Museum 2.0

JULY 10, 2018

I had lots of creative formats for drawing people out, sharing stories, and working collaboratively. Priya Parker's wonderful book The Art of Gathering shares the core principles of how to drive. Here are my three big takeaways from The Art of Gathering : Hosting is an exercise in courageous leadership. Take the lead.

Hosting 31

Hosting Arts Help Museum 31

Museum 2.0

MAY 3, 2010

Last week, I attended Structure Lab , a half-day workshop on legal and financial structures for ventures for social good. Like many people in the arts, I'm interested in new models that help people combine mission-driven work with an entrepreneurial spirit.

Structure 31

Structure Model Social Profit 31

Museum 2.0

APRIL 7, 2009

Which of these descriptions exemplifies participatory museum practice? But the difference between the two examples teases out a problem in differentiating "participatory design" from "design for participation." In the first case, you are making the design process participatory. In the second, you make the product participatory.

Participatory 27

Participatory Design Difference Museum 27

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.

Wikipedia 40

Wikipedia Arts Museum Images 40

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. This could be a serious research opportunity for someone interested in impact assessment, community attitudes towards the arts, and the role museums can play in transforming communities.

Museum 34

Museum Participatory Arts Attitude 34

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.

Artist 49

Artist Museum Proposal Participatory 49

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 24, 2012

To that end, our exhibitions are full of participatory elements. They can contribute their own stories, objects, and creative work to exhibitions. We actively seek participation and develop structured opportunities for visitors to collaborate with us. Visitors can comment on how we can improve or what they would like to see.

Platform 41

Platform Open Museum Participatory 41

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.

Museum 45

Museum Question Participatory Evaluation 45

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

SEPTEMBER 8, 2014

The Leading Change Summit was more intimate (several hundred people), participatory and interactive, intense, and stimulating. A good facilitator knows how to shift or tweak the lesson plan in real time if it isn’t working as planned. However, it is harder to make pivots when you have a team that has not worked together before.

Reflection 124

Reflection NTEN Change Facilitation 124

Museum 2.0

APRIL 25, 2011

Granted, I live in an increasingly narrow world of people who are exploring these topics and want me to work with them, but I still learn a lot from the questions and struggles I hear from colleagues and people who comment on the blog. Are there certain kinds of institutions that are more well-suited for participatory techniques than others?

Question 49

Question Participatory Museum Evaluation 49

Museum 2.0

MARCH 13, 2013

Visitor-contributed photos surround a collection piece in Carnegie Museum of Art's Oh Snap! It can be incredibly difficult to design a participatory project that involves online and onsite visitor engagement. is a project that lets real-world and virtual visitors share their work in our gallery. At its core, Oh Snap!

Authoring 53

Authoring Open Experiment Museum 53

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 1, 2014

It made me dig up this 2011 interview with Tina Olsen (then at the Portland Art Museum) about their extraordinary Object Stories project. They designed a participatory project that delivers a compelling end product for onsite and online visitors… and they learned some unexpected lessons along the way. So what did you do next?

Museum 43

Museum Story Project Design 43

Museum 2.0

MAY 21, 2014

LinkedIn has a new feature where people can congratulate each other on work anniversaries. 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. Participatory work can be very labor-intensive.

Museum 49

Museum Director History Teen 49

Museum 2.0

JULY 7, 2010

Most of my work contracts involve a conversation that goes something like this: "We want to find ways to make our institution more participatory and lively." Most museums that offer interactive exhibits, media elements, or participatory activities offer them alongside traditional labels and interpretative tools. Fabulous!" "But

Audience 40

Audience Museum Oakland Participatory 40

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-creation model, visitors and the institution work together from the beginning to define the project's goals and to generate the program or exhibit based on community interests.

Public 36

Public Research Participatory Report 36

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 2, 2011

We're seeking great folks for public programs, participatory exhibit design, online marketing, 3D design, and whatever else you might have to offer. At our museum, we don't provide a lot of structured mentorship for interns. At this time, we're not ready to offer people highly structured internships. We might never get there.

Museum 35

Museum Student Participatory Structure 35

Museum 2.0

MARCH 28, 2012

At the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (MAH), we've started experimenting with a "community first" approach to program development. There are many amazing community representatives from business, arts, education, and social services who connect us to powerful ideas and partners. Six goals for MAH community programs.

Program 49

Program Community Design Museum 49

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

On September 10, the Whitney Museum of American Art started offering a new membership called "Curate Your Own," in which members select one of five specialized "buckets" of benefits in addition to core admission and discount benefits. People want to experience art in quite individual ways. How did this project start?

Interview 46

Interview Director Museum Arts 46

Museum 2.0

JUNE 1, 2010

Like many museum and library professionals, I am enamored of the idea of cultural institutions as “third places” – public venues for informal, peaceable, social engagement outside of home or work. While the talk may encompass serious topics, the attitude is light and the conversation is not structured or overly guided. Longer hours.

Place 41

Place Discussion Culture Museum 41

Museum 2.0

MAY 3, 2011

Last week, I talked with Tina Olsen, Director of Education and Public Programs at the Portland Art Museum, about their extraordinary Object Stories project. They designed a participatory project that delivers a compelling end product for onsite and online visitors… and they made some unexpected decisions along the way.

Story 53

Story Interview Museum Audio 53

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 29, 2009

It was held in Newcastle in the north of England, and about 70 folks from around the world (but mostly Europe) came to play, learn, make stuff, and help each other work out challenges inherent in trying to make risky ideas happen. That said, the phrase "structured opportunity" is where MuseumNext suffered most. Facilitator bits.

Facilitation 32

Facilitation Reflection Museum Participatory 32

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. We are unapologetic about focusing local.

Build 20

Build Community Museum Artist 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 5, 2009

Visitor Co-Created Museum Experiences This session was a dream for me, one that brought together instigators of three participatory exhibit projects: MN150 (Kate Roberts), Click! Some of the key lessons we discussed were: providing crystal-clear criteria and constraints to help participants focus their work.

Slides 20

Slides Participatory Museum Children 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 16, 2007

I can just imagine the headline: CHILD MOLESTERS CALL ON ART, VICTIMS. Structure the space with a clear story (and commensurate rules). Structure means context, and context means norms that people can easily grasp and deal with. I once worked in a children's museum once where all the floor staff wore blue vests.

Museum 20

Museum Myspace Facilitation Social Network 20

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 5, 2013

Our museum in Santa Cruz has been slammed by those who believe participatory experiences have gone too far. We always knew that the inclusion of participatory and community-centered practices in arts institutions was controversial. To me, the backlash against participatory and community-centered experiences is not surprising.

Participatory 53

Participatory Museum Arts History 53

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 2, 2008

Institutions tying their online and onsite activities, as the Ontario Science Centre did when it hosted a YouTube meetup , or the Smithsonian American Art Museum did when they developed an alternate reality game. But enough of these experiences have convinced me that the participatory museum is not a fringe concept. There is funding.

Museum 20

Museum Voice Minnesota Participatory 20

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 25, 2009

One of the things that makes the visitor stories contributed in the Denver Art Museum's Side Trip exhibition so compelling and on-topic is a design approach that elevates visitors' responses to comparable footing with the predesigned content. What have you seen work well, and what have you seen fail?

Design 31

Design Goal Difference Platform 31

Museum 2.0

JUNE 6, 2008

On June 4, we opened The Tech Virtual Test Zone , a new 2000 sq ft gallery at The Tech Museum of Innovation featuring exhibits on the theme of art, film, and music that were originally developed in Second Life by a community of creative amateurs. It's also standard practice in community arts programs. We'd talk about the work itself.

Virtual 21

Virtual Tech Lesson Develop 21

Everyaction

OCTOBER 5, 2016

Your great work will be validated, and you will be energized to move beyond current paradigms and find innovative ways to increase your impact. Affect is a new community event highlighting the diversity of work and design behind social change. National Arts Marketing Project Conference. Marketing & Communications.

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Conference Calendar DC Washington 111

sgEngage

DECEMBER 5, 2023

Raise your hand if you’ve ever had a bad experience working with a group of people to make a decision. Maybe it was a work task force, a school committee, or family members. It often takes clarity of roles and purview and even some structure to do that. New to Participatory Grantmaking? Most of us have.

Participatory 86

Participatory Facilitation Philanthropy Skills 86

Museum 2.0

JULY 30, 2014

Our work to transform the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History into a participatory and community-centered place has been heavily supported by the James Irvine Foundation. The report is a slim 12 pages on the common characteristics of arts organizations that successfully and continuously engage diverse audiences.

Report 52

Report Malaysia Memphis Museum 52

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

FEBRUARY 13, 2007

I personally want to move away from the metaphor of making movies of the computer screen to more shoulder-to-shoulder instructional media and perhaps something that is more participatory or for lack of a better word, social. Tagging in Art Museums. Maybe it is more like moment capture. 2) Bookmarks can???t Tagging Nonprofit Missions.

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Screencast Instruction Instructional Tag 50

Non Profit Quarterly

NOVEMBER 17, 2021

Back in 2006, the Schumacher Center for a New Economics , a nonprofit where I work, helped to established BerkShares , Inc. When the BerkShares currency launched in 2006, it involved something of a gamble: that a moribund tradition of local currency issue could still work to bolster local economic activity in the 21 st century.

Local 104

Local Digital Experiment Alternative 104

Museum 2.0

JULY 24, 2012

When we talk about making museums or performing arts organizations more participatory and dynamic, those changes are often seen as threatening to the traditional arts experience. But what if the "traditional" arts experiences is a myth? What if historic arts experiences were actually a lot more participatory?

Greece 51

Greece Arts Industry Participatory 51

Museum 2.0

JUNE 11, 2014

This post was written by my colleague Nora Grant, Community Programs Coordinator at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. At the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (MAH) , we have been experimenting with a kind of pop up museum that is primarily created by the people who show up to participate.

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Museum Grant Lesson History 49

Museum 2.0

MAY 28, 2014

For a long time, I’ve admired their ambitious work, from exhibitions on complex topics like network science to integration of contemporary art into their galleries to incredible dedication to advancing the careers of diverse youth in Queens. I was struck by how this is partly interactive, but within a structured, linear narrative.

Help 45

Help Museum eBook Project 45

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 15, 2009

It launched in October of 2007 with a very simple and understandable idea: to produce a global map of pieces of art made with stones on beaches. The act of making art, and the recognition on a simple website, are the only rewards. The World Beach Project does not exist in the V&A Museum. It's not marketing hype.

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Project Museum Artist Map 38