Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 15, 2019

The Western Museum Association was kind enough to invite me to speak on a panel about engagement at their annual meeting in Boise. Phillip’s early remark about museums was an invocation for everyone. As an outsider, he immediately saw that museums were operating “under a business model that doesn’t work.”

Museum 30

Museum Audience Conversation Associations 30

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 3, 2011

I'm working on a keynote address for next week's Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums conference in Baltimore. The speech is in memory of Stephen Weil, one of the giants of contemporary American museum thinking--a radical in a bowtie who strove to "make museums matter." That is what makes a problem important.

Problem 53

Problem Museum Baltimore Culture 53

Museum 2.0

MAY 21, 2014

Seeing so many cheerful one-liners in my inbox made me think about how different my work situation is today than the last time I reflected on it in public in 2012, at my one-year anniversary. I''ve now been the executive director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History for three years. They are still problems.

Museum 49

Museum Director History Teen 49

NetWits

JULY 27, 2012

Join Our Newsletter is displayed first, followed by links to social media accounts on the Newport Harbor Nautical Museum website. Long Island Children’s Museum has “Join Our Email List” at the top of their website. Harbor History Museum asks for only the basics. Include Links to Your Social Media Accounts.

email 266

email Build Listserv Museum 266

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 18, 2012

I feel strongly that there are huge issues with racial and ethnic diversity in museums and arts organizations that deserve a million more posts. One was a conference on pushing our practice in art museums. In library- and museum-land, the participants were 80-90% women. This is a problem. That's why I wrote this.

Arts 54

Arts Problem Open Museum 54

Connection Cafe

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

The following post was originally published on the Center for the Future of Museums blog. On Wednesday, August 8, over 300 museum professionals joined CFM director Elizabeth Merritt and Seema Rao, principal of Brilliant Idea Studio , to explore self-care in the museum workplace. But effort and efficacy are not the same.

Museum 21

Museum Culture Professional Training 21

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 15, 2014

When basketball players are offering more cogent commentary on racial issues than cultural institutions, you know we have a cultural relevance problem. Museums are a part of this educational and cultural network. Where do museums fit in? We believe that strong connections should exist between museums and their communities.

Museum 52

Museum Blogger Cleveland Missouri 52

The Storytelling Non-profit

APRIL 18, 2022

A problem or conflict in a story naturally builds a case for giving. Conflict demonstrates a clear problem that donors can solve by making a donation. But what about arts organizations or museums? Both of these are examples of problems (i.e. What about schools or conservation causes? That’s just the nature of the beast.

Storytelling 80

Storytelling Profit Articulate Arts 80

Museum 2.0

MARCH 26, 2014

Last week''s New York Times special section on museums featured a lead article by David Gelles on Wooing a New Generation of Museum Patrons. In the article, David discussed ways that several large art museums are working to attract major donors and board members in their 30s and 40s.

Museum 54

Museum Generation Interview Donor 54

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

FEBRUARY 23, 2016

Some of our most popular perks include: Accrued paid time off starting at 15 days per year. But as Amber points out, no one was actually using it since no one on the senior management was taking creative time. Our values reflect this commitment. 5 floating holidays and 7 fixed holidays per year.

Product 50

Product Time Create Museum 50

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

This morning, I checked in on the Pocket Museums on our museum's ground floor. After I took down all the "kick me" and "kick it" post-its covering the Pocket Museum title label in the men's room, I realized that this is the perfect example of an A-to-B test for gendered response to a participatory museum experience.

Museum 47

Museum Difference Examples Participatory 47

Twenty Hats

MAY 3, 2021

At the same time, nurture your volunteers with a figurative “hug”: be supportive, kind, and provide an inclusive environment: H onor, thank, and recognize volunteers on a daily basis. We have a long-time volunteer that staff avoided because she disregarded policies and procedures. It requires some trial and error.

Relationship 73

Relationship Leadership Museum Policy 73

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 10, 2020

Museums are seeing such deep divides as well; the old order and the new one. Assessing our problems is a good place to start. Here are some problems I see: Academia is our boogie man. I truly believe learning and scholarship are the engines of museums. Ever wanted to try a funny or off the wall sign at your museum?

Museum 40

Museum Problem Proposal Structure 40

Museum 2.0

APRIL 30, 2014

This week, I''m celebrating three years on the job as the executive director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. This spring marked a big conceptual shift for me and the museum. Most significantly, we are adding three full-time positions to our team. We are now squarely out of turnaround and into growth mode.

Museum 44

Museum History Arts Artist 44

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 18, 2013

This August/September, I am "rerunning" popular Museum 2.0 Originally posted in April of 2011, just before I hung up my consulting hat for my current job at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. I''ve spent much of the past three years on the road giving workshops and talks about audience participation in museums.

Museum 45

Museum Question Participatory Evaluation 45

Volunteer Hub

FEBRUARY 9, 2022

VolunteerHub helps volunteer coordinators make better use of time. As a volunteer coordinator, making the best use of time is key. For volunteer coordinators, an automated volunteer management process relieves stress by freeing up time, allowing them to focus on other aspects of their volunteer program.

Volunteer 76

Volunteer Retention Houston Atlanta 76

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

MARCH 22, 2007

online exhibit developed by the Maxwell Museum of Anthropology at the University of New Mexico and Ideum. I picked up the phone and got a hold of Jim Spadaccini, founder of Ideum, whose blog post I discovered via a discussion thread on flickr and museums on the museum technology list. Nina Simon from the Museums and Web2.0

Flickr 61

Flickr Museum Denver Images 61

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 30, 2020

It’s pretty normal for Western museums, for example, display objects taken from Non-Western countries. The first thing they wanted to tackle, and I’d argue the essential challenge of our work, was the relationship between museums and communities. Museum work is invisible to those not in the field, as are our norms.

Community 27

Community Museum Florida Rate 27

Amy Sample Ward

JUNE 21, 2011

Ruth Cohen – American Museum of natural History. Jason Eppink – Museum of the Moving Image. Ruth Cohen – American Museum of natural History. We are trying to change the visitors’ experience at the museum as well as ownership of what is in the museum, break down the walls between the public and the museum.

Game 140

Game Culture Museum Change 140

Connection Cafe

MAY 29, 2014

Last week I had the opportunity to attend and present at the Association of Children’s Museums annual conference, #interactivity2014, with Julia Kennard, CFO from EdVenture, Carole Charnow, President and CEO from Boston Children’s Museum and Katie Boehm, Annual Fund & Events Manager from KidsQuest. The only problem?

Museum 33

Museum Interaction Associations Donor 33

Museum 2.0

JUNE 12, 2013

TCG is the industry association for non-profit theaters, the way AAM is for museums. Given TCG''s multi-year Audience (R)evolution initiative, I took the opportunity to write a new talk about what revolution has looked like at our small museum in Santa Cruz. At the same time, our community relevance was limited.

Museum 55

Museum Learning History Arts 55

Museum 2.0

JUNE 15, 2016

Here's one of my favorite stories about the London Science Museum and their work to make their science shows relevant to families with deaf or hearing-impaired family members. If people attend once and don’t come back, it’s probably a problem with the experience and not the marketing. This chapter appears midway through the book.

Museum 20

Museum Arts Language Chapter 20

Qgiv

MARCH 31, 2021

The problem is that a lot of people get into the program, try to run some campaigns, and never get any meaningful results. For many organizations, Ad Grants feels like a poor investment of their time. knowledge and experience, time to learn, or a budget to hire an expert, to run a successful campaign.

Grant 52

Grant Google Free Support 52

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 3, 2019

Money, time, energy, goodwill…we have only enough if we are lucky. We try to solve problems and often look for the most parsimonious solution. But we also know that it hasn’t made an appreciable impact on the people coming to museums. I cheered every time people tagged me in their shares. They take time.

Accessibility 32

Accessibility Museum Australia Voice 32

Museum 2.0

APRIL 20, 2009

I just got home from the Museums and the Web conference in Indianapolis. I’d never attended before and was impressed by many very smart, international people doing radical projects to make museum collections and experiences accessible and participatory online. Instead, I found a standard art museum. Is this a problem?

Participatory 35

Participatory Museum Web Indianapolis 35

Connection Cafe

MARCH 16, 2017

Advocacy is a way to showcase your organization’s mission while solving a problem at the same time. This year, I had the privilege to join fellow museum professionals at Museum Advocacy Day. A Closer Look at Museum Advocacy Day. Their mission: to visit with elected officials and discuss funding for museums.

Museum 38

Museum Advocacy Script Washington 38

DipJar

AUGUST 9, 2022

They’re so much more than book museums. With foot traffic returning, the power problems (not enough outlets!) Sam Sifton, the founding editor of New York Times Cooking is a seasonal resident of the area and was recently featured at a fundraiser at Curtis in conversation with a local food writer. . The solution?

Library 98

Library Local Support New York 98

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?

Museum 34

Museum Teen Learning Music 34

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JUNE 23, 2011

In the Networked Nonprofit “ Learning Loops , we illustrated how networked nonprofits do a real-time, lighter assessment process as they engage their community and make improvements and adjustments along the way. No one knew what I was talking about. I’m not sure I did, but fast forward two years and it is here.

Benchmark 95

Benchmark Network Learning API 95

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 28, 2019

Museums, like all professional fields, are spaces policed by unwritten norms and regulated by our credentialing systems. For example, many museums focus on issues like ticket prices or transportation as a way to remove access barriers. Because, we often see the "solution" to the problem in terms we have already determined.

Accessibility 30

Accessibility Museum Classes Stats 30

Museum 2.0

MARCH 3, 2020

I once sat next to a man who worked at a museum about transportation. I’d been starving, and we were being served a delicious hot lunch (Thank you Pennsylvania Museums Association.) There are also pretty easy ways to see when the supply chain has problems. Think of the times something breaks down. Time is another.

System 20

System Work Museum Pennsylvania 20

Twenty Hats

SEPTEMBER 20, 2020

One of the participants had to take an onsite museum role, where volunteers staff educational carts and engage with visitors, and transform it info a remote position. The concern right now may be timing. If your supervisor has a catalogue of pandemic-related problems to solve, you might hesitate to add these needs to the list.

Roles 70

Roles Virtual Volunteer Demonstration 70

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 17, 2020

It’s a time suck. Work for many museum managers has gotten real recently, I suspect. At the same time, if you’re in this field as both an avocation and a vocation, you can’t help but hear the constant drumbeat of change. The problems in this field are real, and so many of us want to be the ones to solve them.

Social 26

Social Museum Social Media Summary 26

Get Fully Funded

AUGUST 24, 2021

How will you grab the attention of your donors when their inbox is already full and they barely have time to read what’s already there? That insecurity can lead to a variety of problems as these vulnerable girls make decisions that will impact the rest of their lives. Time to Write! We are so excited for them! .

Results 122

Results email Fundraising Story 122

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 23, 2013

In the course of the conversation, Devon Smith, a social media consultant from Threespot, started talking the problem of arts organizations that are no longer relevant or useful to their communities. For a long time, I agreed with this argument. I am part of the problem. Consider the museum I run. Hence, death panels.

Organization 55

Organization Museum Arts Nonprofit 55

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 8, 2018

You run a regional museum. This is the plan that plunged the Berkshire Museum into hot water. In July, the Berkshire Museum released its $60,000,000 New Vision , along with a funding mechanism: selling 40 of its most valuable artworks. It states that museums can only sell objects to purchase or care for other objects.

Public 40

Public Build Museum Detroit 40

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 15, 2014

This week, my colleague Emily Hope Dobkin has a beautiful guest post on the Incluseum blog about the Subjects to Change teen program that Emily runs at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. Subjects to Change is an unusual museum program in that it explicitly focuses on empowering teens as community leaders.

Teen 45

Teen Change Museum History 45