Museum 2.0

AUGUST 16, 2010

I spent last week in the glorious country of Taiwan, hiking, eating, and working with museum professionals and graduate students at a conference hosted at the Taiwan National Museum of Fine Arts. It's not topic-specific; I've done these exercises with art, history, science, and children's museums to useful effect.

Museum 41

Museum Technique Taiwan Social 41

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

APRIL 23, 2008

I'm prepping for a workshop on Social Media and wanted do a round up of recent compelling examples of arts organizations using social media strategies and tools. I was particularly interested in examples using blogs, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube, and Facebook. what goes on inside a theater, a museum, a historical home?

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Arts Social Media Examples Artist 74

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. 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. The Museum 2.0 Feel free to add your own questions and answers in the comments!

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Question Participatory Museum Evaluation 49

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 20, 2009

I'm working on a section of my book about sharing social objects and am writing about the most common way that visitors share their object experiences in museums: through photographs. Revenue Streams: Museums want to maintain control of sales of "officially sanctioned" images of objects via catalogues and postcards.

Museum 54

Museum Photo Policy Open 54

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 15, 2008

The presumed answer is "yes" your museum needs a blog, a pony, or a set of comfy couches. Does your museum need a custom online social network? Let's discuss what it means, how it works, where it can go. The Brooklyn Museum of Art is a great example of a museum really embracing these environments for community-building purposes.

Museum 20

Museum Social Network Case Study Discussion 20

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 29, 2014

The whole day was spent in passionate discussion about research projects, international crises, and serious, cost-intensive efforts for zoos and aquaria to take action to improve the fate of elephants and other species at risk. A clear example of this can be found in the difference between the 96Elephants campaign and that of charity: water.

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Action People Conservancy Africa 46

Museum 2.0

JULY 20, 2010

Last week, I gave a talk about participatory museum practice for a group of university students at UCSC. During the ensuing discussion, one woman asked, "Which audiences are least interested in social participation in museums?"

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Teen Social Museum Participatory 49

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 30, 2009

This guest post, written by Philippa Tinsley, Collections Manager for the Worcester City Art Gallery and Museum (UK), describes the innovative Top 40 exhibition they mounted in the summer of 2009. In my experience, museum professionals aren’t big reality TV viewers.

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Museum Chart Picture Arts 23

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

The Leading Change Summit was more intimate (several hundred people), participatory and interactive, intense, and stimulating. Who is the lead singer, guitarist, bass, and drums. Here’s how that translates to team facilitation: Facilitator Lead: The person who is facilitating the discussion or exercise. Orienting the Group.

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Reflection NTEN Change Facilitation 124

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 28, 2010

Every once in a while I come across a project I wish I could have included in The Participatory Museum. an exhibition produced with schoolchildren at the Wallace Collection in London, is a lovely example of co-creation that demonstrates the multiple benefits of inviting audience members to act as partners in arts organizations.

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Children Museum Create Project 46

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Imagine that your museum is ready to start creating content on a small-scale in Web 2.0. Let me give you an example. Imagine you are the Boston Museum of Science, and you are ready to make some videos to post on YouTube. When I search for "Boston Museum of Science" on YouTube, I find 83 videos. Where should you start?

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Museum Technorati Boston YouTube 22

Museum 2.0

MARCH 10, 2008

Thank you to Susan Spero and all the folks at JFKU and Left Coast Press for starting a highly stimulating conversation this weekend at the colloquium on Museums and Civic Discourse. There were, as we say in the museum business, some good aha moments. What role should museums play in promoting discourse?

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Museum Site Facilitation Participatory 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 19, 2016

For example, when we held community meetings about the development of a new creative town square next to our museum, a group of middle/upper-class moms talked about not feeling safe downtown. The best book I've read on the topic is Facilitators Guide to Participatory Decision-Making by Sam Kaner.

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Build Community Museum Participatory 35

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 4, 2010

It's rare that a participatory museum project is more than a one-shot affair. But next month, Britain Loves Wikipedia will commence--the third instance of a strange and fascinating collaborative project between museums and the Wikipedia community (Wikimedians). Some of these challenges were about mission fit.

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Wikipedia Arts Museum Images 40

Museum 2.0

JULY 1, 2008

Dear Museum 2.0-ers, ers, Next week, I'll be going to DC for a meeting convened by the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Museum and Library Services on "Museums and Libraries in the 21st Century." Over the last 50 years, public-facing museums and libraries in the U.S.

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Museum Library Participatory Wikipedia 20

Museum 2.0

MARCH 28, 2008

Museums (and libraries) are trusted sources of information. In February 2001, AAM commissioned a study about the trustworthiness of museums and found that "Almost 9 out of 10 Americans (87%) find museums to be one of the most trustworthy or a trustworthy source of information among a wide range of choices.

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Participatory Museum Teen Voice 20

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

Audience segmentation and research has become a hot topic in museums, especially when it comes to crafting appealing offerings that are customized to different kinds of visitors. I sat down with Kristen Denner, Director of Membership and Annual Fund, to learn more about the program's development and the museum's goals for its future.

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Interview Director Museum Arts 46

Museum 2.0

MARCH 28, 2012

At the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (MAH), we've started experimenting with a "community first" approach to program development. Each small group spent fifteen minutes brainstorming the needs for that community, and then another fifteen discussing potential projects and collaborators that could help meet those needs.

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Program Community Design Museum 49

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.

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Relationship Museum Game Personal 46

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

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Museum Boston Participatory Job 52

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 20, 2013

It started as a handout for a session that Stacey and I are doing at the California Association of Museums, and then I realized it was so darn useful that it was worth sharing with all of you. The majority of our public programs at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History are created and produced through community collaborations.

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Collaboration Community Tools Museum 55

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. The slides are also available for download.

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Slides Process Video Open 20

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?

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Slides Participatory Museum Children 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 20, 2008

This blog often analyzes how websites, designed spaces, even dogs promote participatory experiences among users. Today, we look inward for a how-to on one type of participatory design as applied to museum exhibits. But in the museum, the distribution method is more personal. The ultimate example of this is an eclipse.

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Design Participatory Social Museum 21

Museum 2.0

APRIL 16, 2008

I've written before about the inspiring work that the Brooklyn Museum of Art is doing with their community-focused efforts. Click is an exhibition process in three parts: The Museum solicited photographs from artists via an open call on their website, Facebook group, Flickr groups, and outreach to Brooklyn-based arts organizations.

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Museum Participatory Artist Arts 24

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 25, 2009

If you are hoping for visitors to discuss their responses to questions with each other, or to share their answers with the institution, you can't end with the question; you need to provide several opportunities for questions and responses.

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Design Goal Difference Platform 31

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 20, 2008

This post provides a tangible example for the why behind that argument. 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. At level five, the visitors start discussing the issue together. with the issue.

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Poll Interaction Museum Social 22

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 7, 2008

Charlene and Josh relate listening to research, and since they focus on business examples, they are primarily talking about market research: the way a business learns what people think of their brand, their products, and their potential. Here's what I learned: the Exploratorium is inundated by kids (source: Yelp!

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Museum Teen Second Life Discussion 20

Museum 2.0

APRIL 1, 2008

Last year, I wrote a post explaining what Twitter is and how it might be applied in museums. Now, a year later, I’m using Twitter on a daily basis, and it’s brought up some new observations about participation on websites and in interactive venues like museums. Consider, for example, this blog. I’d love Museum 2.0

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Twitter Participatory Broadcast Museum 24

Museum 2.0

MARCH 17, 2010

This is the second in a four-part series about writing The Participatory Museum. Several hundred people contributed their opinions, stories, suggestions, and edits to The Participatory Museum as it was written. Other contributors were collegial and a valuable network of museum wonks has developed."

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Participatory Museum Process Experiment 32

Museum 2.0

MARCH 24, 2010

This is the third in a four-part series about writing The Participatory Museum. This post covers my personal process of encouraging--and harnessing--participation in the creation of The Participatory Museum. This means my first drafts are often rambling, full of errors, "ADD EXAMPLE HERE"s and redundancies.

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Participatory Museum Process Experiment 33

Museum 2.0

MARCH 22, 2007

For example, in Bloom’s taxonomy of Educational Objectives, knowledge and comprehension of content comes before application. Shulman offers the great example of doctors, relating a comment from a surgeon that, “’Internists make a diagnosis in order to act. Was this the right decision? Narratively, this makes sense. Back to my diagram.

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Taxonomy Museum Social Wikipedia 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 3, 2010

We each worked individually on our own sets of cards, coming back together for discussion as we progressed through the various stages. I collected some tools to use in planning and discussing a new business. It also helped me identify people I should be spending more time with in the short term (and it made me think of you, Museum 2.0

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Structure Model Social Profit 31

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? And the "stuff" of the game is real stuff, artifacts created by players and sent to the museum. To expand their audiences.

Game 20

Game Museum Arts Alternative 20

Museum 2.0

JUNE 10, 2010

I spent last week working with staff at the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA) on ways to make this encyclopedic art museum more open to visitor participation across programs, exhibitions, and events. While there, I was lucky to get to experience a highly participatory exhibition that the MIA mounts once a decade: Foot in the Door.

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Participatory Museum Arts Artist 46

Museum 2.0

MAY 16, 2007

into the museum is the potential to encourage more positive in-museum interactions among strangers. 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.

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Museum Myspace Facilitation Social Network 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? But for museum and art wonks, it could be. Will the bureaucracy of the institution drown the artists in red tape?

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Artist Museum Project Public 39