a few videos to post on YouTube.

Museum 22

Museum Technorati Boston YouTube 22

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 7, 2007

I got my copy of the fall issue of Museums and Social Issues this week. The theme is "Civic Dialogue," and the journal includes articles on the historical, cultural, media, and museum practice of getting people talking to each other (including one by me about such endeavors on the web). It's fine to drop in and out of the game.

Museum 22

Museum Lecture Denver San Francisco 22

Tech Soup

JANUARY 31, 2012

This is a participatory live video show - come ready with your questions for our experts! Santa Cruz, the British Museum, Apple, Google, Adobe, and numerous other. Driven by a desire to make a game-changing difference in how people consume content, Tom comfortably resides at the junction where media and technology collide.

Storytelling 67

Storytelling Collaboration Video Thailand 67

Museum 2.0

MARCH 21, 2011

This expresses itself most powerfully in museums when we talk about building relationships with visitors over time. But museums are one-night stand amnesiacs in the relationship department. This is terrible, both for the visitor and for the museum. I expect you'll remember some basic things about me--say, my name. We hang out.

Relationship 46

Relationship Museum Game Personal 46

Museum 2.0

MAY 23, 2008

People who create content for the public try to appeal to a wide range of people, both in terms of demographics and usage styles. And now, the research group Forrester provides new insights about different kinds of participatory styles among users of social media sites. There are different learning styles.

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Profile Audience Participatory Tools 26

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 7, 2010

Last week marked four years for the Museum 2.0 People--especially young folks looking to break into the museum business--often ask me how I got here. Ed Rodley recently wrote a blog post about museum jobs entitled "Getting Hired: It's Who You Know and Who Knows You." hour at the Museum. I made $26/hour at NASA and $7.25/hour

Museum 52

Museum Boston Participatory Job 52

Museum 2.0

JUNE 12, 2012

--Helene Moglen, professor of literature, UCSC After a year of tinkering, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History is now showing an exhibition, All You Need is Love , that embodies our new direction as an institution. This post focuses on one aspect of the exhibition: its participatory and interactive elements.

Participatory 51

Participatory Museum Blackboard Game 51

Tech Soup

JANUARY 20, 2012

This is a participatory live video show - come ready with your questions for our experts! Driven by a desire to make a game-changing difference in how people consume content, Tom comfortably resides at the junction where media and technology collide. Get your story ideas ready and RSVP for Nonprofits Live on February 8th.

Collaboration 44

Collaboration Storytelling Video Thailand 44

Museum 2.0

APRIL 22, 2008

Why discuss gifting on Museum 2.0? One of my greatest interests is the "p articipatory museum," in which there is substantive, unfacilitated visitor-to-visitor interaction. When I heard the tollbooth story, I started thinking about gifting as a model for participatory experiences in museums. Gifting extends your message.

Gift 23

Gift Participatory Museum Model 23

Museum 2.0

MAY 5, 2009

I just returned from the American Association of Museums (AAM) annual meeting in Philadelphia. I led two sessions, one on visitor co-created museum experiences, and the other on design inspirations from outside museums. what is the value of the exhibition experience to non-participants, that is, regular museum visitors?

Slides 20

Slides Participatory Museum Children 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 29, 2009

Two weeks ago, I conducted a participatory exhibit design workshop with staff at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Between the giant squid brainstorming and experimentation, I gave a talk to the larger Smithsonian Institution about multi-platform museum experiences. It's like an organizational game of madlibs.

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Slides Process Video Open 20

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 25, 2009

I'm not talking about guiding content; I'm talking about guiding form. If your goal is to encourage visitors to perceive themselves as partners in the content co-creation experience, make room for their thoughts sooner rather than later. If someone asks you a question on Twitter, you can only respond with 140 characters.

Design 31

Design Goal Difference Platform 31

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 3, 2009

Last month, the Christian Science Monitor published an article entitled, "Museums' new mantra: Connect with community." It took me a couple weeks (and various museum blog responses ) to realize what bugs me about this article--it treats "connecting with community" as a marketing ploy, a "mantra" rather than a mission.

Community 22

Community Museum San Diego San Francisco 22

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 20, 2008

The hierarchy comprises five levels, shown above, from passive consumption of content (level one) to collective social engagement (level five). When I talk about the hierarchy, I use the theoretical construct of an issue-based museum exhibit. At level one, the museum preaches to visitors about the issue. with the issue.

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Poll Interaction Museum Social 22

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 2, 2008

Today, Museum 2.0 I started the Museum 2.0 blog in 2006 as a personal learning exercise about "the ways that museums do and can evolve from 1.0 static content delivery machines) to 2.0 dynamic content aggregation and network machines)." I started the Museum 2.0 static content delivery machines) to 2.0

Museum 20

Museum Voice Minnesota Participatory 20

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 9, 2007

I'm gearing up for some conference talks next month, and one of these is part of a very cool session, Eye on Design, at the Western Museums Association conference. The coordinator asked several folks to pick a design trend from outside the museum world and discuss how they might be applied to museum design. the list goes on.

Museum 20

Museum Participatory Interaction Captivate 20

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 26, 2009

There were many intriguing exhibits and a novel cellphone game (more on that in another post), but I was particularly interested in their new special exhibition on the brain. The personal webpage has many adherents, and some institutions, like The Tech Museum in San Jose, have been offering them for almost a decade.

Personal 34

Personal Museum Pledge San Jose 34

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 8, 2008

I have a lot of conversations with people that go like this: Other person: "So, you think that museums should let visitors control the museum experience?" Other person: "But doesn't that erode museums' authority?" For hundreds of years, we've owned the content and the message. Content expertise matters.

Authoring 42

Authoring Platform Museum YouTube 42

Museum 2.0

JUNE 15, 2009

You can explore the project wiki where we coordinated the exhibit, including the project overview , our six-week plan to get it all done, and individual sections for development of concept , content , interaction , graphics , marketing , fabrication , installation , and evaluation. The bathroom wall was "anything goes" by design.

Advice 31

Advice Museum Facilitation Student 31

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 28, 2007

Welcome to the second in the four-part series on comfort (and its boundaries) in museums, a day late but just as tasty. I came out of it truly amazed by the power of the museum—not just to elicit laughter, but also to induce bizarre and voluntary acts of silliness in front of and with strangers. By sending people on missions.

Program 20

Program People Museum Lecture 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 15, 2008

Radiolab does what I hope all great museum exhibitions can do--take a deep topic and make it compelling on many levels. They articulate the basic questions and knee-jerk reactions in our own minds, carrying us deep into the content from a common starting place. Which brings me to museums and how we present content.

Conversation 20

Conversation Arts Museum Voice 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?"

Comment 20

Comment Tools Museum Conversation 20

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 15, 2009

There are lots of museums (and organizations of all kinds) looking for ways to inspire users and visitors to produce their own content and share it with the institution online. The World Beach Project is managed by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London with artist-in-residence Sue Lawty. The activity is compelling.

Project 38

Project Museum Artist Map 38

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 15, 2009

It’s common to have low expectations with regard to the number of people who will create content in participatory platforms (online media-sharing sites, contributory projects, story-sharing exhibits). In social media, the rule of thumb is 90-9-1 : 90% spectate, 9% comment or rate content, and 1% produce content.

Ratio 20

Ratio Participatory Museum Captivate 20

Museum 2.0

MARCH 6, 2019

While I originally wrote this post to advocate for more participatory practice (i.e. letting museum visitors contribute and collaborate in museums), I now see this as a crucial issue also for more democratic and inclusive practice (i.e. Other person: "But doesn't that erode museums' authority?" Content expertise matters.

Authoring 44

Authoring Share Museum YouTube 44

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 25, 2010

no tour guides or game masters), you need to start by designing personal services for users, then linking up users through shared interests or objects to promote interpersonal connections. Stage one provides people with access to the content that they seek. Ideas participatory museum. Tags: Core Museum 2.0

Design 34

Design Museum Social Participatory 34