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. The exhibit is dynamic and changes somewhat in response to visitors' actions. In the first case, you are making the design process participatory.

Participatory 27

Participatory Design Difference Museum 27

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. But overall, this is a model project that starts with an outcome, not an activity.

Participatory 48

Participatory Music Project Video 48

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?" We're hearing on a daily basis that the museum has a new role in peoples' lives and in the identity of the county.

Audience 47

Audience Museum Participatory History 47

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

MARCH 7, 2007

I'm reminded of the March of Dimes - flickr contest - that asked people to photograph where they kept their change because a handful of change is what preemie weighs at birth. I read a post about user-generated content from the fresh+new blog which is focused on new media in museums. Paid media: Old advertising model

Meme 50

Meme Participatory Campaign Flickr 50

Museum 2.0

APRIL 4, 2012

Museums have been grappling with this question for years ( here's a 2007 roundup of such projects ), most aggressively in zoos and natural history museums where staff hope to inspire conservation and in history/concept museums that focus on civic engagement and activism. No small task for a museum exhibition.

Story 47

Story Participatory Museum History 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 this report, the authors describe three specific models for public participation: contribution, collaboration, and co-creation. This isn't just a rhetorical question.

Public 36

Public Research Participatory Report 36

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." I learned years ago that technology doesn't drive change as much as our cultural response to technology does." " My slides and resources are here. Via RSA Networks blog.

Chicago 50

Chicago Museum Network Conference 50

Museum 2.0

MAY 9, 2012

Last week, I was in Minneapolis for the American Association of Museums annual meeting. Kathleen McLean led a terrific session called "Dangerous Ridiculous" about risk-taking in museums. Interestingly, at my museum, our team is naturally better at ridiculous than we are at dangerous. I found this idea really powerful.

Reflection 43

Reflection Columbus Museum Participatory 43

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. Or “I love the MAH because it is a truly participatory space where diverse groups can enjoy, express themselves, and learn from/about/with others.”

Public 27

Public Museum Arts History 27

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

For years, I've been fascinated and a bit perplexed by the Elsewhere Collaborative , a thrift store turned artists' studio/living museum in Greensboro, North Carolina. What values change in that not so subtle shift between people, things, and the common space shared between them?

Collaboration 36

Collaboration North Carolina Museum Artist 36

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 23, 2018

This project wove together many different participatory threads. It empowered our partners, deeply touched our visitors, and catalyzed real community change. We'd love to see this model evolve and grow. Short story: we learned a lot. We wrote a toolkit about our process. You can download it for free right now.

Issue 45

Issue Childhood Community Create 45

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

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

Sure, I admire cultural organizations that have a strong mission to change education or diversify access or transform the role of art in everyday life, but I'm an insider. The election season, as well as a recent research study on museum membership, has change my perspective on this.

Product 51

Product Build Museum Arts 51

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 20, 2017

Last month, I went to an amazing training called the Skid Row School for Social Change. I attended because I'm seeking new ways to share the MAH's model and support the development of more community-centered cultural institutions around the world. Some people are rightfully fearful of "dumbing down" their model for scale.

Turkey 26

Turkey Model Museum Adopt 26

Museum 2.0

MARCH 18, 2015

There are lots of great science museum resources, but not where these kids can walk after school. So the Community Science Workshop model is to put a drop-in, FREE community science center in a place that is walkable to kids'' lives and schools. We''re really different from traditional science centers in our funding model.

Green 20

Green Interview Share Community 20

Museum 2.0

JUNE 22, 2009

What do you do when you encounter a really great and unusual idea, one that you could implement but would require you to change some aspect of what you are currently doing? I'm working on a personal project (slowly) to open a cafe/bar venue that is also a design incubator for participatory exhibits. My model is the shining star.

Action 31

Action Ideas St. Louis Museum 31

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." This seems like an appropriate time to share the story.

Museum 52

Museum Boston Participatory Job 52

Museum 2.0

JUNE 1, 2010

You can join the conversation in the blog comments, or on the Museum 2.0 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. This is the only post written by me, Nina Simon.

Place 41

Place Discussion Culture Museum 41

Museum 2.0

APRIL 22, 2008

Why discuss gifting on Museum 2.0? One of my greatest interests is the "p articipatory museum," in which there is substantive, unfacilitated visitor-to-visitor interaction. When I heard the tollbooth story, I started thinking about gifting as a model for participatory experiences in museums.

Gift 23

Gift Participatory Museum Model 23

Museum 2.0

MAY 29, 2009

Two weeks ago, I conducted a participatory exhibit design workshop with staff at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Between the giant squid brainstorming and experimentation, I gave a talk to the larger Smithsonian Institution about multi-platform museum experiences. The slides are also available for download.

Slides 20

Slides Process Video Open 20

Museum 2.0

MARCH 21, 2011

This expresses itself most powerfully in museums when we talk about building relationships with visitors over time. But museums are one-night stand amnesiacs in the relationship department. This is terrible, both for the visitor and for the museum. I expect you'll remember some basic things about me--say, my name. We hang out.

Relationship 46

Relationship Museum Game Personal 46

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 29, 2009

Last week, Jim Richardson and I hosted MuseumNext , a 24-hour workshop for museum professionals focused on bringing new, wild museum projects into the world. We also ended the entire event with one of my favorite exercises, the Exquisite Corpse game, in which participants co-created comics of their craziest museum dreams.

Facilitation 32

Facilitation Reflection Museum Participatory 32

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 12, 2017

It was even more useful to learn how participatory writing visions can be. In the Zingerman's model, visioning is for everyone at all levels of the organization. Writing a vision can empower you, clarify your thinking, and help you change the world. It's for anyone who wants to go somewhere in their day, their year, their life.

History 26

History Pennsylvania Michigan Indiana 26

Museum 2.0

MAY 19, 2010

How, he asked, could a large museum that serves hundreds of thousands of people per year foster the same sense of personal connection and community that a small one can achieve? I think small museums are generally better than large ones at fostering local communities of visitors and members.

Community 21

Community Museum Participatory Relationship 21

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 22, 2012

What happens when a formal art museum invites a group of collaborative, participatory artists to be in residence for a year? Will the artists ruin the museum with their plant vacations and coatroom concerts? But for museum and art wonks, it could be. Will the bureaucracy of the institution drown the artists in red tape?

Artist 39

Artist Museum Project Public 39

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. Some museum pros have been puzzled by this.

Virtual 21

Virtual Tech Lesson Develop 21

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 last one was on arts innovation and change , also from Irvine.) We all have business models. Core Museum 2.0 We all have missions.

Report 52

Report Malaysia Memphis Museum 52

Museum 2.0

APRIL 24, 2012

I'm heading this weekend to the American Association of Museums conference in Minneapolis. I'll also be part of two sessions on Tuesday, May 1 - one in the morning about money and business models, and one in the afternoon about prototyping and experimentation. About 85% of visitors to our museum attend through a program/event.

Conversation 43

Conversation Participatory Museum Minneapolis 43

Museum 2.0

JUNE 2, 2010

This year, the American Association of Museums annual conference was in Los Angeles (my hometown). I hosted two sessions, one on design for participation and the other on mission-driven museum technology development. He started with museums as a "place to go"--to see things, consume experiences.

Slides 22

Slides Museum Los Angeles San Jose 22

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 8, 2008

I have a lot of conversations with people that go like this: Other person: "So, you think that museums should let visitors control the museum experience?" Other person: "But doesn't that erode museums' authority?" If the museum isn't in control, how can it thrive? We have to change the framing of this conversation.

Authoring 42

Authoring Platform Museum YouTube 42

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 4, 2008

How many museums have stacks of comment books that are only culled for the gushing quotes that belong on annual reports? How many exhibit evaluations happen after opening, with no significant money allotted to make changes that arise from research? But getting information from visitors is not enough.

Museum 20

Museum Participatory Evaluation Chapter 20

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 7, 2009

Every time a colleague tells me her museum has just hired a "community person," a part of me cringes. The project was a chaotic experiment in several ways, and because things kept changing, the community had to keep relying on me as their sole source of information about how things would move forward. This is a problem.

Community 40

Community Management Museum Aggregator 40

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 11, 2008

s Hawaiian son as applied to museums. While there are some criticisms of its consensus-based model for information-vetting, there's no doubt of its success as a collaborative knowledge-creation project. Consider these two stories of museum-related wikis that struggled. The participatory "ask" is high--to create original content.

Wiki 23

Wiki Wikipedia Museum Doc 23

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 6, 2019

Dear friends, This is my last post as the author of Museum 2.0. I'm thrilled that Seema Rao is taking this blog and museum community into its next chapter. You can find all my archived Museum 2.0 Today, I want to share a bit about what Museum 2.0 When I think of Museum 2.0, I started the Museum 2.0

Museum 27

Museum Reflection Participatory Attitude 27

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

As many of you know, I’m writing a book about participatory design for museums. The book is intended to be a practical guide to participatory museum experiences focused on design strategies, case studies, and activities. The WHY of participatory design is really important.

Participatory 26

Participatory Design Museum Wiki 26

Non Profit Quarterly

NOVEMBER 17, 2021

The theory of change involves both encouraging local economic activity—increasing the economic multiplier effect, in technical parlance—while fostering bonds of community. Given the lack of established models, there will undoubtedly be some unanticipated curves ahead.

Local 101

Local Digital Experiment Alternative 101

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

I was talking this week with Mark Allen, the founder of Machine Project (an alternative arts space in LA), about different models for community engagement in cultural institutions. A museum can be friendly, or serious, or funny, while maintaining a traditional relationship with visitors as consumers of experiences.

Voice 42

Voice Los Angeles Denver Museum 42