Museum 2.0

JUNE 1, 2010

This is the first installment of a book discussion about Ray Oldenburg’s book The Great Good Place. You can join the conversation in the blog comments, or on the Museum 2.0 Facebook discussion board here. Regulars play an essential function in managing the social life of third places.

Place 41

Place Discussion Culture Museum 41

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?" But when it comes to socializing with strangers, their interest is incredibly low.

Teen 49

Teen Social Museum Participatory 49

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

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. A social networking site is one in which users connect with one another. In this case, it's debatable.

Museum 20

Museum Social Network Case Study Discussion 20

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

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. 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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Arts Social Media Examples Artist 74

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

NOVEMBER 8, 2007

I'm here in Chicago for a very brief trip on a panel about metrics and measurement for museums called "New Spaces, New Measures." I came across two more excellent resources on this evolving topic of social media metrics and wanted to quickly summarize before I add to the link list in the wiki. Raw links to the document.

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Chicago Museum Network Conference 50

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 29, 2012

Last month, MAH curator Susan Hillhouse and I sat down and wrote an exhibition philosophy for our museum. Here's the short version (read the whole thing here ): The Museum of Art & History is committed to creating exhibitions that inspire our diverse audiences to engage deeply with contemporary art and Santa Cruz County history.

Museum 38

Museum Artist Participatory History 38

Museum 2.0

JULY 12, 2011

A museum holds a free program in a semi-public space. Last weekend, my museum did a little pilot of a new program, Downward Draw. We held a free yoga class in the plaza outside the museum and invited artists to come and draw/paint the yoga-doers in motion. Ready for a math problem? How many people participated?

Participatory 41

Participatory Museum Measure Activities 41

Museum 2.0

MARCH 13, 2013

Visitor-contributed photos surround a collection piece in Carnegie Museum of Art's Oh Snap! It can be incredibly difficult to design a participatory project that involves online and onsite visitor engagement. The museum selected and is featuring 13 works recently added to our photography collection.

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Authoring Open Experiment Museum 53

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 found this idea really powerful.

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Reflection Columbus Museum Participatory 43

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 9, 2011

Two weeks ago, we inaugurated a Creativity Lounge on the third floor of our museum. Lisa was thrilled that her work was on display at the museum. We started a pretty fascinating (and yes, a little frustrating) dialogue about the puzzle and the question of what constitutes desired engagement in the museum.

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Museum Arts History Columbus 51

Museum 2.0

MAY 9, 2008

There's a tag applied to many Museum 2.0 Posts under that tag tend to examine non-museum things, from malls to games to ad campaigns , and draw some design lessons for museums from their foreignness. In my highly anecdotal research, the bus is a more social space than the train or subway. People talk. We see it on TV.

Participatory 20

Participatory Design Museum Childhood 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?

Classroom 22

Classroom Children Museum Model 22

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

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.

Reflection 124

Reflection NTEN Change Facilitation 124

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 2, 2010

Hi folks, Seems like it's time for another Museum 2.0 I've read a couple pop business books that haven't thrilled me, and I'm hoping you might have some ideas of where we might find something really worthwhile to learn from and discuss. Please share your suggestions and ideas in the comments and we'll start reading soon.

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Museum Participatory Culture Blogger 26

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. Not surprisingly, a different focus group of social service providers and homeless adults had a very different set of concerns about downtown.

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Build Community Museum Participatory 35

Tech Soup

JANUARY 31, 2012

We learn to use mobile production tools, cooperative social sites for group curation and unique filesharing services like Dropbox , Skype along with new tools like Instagram, WeVideo , Stroome and many new apps to edit our captured video and photos for story creation. questions surrounding globalization and social justice.

Storytelling 67

Storytelling Collaboration Video Thailand 67

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

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

The election season, as well as a recent research study on museum membership, has change my perspective on this. A national election is the ultimate participatory project. Why WOULDN'T a science museum engage members in the crusade to draw clear lines between science and pseudoscience?

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Product Build Museum Arts 51

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Imagine that your museum is ready to start creating content on a small-scale in Web 2.0. 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. You're ready to make a few videos to post on YouTube.

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Museum Technorati Boston YouTube 22

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. The paper is the easy part.

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Museum Library Participatory Wikipedia 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 20, 2008

What makes an exhibit “social?” 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. Exhibits that induce pointing are social in a couple of ways.

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Design Participatory Social Museum 21

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

NOVEMBER 20, 2008

Early in the life of this blog, I stumbled into a taxonomy of how social platforms work that I call the hierarchy of participation. The hierarchy comprises five levels, shown above, from passive consumption of content (level one) to collective social engagement (level five). Free2choose is powerful because it introduces social tension.

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Poll Interaction Museum Social 22

Museum 2.0

APRIL 15, 2015

We were discussing the potential for cultural organizations to have significant impact across communities: on planning, health, education, and quality of life. But I couldn''t fully imagine how a museum or an arts center could embody it. Lots of social bridging, surprise encounters, and more than a few mystified moments.

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San Francisco Arts Design Marketing 20

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

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. Sometimes an extra seat can make the difference between solo and social.

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Relationship Museum Game Personal 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. There are many amazing community representatives from business, arts, education, and social services who connect us to powerful ideas and partners. We made people write things down constantly.

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Program Community Design Museum 49

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

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.

Interview 46

Interview Director Museum Arts 46

Tech Soup

JANUARY 20, 2012

We learn to use mobile production tools, cooperative social sites for group curation and unique filesharing services like Dropbox , Skype along with new tools like Instagram, WeVideo , Stroome and many new apps to edit our captured video and photos for story creation. Get your story ideas ready and RSVP for Nonprofits Live on February 8th.

Collaboration 44

Collaboration Storytelling Video Thailand 44

Museum 2.0

MAY 3, 2010

Last week, I attended Structure Lab , a half-day workshop on legal and financial structures for ventures for social good. 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.

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Structure Model Social Profit 31

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.

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?

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Slides Participatory Museum Children 20

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 24, 2019

This month we’ve been thinking about “What is a museum?” (I'm I’ve been visiting museums my whole life. Does that make me the best judge of museums? People are the defining characteristics of museums. I’ve worked with and at plenty of museums that can sometimes feel empty. I'm not alone there.

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Museum Place Life Ohio 36