Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JULY 1, 2009

Submitted by Nina Simon, publisher of Museum 2.0. I’ve had it with museums’ obsession with open-ended self-expression. When I talk about designing participatory experiences, I often show the above graphic from Forrester Research. And yet many museums are fixated on creators. This is a problem for two reasons.

Participatory 50

Participatory Experiment Museum Teen 50

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 29, 2009

It's my "artistic rendering" of one of the most inspirational participatory projects I know of--the Bibliotheek Haarlem Oost book drops. Haarlem Oost is a branch library in the Netherlands that wanted to encourage visitors to add tags (descriptive keywords) to the books they read. Or, so I thought. Of course I asked her why.

Participatory 40

Participatory Project Library Netherlands 40

Museum 2.0

MARCH 16, 2009

I’ve had it with museums’ obsession with open-ended self-expression. When I talk about designing participatory experiences, I often show the above graphic from Forrester Research. And yet many museums are fixated on creators. Museums see open-ended self-expression as the be-all of participatory experiences.

Participatory 44

Participatory Experiment Museum Teen 44

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. They’re tagging with yarn.

Denver 35

Denver Museum Arts Collaboration 35

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? Aren't art museums less open to participation than other kinds of museums?" I was surprised by her question.

Museum 29

Museum Difference Participatory History 29

Museum 2.0

APRIL 7, 2009

Which of these descriptions exemplifies participatory museum practice? Museum invites community members to participate in the development and creation of an exhibit. But the difference between the two examples teases out a problem in differentiating "participatory design" from "design for participation."

Participatory 27

Participatory Design Difference Museum 27

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

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 15, 2009

Over the past year, I've noticed a strange trend in the calls I receive about upcoming participatory museum projects: the majority of them are being planned for teen audiences. Why are teens over-represented in participatory projects? Teens are a known (and somewhat controllable) entity.

Teen 24

Teen Participatory Experiment Museum 24

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

MAY 7, 2010

Nina has written a fantastic book engagement called The Participatory Museum. A third argues that the project won’t be truly participatory unless users get to define what content is sought in the first place. I’ve been using these participatory categories to talk about how we’d like users to participate in different projects.

Model 98

Model Activities Active Activism 98

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.

Denver 29

Denver Museum Community Participatory 29

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.

Museum 34

Museum Contest Video Chicago 34

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 22, 2010

In the most extreme cases, I've talked to folks from museums that are government-mandated to provide all content in multiple languages who say they are unable to invite visitors to make comments because they'd have to translate all of them and simply can't dedicate the resources to do so. Tags: design usercontent inclusion.

Museum 38

Museum Work North America Language 38

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JULY 27, 2010

There were a number of online/offline participatory visitor experiences. At the Natural History Museum, we visited the David H. At the Museum of American History, we visited the First Ladies Exhibit. Tags: Engagement smithsonian. We spent most of the day at the Smithsonian. Next stop, the Jersey Shore!

DC 91

DC Asia Offline Participatory 91

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 9, 2010

Jasper Visser and his colleagues at the not-yet-physically-open National Historisch Museum of the Netherlands have impressed me with their innovative, thoughtful approach to developing a dynamic national museum. Last weekend my museum presented itself at the Uitmarkt in Amsterdam. Tags: Museums Engaging in 2.0

Museum 34

Museum Comment Experiment Participatory 34

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 29, 2010

This question is a byproduct of the reality that most participatory projects have poorly articulated value. When a participatory activity is designed without a goal in mind, you end up with a bunch of undervalued stuff and nowhere to put it. Are you making that shift in your thinking about participatory project design?

Participatory 48

Participatory Music Project Video 48

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

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." Types of tags assigned to it, the terms used, the authority of the taggers, the authority of the tagging system. " My slides and resources are here. Via RSA Networks blog.

Chicago 50

Chicago Museum Network Conference 50

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

There are many participatory kiosks that are functional black holes--visitors make videos or draw pictures or write stories, drop them in a slot, and. There are many participatory kiosks that are functional black holes--visitors make videos or draw pictures or write stories, drop them in a slot, and. nothing happens. nothing happens.

Participatory 35

Participatory Museum Rate YouTube 35

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 11, 2008

The Art of Participation provides a retrospective on participatory art as well as presenting opportunities for visitors to engage in contemporary (“now”) works. As the museum's website puts it, "this exhibition examines how artists have engaged members of the public as essential collaborators in the art-making process."

Participatory 20

Participatory Arts Design Museum 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 10, 2011

It's my second week as the Executive Director at The Museum of Art & History in Santa Cruz, CA, and boy is my everything tired. I'm also making the 2011-2012 budget, getting to know our terrific staff and volunteers, and starting up a few small participatory projects to launch us into being a more community-driven institution.

Museum 53

Museum History Participatory Arts 53

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. That's why I asked.

Technique 50

Technique Question Design Develop 50

Museum 2.0

JULY 9, 2009

Seb Chan has a lovely, long interview up at Fresh+New with Helen Whitty about the Powerhouse Museum's new mini-exhibition, the Odditoreum. The Odditoreum is another wrinkle in the study of visitors' understanding and interpretation of authenticity in museums. I enjoyed listening to it (virtually, not at the museum).

Museum 22

Museum Alternative Portland Artist 22

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. What aspects of that socialness are desirable in museums (and how might we mirror buses or trains to promote them)?

Participatory 20

Participatory Design Museum Childhood 20

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.

Public 36

Public Research Participatory Report 36

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?

Classroom 22

Classroom Children Museum Model 22

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. Projects participatory museum.

Museum 23

Museum Chart Picture Arts 23

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?" So what's a museum to do--especially one that is funded to encourage youth and teen participation?

Teen 49

Teen Social Museum Participatory 49

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. Here's what they did.

Case Study 20

Case Study Participatory Studies Museum 20

Museum 2.0

MARCH 27, 2009

This week, the Denver Art Museum (DAM) opened a new temporary exhibition called The Psychedelic Experience , featuring rock posters from San Francisco in the heyday of Bill Graham and electric kool-aid. It is an incredible museum experience. The visitor is given a copy of her poster and the museum keeps a copy as well.

Denver 21

Denver Museum Arts Remix 21

Museum 2.0

JULY 15, 2010

Dear Museum 2.0 My book, The Participatory Museum , has done incredibly well so far, but there's a problem: the interactive components aren't working. Tags: Book: The Participatory Museum. readers, Today is my birthday. Today, I have a request for you. Thanks in advance.

Participatory 32

Participatory Chapter Museum Case Study 32

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 26, 2008

This week, I'm launching a new site: the Voicemail Museum. It's an experiment that merges two of my greatest interests: finding novel, easy ways for visitors to contribute content to museums finding questions that draw such compelling responses that random peoples' answers would be worth browsing To participate, all you need is a phone.

Museum 20

Museum Audio Participatory Phone 20

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!

Museum 22

Museum Hosting Model Community 22

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.

Museum 22

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?

Museum 20

Museum Site Facilitation Participatory 20

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 30, 2009

Dear Museum 2.0 readers, I'm almost done with the first draft of The Participatory Museum: A Practical Guide , a book that explores the theory, practice, and design techniques for involving visitors and community members in the creation and sharing of cultural content. Tags: participatory museum.

Help 28

Help Participatory Museum Wiki 28

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.

Participatory 20

Participatory Museum Teen Voice 20

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. Tags: Core Museum 2.0

Museum 20

Museum Library Participatory Wikipedia 20