The Storytelling Non-profit

APRIL 18, 2022

But what about arts organizations or museums? For example, let’s say you’re a local children’s theater company. The question that I like to ask to frame a conflict is – what would it be like if this program/service/organization didn’t exist? What about schools or conservation causes? That’s just the nature of the beast.

Storytelling 80

Storytelling Profit Articulate Arts 80

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 18, 2011

Many people ( Paul Orselli , Linda Norris , Pete Newcurator ) in the museum field have written about the question of museum "tribes"--based partly on Seth Godin's book , partly on the longstanding fan culture that pervades our lives through sport , celebrity, and shared experience of mass events.

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Museum Share Support Indianapolis 45

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 26, 2012

Writing my masters thesis for Gothenburg University’s International Museum Studies program while also working four days a week as the Director of Community Programs at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History this spring was certainly a challenge but also an incredible opportunity.

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Museum Program Participatory Community 49

Museum 2.0

JULY 11, 2012

I get excited about a lot of things in my work at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. That's how I felt when artist Ze Frank got in touch to talk about a potential museum exhibition to explore a physical site/substantiation for his current online video project, A Show (s ee minute 2:20, above).

Museum 45

Museum Participatory Artist History 45

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 28, 2013

Earlier in 2013, I was amazed to visit one of the new “Studio” spaces at the Denver Art Museum. The Denver Art Museum is no stranger to community collaborations, but we’ve been dipping in our toe a little more deeply when it comes to developing permanent participatory installations. Some community artists even helped install the space.

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Denver Museum Arts Collaboration 35

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 30, 2013

Mary Warner, the Museum Manager at the Historical Society, wrote a series of moving articles for her museum newsletter and later for the AASLH’s Small Museum Online Community about her experiences tackling big issues in a small museum. That letter didn’t come until after we’d talked about it in our local paper.

History 51

History Museum Minnesota Participatory 51

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 10, 2016

Museum technology nerds: this post is for you. I've been thinking recently about distributed content experiences--ways for people to interact with museum content (art, history, science, etc.) as they make their way through the world outside the museum. At the museum? but none of them are great. At the historic site?

Museum 20

Museum Experiment Digital Podcast 20

Museum 2.0

JUNE 5, 2019

Geoffrey Dunn, a fabulous writer and collaborator, just published a big cover interview with me in our local weekly, the Good Times. I was proud to work with amazing colleagues to lead major change at the museum. My favorite question Geoffrey asked me was about engaging with people who were critical of the transformation of the MAH.

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Interview Change Museum History 36

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JULY 3, 2009

Submitted by Nina Simon, publisher of Museum 2.0 On Friday, I offered a participatory design workshop for Seattle-area museum professionals ( slides here ). We concluded by sharing the tough questions each of us struggl es with in applying participatory design techniques to museum practice. I love this question.

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Technique Question Design Develop 50

Museum 2.0

APRIL 28, 2009

On Friday, I offered a participatory design workshop for Seattle-area museum professionals ( slides here ). We concluded by sharing the tough questions each of us struggles with in applying participatory design techniques to museum practice. I love this question. First, what do the right questions look like?

Technique 52

Technique Question Design Develop 52

Qgiv

OCTOBER 27, 2021

They take care of your facility, give tours of your museum, welcome attendees to your annual gala, and pass out medals at fundraising races. However, they may be willing to be a resource for prospective volunteers to ask questions and help them gauge whether volunteering with your organization is right for them.

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Volunteer Strategy Guide Local 98

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 3, 2014

During a workshop on museum visitor participation, someone spoke up and objected: "this might work in California, but it will never work in Texas." I saw how participatory techniques were working in diverse museums around the world. In Asia, I''ve noticed museum visitors are willing--enthusiastic, even--to take photos with strangers.

Culture 49

Culture Participatory New Zealand Museum 49

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

MAY 7, 2010

Local Oakland Tweeter @trafficologist Standing Beside Her Profile Pic in the Twitterstream. Recently, James wrote about some interesting ways museums are using Twitter for offline/online engagement. The San Francisco Bay Area has seen some extraordinary museum openings over the past several years.

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Trend Oakland San Francisco California 91

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 13, 2010

On October 20, a young woman named Kate will move into Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry and live there for a month. This post is not about the Month at the Museum concept or implementation. Instead, this post focuses on a fascinating aspect of Month at the Museum: the video applications. That will come later.

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Museum Contest Video Chicago 34

Qgiv

MARCH 30, 2022

It was then that I began working at a local art museum as a volunteer. CA: One of the best things that happened to me while volunteering for the local art museum is they funded my travel to Los Angeles and my tuition to take the week-long grant writing training bootcamp hosted by The Grantsmanship Center.

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Grant Interview Los Angeles Texas 52

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

NOVEMBER 21, 2014

“As Miami continues to evolve, Give Miami Day acts as a gateway for new members of the community to learn more about local causes they are passionate about and contribute to the overall success of our city,” said Miami Foundation CEO Javier Alberto Soto. Collaboration among nonprofits is key; Miami Arts Brigade was a huge testament to that.

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Miami Raise Giving Florida 104

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 6, 2009

This post was written by Jaime Kopke , the founder/director of the Denver Community Museum , a pop-up community-generated institution that ran from Oct 2008-April 2009. The Denver Community Museum (DCM) was a grassroots operation in almost every sense. This post shares her reflections on the project, its design, and its impact.

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Denver Museum Community Participatory 29

Forum One

NOVEMBER 3, 2022

The Pacific Science Center (PacSci) is an independent, non-profit museum in Seattle with a mission to ignite curiosity and fuel passion for discovery, experimentation, and science for people of all ages and backgrounds. in an interactive activity to consider challenging questions about race, identity, and economic justice over a meal.

Award 76

Award Washington National Drupal 76

Museum 2.0

MARCH 22, 2010

These are some thoughts on a very small museum called the Brazos Valley African American Museum. I was fortunate enough to visit it during the Texas Association of Museums conference, and it brought up some reactions and emotions that I wanted to share with you. It wasn’t even 100% clear which stories went with each photo.

Museum 23

Museum Experiment Community Texas 23

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

APRIL 29, 2010

  As part of the preparation, we surveyed participants for their burning questions and that's how I created the content. The questions were a mix of strategic and tactical. One question I got was: What Theatre companies are using Four Square in an interesting and engaging way? Photo by Neatonjr. A 3 day walk).

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YouTube Badge Museum Mashup 95

Museum 2.0

JUNE 29, 2009

By a strange and lucky coincidence, I was at the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum (EMPSFM) in Seattle for a two-day workshop. EMPSFM is one of a handful of museums worldwide for which the death of the King of Pop is a very big deal. Are museums only relevant when they can serve our most pressing needs?

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Museum Teen Learning Music 34

Museum 2.0

MAY 10, 2017

This is the tenth in a series of posts on the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History ( MAH )'s development of Abbott Square , a new creative community plaza in downtown Santa Cruz. When we started working on the food side of the Abbott Square project, it raised some basic questions about community inclusion. All those people eat.

Arts 24

Arts San Jose Museum History 24

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 24, 2012

I like to ask myself this question periodically, challenging myself to find substantive ways for visitors to contribute to our museum. And when I think back on the past year, some of the most magical things that have happened at the museum have NOT been designed by us. We don't have to convince them that it's their museum.

Platform 41

Platform Open Museum Participatory 41

Museum 2.0

APRIL 11, 2017

This is the sixth in a series of posts on the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History ( MAH )'s development of Abbott Square , a new creative community plaza in downtown Santa Cruz. John would run Abbott Square Market , a multi-vendor food and drink business, adjacent to the plaza, adjacent to the museum. Money is on the table.

Technique 29

Technique Museum Exercise Structure 29

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 3, 2014

We did three things to supplement Belle''s paintings (installation shots here , peopled shots here ): We issued a call to locals who are immigrants, or whose family immigrated, to share an artifact and story with us. We created a simple wheel with open-ended questions about identity and place, setting it in a lounge area.

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Participatory Museum History Arts 45

VQ Strategies

OCTOBER 10, 2021

Whether informally, such as making a meal for a sick neighbor, or formally, such as organizing a food drive for a local charity, families have come together to make a difference. Here are some questions to get you started on developing a philosophy: What is your organization’s mission? Yet, this year is a bit different.

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Volunteer Children Hunger Mentoring 40

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. The following week it shot up the chart from number 40 to number 14!

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Museum Chart Picture Arts 23

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.

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Audience Museum Participatory History 47

Museum 2.0

APRIL 1, 2009

On Monday, I gave the keynote at the Museums in Conversation conference in Tarrytown, NY. I learned to cultivate creative greed while working on Operation Spy at the International Spy Museum, where I was lucky to be working on a project that was so new to us that we didn't have any pre-established models or structures for doing it.

Museum 20

Museum Conversation Columbus Local 20

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 9, 2011

Two weeks ago, we inaugurated a Creativity Lounge on the third floor of our museum. The same day we opened the Creativity Lounge, we opened new exhibitions throughout the building, including a paper collage show in the 3rd floor lobby by local artist Lisa Hochstein. Lisa was thrilled that her work was on display at the museum.

Museum 51

Museum Arts History Columbus 51

Museum 2.0

MARCH 21, 2012

How do you help visitors know what they can and cannot do in your museum? Most museums have this figured out: they have signs, they have guards, they have cases over the objects. I used to think these were easy questions to answer. Art, however, does not come to museums pre-hardened. Engagement with local artists.

Museum 49

Museum Denver Artist Milwaukee 49

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 10, 2009

Designing Questions Kathy Gustafon-Hilton coordinated a massive Pecha Kucha session, featuring 19 design professionals sharing 20 slides, 20 seconds apiece. I spoke about the importance of designing intentional frameworks for asking visitors questions, based on this blog post. While questions like: "Where were you last night?,"

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Reflection Research Question Museum 20

Connection Cafe

FEBRUARY 14, 2019

I’m looking for a place to donate in honor of my mother’s 90 th birthday, and a gift made to the local symphony orchestra in Myrtle Beach seemed like the right thing to do. You gravitated toward the museum, zoo, gallery, symphony, cultural management organization because of your roots. Have you asked yourself similar questions?

Arts 31

Arts Generation Culture Giving 31

Forum One

NOVEMBER 21, 2022

The Pacific Science Center (PacSci) is an independent, non-profit museum in Seattle with a mission to ignite curiosity and fuel passion for discovery, experimentation, and science for people of all ages and backgrounds. in an interactive activity to consider challenging questions about race, identity, and economic justice over a meal.

Award 46

Award Colorado Washington Children 46

Forum One

NOVEMBER 18, 2022

The Pacific Science Center (PacSci) is an independent, non-profit museum in Seattle with a mission to ignite curiosity and fuel passion for discovery, experimentation, and science for people of all ages and backgrounds. in an interactive activity to consider challenging questions about race, identity, and economic justice over a meal.

Award 46

Award Colorado Washington Children 46

Museum 2.0

MAY 18, 2011

Jason Beaubien was reporting on the Soumaya Museum in Mexico City, the gleaming new art museum built as a "gift to Mexico" by the world's richest man, Carlos Slim. The news report , strangely, focused on the question of whether the Soumaya Museum is a rich man's indulgence or a truly "worthy" cultural institution.

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Classes Mexico Museum Columbus 55

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

NOVEMBER 22, 2011

The question. Just over a year ago, we asked ourselves a question: How are arts organizations using digital and social media, and what sorts of results are they getting? Many of our clients and fellow consultants working in nonprofits and in the arts were approaching the same question from different angles. was created.

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Arts Social Media Studies National 110