Museum 2.0

MARCH 3, 2010

As many of you know, I've been working for the past year+ on a book about visitor participation in museums, libraries, science centers, and art galleries. The Participatory Museum is a practical guide to visitor participation. The Participatory Museum is an attempt at providing such a resource.

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Participatory Museum Vietnam Netherlands 30

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

OCTOBER 30, 2013

Earlier this fall, I read this headline: "Stanford study: Participation in a cultural activity may reduce prejudice." When the music video was focused on Mexican culture, the researchers found that the white and Asian participants demonstrated a decrease in prejudice against Latinos, both immediately after the activity and six months later.

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Measure Arts People Museum 47

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 31, 2012

Ever wish for a low-cost, energizing professional development experience where you can work intensely with diverse colleagues in a risk-tolerant environment? The Arts Dinner-vention Project - date TBD. This one was cooked up by Barry Hessenius, former director of the California Arts Council and public art blogger extraordinaire.

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Professional Develop Museum Arts 35

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 25, 2018

For the past five years, each summer, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History has hosted MuseumCamp. MuseumCamp is a professional development experience that is part retreat, part unconference, part adult summer camp. Develop compelling, powerful participatory offers and promises for your prospective partners.

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Community Participatory Museum Registration 31

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.

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Model Activities Active Activism 98

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JULY 3, 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 struggl es with in applying participatory design techniques to museum practice. open to anyone (minimize cultural bias). questions that induce grappling.

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Technique Question Design Develop 50

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 26, 2012

Visitors bond and bridge through participatory experiences at MAH. There were times when coordinating a fire art festival while researching social capital theory made me want to burn my computer. We seek to understand this by listening to and developing ongoing dialogues with a range of community members.

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Museum Program Participatory Community 49

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. Schools and other arts organizations are rising to the challenge. What should be our role(s)?

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Museum Blogger Cleveland Missouri 52

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 4, 2010

It's rare that a participatory museum project is more than a one-shot affair. Wikipedia Loves Art, Take One The first version of Wikipedia Loves Art first took place in February 2009. In contrast, the Wikimedians were focused on making cultural content digitally available online using as open a licensing structure as possible.

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Wikipedia Arts Museum Images 40

Museum 2.0

APRIL 15, 2015

"The arts are future-making." I wrote this down when Deborah Cullinan said it at a meeting of arts leaders about a year ago. We were discussing the potential for cultural organizations to have significant impact across communities: on planning, health, education, and quality of life. A fitness trail for urban life.

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San Francisco Arts Design Marketing 20

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JANUARY 18, 2011

The plan for the next year is: Train and develop 12 leaders from the MENA region (4 Strategic Advisors, 4 Country Directors/Master Trainers and 4 Training Coordinators) = In-Country Leadership Teams. Experience with Middle Eastern Culture and no experience. Some Connection Points: Learning. Efficiency.

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Network Build Yemen Morocco 95

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 18, 2013

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. In 2008 and 2009, there were many conference sessions and and documents presenting participatory case studies, most notably Wendy Pollock and Kathy McLean''s book Visitor Voices in Museum Exhibitions.

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Museum Question Participatory Evaluation 45

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. Part 2: How do you develop the right questions? instead of what is?)

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Technique Question Design Develop 52

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

OCTOBER 25, 2011

Note From Beth: Yesterday, I attended a convening called “ Beyond Dynamic Adaptability ” for arts organizations about cultural participation in the arts. Together, Fox and Fledgling developed an intensive outreach strategy through more than 500 community screenings.

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Guatemala Movie Artist Award 93

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?" but I didn't have numbers to back it up. They all have in concert, and they build on each other.

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Audience Museum Participatory History 47

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 15, 2012

We've gotten a little more organized at The Museum of Art & History , and we've now released opportunities for summer internships. These are unpaid part-time and full-time opportunities to help design public programs, develop new uses for the museum, perform visitor research, and pursue unusual projects.

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Museum Participatory Arts Attitude 34

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

SEPTEMBER 8, 2016

Last week I was honored to be a counselor at Museum Camp , an annual professional development event hosted by the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (MAH). Nina Simon, the executive director of the museum, is an expert in participatory design and fantastic facilitator. A mature employee knows how to manage up.

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Causes Change Museum Social 50

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 2, 2013

Proposals involve sculpture, performance, participatory-projects, videos, and installation that use and respond to the museum’s collection. This past July, artist Guillermo Gómez proposed to restore a piece of art. Both objects and art-objects would be part of this continuing transformation and evolution.

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Artist Museum Proposal Participatory 49

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 24, 2012

To that end, our exhibitions are full of participatory elements. We actively seek participation and develop structured opportunities for visitors to collaborate with us. Riding the art couch through downtown Santa Cruz with two visitors and a dog while blasting the Jackson 5 was one of the highlights of my year.

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Platform Open Museum Participatory 41

Museum 2.0

APRIL 25, 2011

I've seen this line of questioning almost completely disappear in the past two years due to many research studies and reports on the value and rise of participation, but in 2006-7, social media and participatory culture was still seen as nascent (and possibly a passing fad). Yes and no.

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Question Participatory Museum Evaluation 49

Museum 2.0

MAY 2, 2012

Today is my one-year anniversary as the executive director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. We went through a dramatic financial turnaround and redefined our relationship with our community through a series of experimental participatory projects and new programmatic approaches. It is incredibly rewarding work.

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Museum Director Participatory Culture 55

Museum 2.0

MARCH 14, 2017

This is the second installation 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. The MAH fundamentally has two jobs: we bring art and history out into our community, and we invite our community in.

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Public Museum Arts History 27

Museum 2.0

JULY 17, 2012

But we've just compiled all our attendance data for the past year at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (our fiscal year ends on June 30), and several people have written to me asking for the numbers behind our turnaround. develop a system for tracking and rewarding repeat participation. were shamelessly resourceful.

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Museum History Arts Artist 47

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.

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Museum Difference Participatory History 29

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

AUGUST 29, 2006

I met Janet Salmons many years ago while I working on various arts and technology projects in New York State for the New York Foundation for the Arts. I started in the Cornell University Center for Theatre Arts , where I founded and directed two programs: Cornell Theatre Outreach and the Community-Based Arts Project.

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Arts Community Online Intergenerational 50

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 13, 2012

We can change that by embracing participatory culture and opening up to the active, social ways that people engage with art, history, science, and ideas today. Right now, they're often seen as elitist organizations serving an diminishing percentage of our population. I know that not all public participation is substantive.

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Museum Open Charlotte Participatory 55

Museum 2.0

MAY 9, 2012

Our curator writes labels about licking the art. And I talked about some of the challenges of finding the right income and expense models for a museum that operates more like a community center than a traditional cultural institution. Merilee Mostov and the Columbus Museum of Art. Participatory art and co-creation on the rise.

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Reflection Columbus Museum Participatory 43

Museum 2.0

MAY 21, 2014

I''ve now been the executive director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History for three years. We work hard to name and build our culture in many ways. Institutional culture is something I never really understood before and I am now completely fascinated by how it can shape work. Naming our goals and our culture.

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Museum Director History Teen 49

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 18, 2012

Many exhibit developers create thoughtful interactives intended for all ages and then discover that old familiar pattern--kids engaging while parents stand back and watch. Major research studies by the NEA and others demonstrate that adults well into their 60s are highly motivated to participate actively with cultural experiences.

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Interaction Design Museum Participatory 47

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. In the co-option model, the institution turns over a portion of its facilities and resources to support programs developed and implemented by external public groups.

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Public Research Participatory Report 36

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

OCTOBER 12, 2006

Joitske Hulsebosch, who lives and works in Netherlands, writes a blog called " Communities of practice for development " where she writes about topics related to her work of facilitating processes at different levels; teams, groups, organizations, networks, and communities of practice. The art of advising communities of practice.

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Develop Ghana Zambia Mali 50

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 14, 2013

A critical part of the scientific method is the development of a hypothesis, which can then be tested with well controlled research. We worked with an anthropologist studying the evolution of coordination to develop Experimonth: Do You Know What I Know You Know? ,

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Museum Roles Game Participatory 51

Museum 2.0

APRIL 8, 2010

Many of the talks are related to The Participatory Museum and I will have books for sale on all of these forays. I'm giving a free talk at the Smithsonian American Art Museum on the evening of the 22nd, and then a free workshop on the 23rd at the National Postal Museum on designing better mechanisms for visitor feedback and response.

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Los Angeles Museum Participatory Minneapolis 22

Museum 2.0

MAY 21, 2010

Hosting a session on Monday at 2pm on Design for Participation with participatory design gurus Kathleen McLean and Dan Spock, along with research extraordinaire Kris Morrissey and participatory art rockstar Mark Allen. The Brewery Art Colony. Tags: Quick Hits professional development. The Newsroom Cafe.

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Los Angeles Participatory Museum Arts 20

Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology

JUNE 29, 2007

Home About Me Subscribe Zen and the Art of Nonprofit Technology Thoughtful and sometimes snarky perspectives on nonprofit technology Gender, Race and Open Source June 29, 2007 My session on Free and Open Source software and the US Social Forum went great yesterday. The presentation is available on my wiki (it’s at the bottom.)

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Open Source Open Software Music 100

Museum 2.0

MARCH 28, 2012

How do you develop programs that are responsive to your community in a meaningful way? At the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (MAH), we've started experimenting with a "community first" approach to program development. Six goals for MAH community programs. Then, we went honeycomb-crazy.

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Program Community Design Museum 49