Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 1, 2012

Last week, Douglas McLellan of artsJournal ran a multi-vocal forum on the relationship between arts organizations and audiences, asking: In this age of self expression and information overload, do our artists and arts organizations need to lead more or learn to follow their communities more? Here are three of my favorites.

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Arts Museum Artist Tucson 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

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've covered arts organizations and social media here and there over the past three years and last winter co-wrote a cover story article with Rebecca Krause-Hardie for ArtsReach.

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Arts Social Media Examples Artist 74

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 25, 2016

They wanted to help museums and galleries across the UK make significant, sustained changes in the ways they engage community partners and visitors as participants in their work. The result, Our Museum , is an extraordinary funding program with a focus on community participation. didn't mince words. Here are my three top takeaways.

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Museum Participatory Resource Place 20

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.

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Museum Question Participatory Evaluation 45

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

FEBRUARY 18, 2016

But to be effective, nonprofit leaders also must excel at using their personal brands and voices in service of their organizations’ missions and strategies on Instagram and other social media channels. This shot is a painting at a museum visited during a professional conference for museums. Visibility. Campbell above.

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Personal Create Photography Museum 50

Museum 2.0

MARCH 3, 2011

Thirteen students produced three projects that layered participatory activities onto an exhibition of artwork from the permanent collection of the Henry Art Gallery. The guiding principle is uncovering relationships between the works of art themselves rather than explicating information or theoretical concepts.

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Participatory Arts Audience Museum 51

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 3, 2014

Whoever wrote this comment card: thank you. They diversified the voice of immigration in the exhibition and encouraged people to share their own histories verbally. Response mail art after the visit. The trick is to invite many voices in many forms. You made my month. Collaboration in the months before the show.

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Participatory Museum History Arts 45

Museum 2.0

MARCH 3, 2007

But I’d been scribbling notes for an art museum label post for awhile, and then yesterday, the NY Times had a review of a new show at MOMA, Comic Abstraction. And it ended with this: No wonder it [MOMA] ends up showing shallow, label-dependent art rather than work that offers deeper, more contradictory encounters.

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Arts Museum Artist Audio 30

Museum 2.0

APRIL 1, 2015

Last week, Ian David Moss and I both blogged about the process of developing a theory of change for the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. At the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, one way we''re answering these questions is with a theory of change. Museum of Art and History social bridging'

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Change Museum History Arts 20

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.

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Museum Learning History Arts 55

Museum 2.0

JUNE 29, 2011

Now that I'm on staff at a museum, I've (re)discovered a more pedestrian value of visitor participation: it's delightful. Every day when I walk by our visitor comment board, I feel like I'm getting little gifts from visitors. Be charming and delightful" isn't one of the bottom-line goals of most museums. But maybe it should be.

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Museum Participatory Comment Sound 47

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

MAY 7, 2010

Nina has written a fantastic book engagement called The Participatory Museum. If you want a chance of winning a copy, leave a comment saying how you might apply some of the science of participation to your social media strategy. Blog commenters are contributors, as are people who engage in contests.

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Model Activities Active Activism 98

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 31, 2014

In the community engagement universe, there''s a high premium on arts organizations becoming "embedded" in their communities. I''m proud of the way that my own museum works on embeddedness. I learn twice; once in the writing, and once in the reading and engaging with commenters. Comments are down. Of importance.

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Conversation Museum Comment Culture 32

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 9, 2017

Hosted by a sound art collective, Ultra-red, the 2015 event promised "to investigate listening as a political activity and to interrogate the stakes of participation in neoliberalism." When should you turn down the invitation to share your voice? There are many ways for voices to get chopped and twisted.

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Participatory Museum Voice Press 20

Museum 2.0

MARCH 11, 2015

In art institutions, we typically treat the curator as the arbiter of quality. I''m not sure how well this is working for us in museum-land. As our culture explodes in embracing creativity across the professional/amateur spectrum, museums have two choices: we can sharpen the line. and his voice getting lost in the waves.

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Professional Artist Museum Arts 20

Museum 2.0

JUNE 17, 2015

Last week, I sat on the jury for the first Cultural Innovation International Prize given by the Center for Contemporary Culture in Barcelona , and this week, I'm offering a workshop for museum professionals across Poland participating together in a "Museum Lab" in Warsaw. The second post , in which Museum 2.0

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Difference Poland Museum Minnesota 20

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 19, 2015

One of my favorite comments on the first post in this series came from Lyndall Linaker, an Australian museum worker, who asked: " Who decides what is relevant? Community First Program Design At the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History , we've gravitated towards a "community first" program planning model.

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Teen Museum Voice Collaboration 20

Museum 2.0

APRIL 29, 2015

These are the slides and notes for the talk I gave at the American Alliance of Museums conference on Monday, April 27 about the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. When I became the director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History four years ago, I took this work with me.

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Build Community Museum Artist 20

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 13, 2007

This week, a look at the third section of Visitor Voices , the excellent book coedited by Kathy McLean and Wendy Pollock. Who controls the content in the museum? Who controls the museum experience? First, museum content. First, museum content. Who controls the meaning making? Is one of these better than the other?

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Voice Create Museum Arts 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 31, 2011

Last week, at the annual meeting of the American Association of Museums in Houston, I was honored to chair a fabulous panel on empowering museum staff to take creative risks ( slides here ). Beck beautifully described her entry into museum work. What kind of support do you need to be confident about taking a risk in your work?

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Denver Museum Oakland PowerPoint 55

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 16, 2013

It's not every day that a visitor buys pizza for everyone in the museum. Then again, Saturday was hardly normal at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. The museum itself was well-integrated into the event. Or that visitors form a spontaneous "laugh circle" on the floor. Online to onsite migration isn't always easy.

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Reflection Community Museum Participatory 43

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. Feel free to add your own questions and answers in the comments! The Museum 2.0 For more on the differences among different types of museums (with examples), check out this post.

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Question Participatory Museum Evaluation 49

Museum 2.0

APRIL 18, 2008

Thanks to Bryan Kennedy from the Science Museum of Minnesota for providing this overview/reflection on the Museums and the Web conference that recently concluded in Montreal. Museums and the Web 2008 guest blogger Bryan Kennedy here. The Walker Art Center is turning its teen website over to the teens. So what's next?

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Museum 2.0

JULY 7, 2010

I don't know - and I hope you'll share your thoughts in the comments. As Peter wrote: If someone enjoys Arts Event A because it’s social, informal, energetic, fun, and hip, why should we expect her to also enjoy Arts Event B if B is individual, formal, quiet, serious, and traditional (at least in its presentation, if not artistically)?

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Audience Museum Oakland Participatory 40

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

SEPTEMBER 19, 2008

Nina Simon, Museum 2.0   (We'll be doing the nitty gritty in October)    For some reason, I landed on this excellent post by Nina Simon that categorizes different types of museum blogs.  What is the voice of the blog?   If so, share the URL and a lesson learned in the comments below.

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Remix Aggregator Museum Indiana 69

Museum 2.0

MARCH 25, 2015

This is the first in a two-part series about the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History’s new theory of change. This week, Ian David Moss and I are each writing blog posts about our collaborative process to develop a theory of change at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. We had tripled our attendance.

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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

Forum One

FEBRUARY 19, 2024

This Black History Month, we reflect on the strategy work that our team does through our partnership with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture —much of which centers around expanding access. And for those who have, they quickly understand that the Museum has much more to offer than can be absorbed in a day.

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History Accessibility Museum Award 74

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 2, 2008

Today, Museum 2.0 And when I think back on the last year and how it compared to year one of blogging, the shining difference is you--your interest, your comments, and most of all, your extraordinary example. I started the Museum 2.0 I started the Museum 2.0 and watched the Museum 2.0 and watched the Museum 2.0

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Museum Voice Minnesota Participatory 20

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 25, 2009

Many institutions do this unintentionally--by providing post-its or comment books, pens or crayons. I encourage you to share your own rules and thoughts on this in the comments. Rabinowitz commented that "as a 40-year veteran of history museum interpretation, I can say that I never learned so much from and about visitors."

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Design Goal Difference Platform 31

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

DECEMBER 31, 2008

I use a variety of tools for this analysis, including Google Analytics, Feedburner subscriber counts, and manually tracking comment to post ratios (typepad doesn't have a nifty plugin like wordpress to automate that grunge work) A tool that use to evlauate my content is PostRank. Microblogging in a Museum Context. Twitter Demographics.

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ROI Widget Metrics Cambodia 50

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.

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Case Study Participatory Studies Museum 20

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. Museum staff create an exhibit by a traditional internal design process, but the exhibit, once open, invites visitors to contribute their own stories and participation.

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Participatory Design Difference Museum 27

Museum 2.0

MAY 29, 2007

One of the most popular posts on Museum 2.0 The fourth kind I talked about is the "personal voice blog," in which museum staff write honestly and openly about their institution and experiences. At the time, I referenced a blog from the top: the Walters Art Museum Director's blog. Floor staff. Check it out.

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Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 22, 2009

I've added a fourth model to this citizen science typology, one may be more appropriate to facilities like museums than to scientific organizations: co-option. What's more participatory, making art or doing research? Working with the museum or using the museum as a platform to do your own thing?

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Public Research Participatory Report 36

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 21, 2008

In this post, an exploration of ways that museums can support promoters, convert detractors, and generally energize visitors to share their experience with others. Supporting Promoters Somewhere out there, there are people who love your museum. Ratings and Reviews Imagine a visitor who leaves your museum enthused about her experience.

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