Connection Cafe

NOVEMBER 11, 2016

Alan’s background as both a technology consultant and a CIO in museums and other cultural institutions meant he brought a unique perspective to a hot topic: technology implementations. During Alan’s session, he really focused on the importance of organization culture in technology projects. How we engage and collaborate.

Culture 39

Culture Design Technology Consultant 39

Museum 2.0

JULY 17, 2013

Last week, my museum hosted Hack the Museum Camp , a 2.5 day adventure in which teams of adults--75 people, of whom about half are museum professionals, half creative folks of various stripes--developed an experimental exhibition around our permanent collection in our largest gallery.

Museum 49

Museum Arts History Professional 49

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

Museum 2.0

JUNE 17, 2010

This morning, I gave the keynote address for the Washington Museums Association annual conference. Their theme was “Building Community through Collaboration.” Collaborations with community members often can't get off the ground because they are seen as too unwieldy to be worthwhile. It features lots of museum-based examples.

Collaboration 34

Collaboration Museum Minneapolis Oakland 34

Museum 2.0

MAY 6, 2016

Five years ago, I left the consulting world to take the helm at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (MAH) at a time of crisis and change. We have spent the past three years planning and raising money for a project to build a creative town square for our city on the front porch of the museum. We started bootstrapping growth.

Museum 20

Museum Director Arts History 20

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 30, 2013

Earlier this fall, I read this headline: "Stanford study: Participation in a cultural activity may reduce prejudice." I eagerly read about a new social psychology research study in which whites, Asians, and Latinos engaged in a simple collaborative activity--making a music video together. I wanted to know more.

Measure 47

Measure Arts People Museum 47

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. We heard again and again that the museum was cold and uncomfortable.

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Museum Learning History Arts 55

Museum 2.0

JULY 10, 2018

The museum was in huge financial trouble. My expertise was on inviting strangers to participate in public settings like museums. I had lots of creative formats for drawing people out, sharing stories, and working collaboratively. Sounds like great participation to me. I remember the first staff meeting I ever ran.

Hosting 31

Hosting Arts Help Museum 31

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 12, 2011

This week, the National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy released a new paper by Holly Sidford called Fusing Arts, Culture, and Social Change. The title may sound innocuous. We may say that we want to support programming and cultural opportunities for low-income and non-white people, but that's not where the money is going.

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Arts Fund Artist Houston 52

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. Sounds good?

Museum 34

Museum Participatory Arts Attitude 34

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 4, 2016

Photo by CLoé Zarifian, MAH Photo Intern We're working with a guest curator, Wes Modes , on an upcoming experimental project at our museum. Wes is an artist, and this is his first time running a museum exhibition development process. This open call project may sound like one that is uniquely suited for participatory input.

Participatory 20

Participatory Question Work Artist 20

Museum 2.0

MARCH 27, 2013

I've written about different structures for participatory processes (especially in museums), and recently, I've been interested in how we can apply these structures to the design of public space. Lots of trust involved Adults serve as listeners, observers and sounding boards (i.e. Kids frequently suffer from tokenism.

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Design Participatory Children Museum 49

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 5, 2008

I was fascinated by our discussion, and Bob came to mind last month, when I was asked to write an article for the Association of Children's Museums quarterly journal, Hand to Hand , about children's museums and Web 2.0. To understand more, I turned to Elaine Gurian's article The Molting of Children's Museums? Why the uniformity?

Classroom 22

Classroom Children Museum Model 22

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. The Museum 2.0 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.

Question 49

Question Participatory Museum Evaluation 49

Museum 2.0

JUNE 18, 2014

If you are reading this outside the United States, this sounds ridiculously basic. I got into museum work because learning happens in many places and many ways. It just requires a few things: Mutual respect, coordination, and collaboration among organizations that work at different levels of expertise, budget, and scale.

Arts 47

Arts Build United States Audience 47

Museum 2.0

MAY 24, 2011

Ken is a game designer and writer who develops narrative, collaborative augmented reality experiences about serious issues. GISKIN ANOMALY is a “historical fiction” game I created for Rich Cherry and the Balboa Park Online Collaborative. Lessons Learned 3: This is not a museum talking (what a relief!) As I said, a strange story.

Lesson 49

Lesson Game San Diego Design 49

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 24, 2019

This month we’ve been thinking about “What is a museum?” (I'm I’ve been visiting museums my whole life. Does that make me the best judge of museums? People are the defining characteristics of museums. I’ve worked with and at plenty of museums that can sometimes feel empty. I'm not alone there.

Museum 36

Museum Place Life Ohio 36

Forum One

DECEMBER 13, 2023

Within the organization, the AARP Public Policy Institute maintains the AARP Livability Index , a key tool in their mission to promote the development of sound policies to address common needs for economic security, health care, and quality of life. Forum One partnered with the Museum to launch their new brand to the world.

Celebrate 67

Celebrate Award Colorado Museum 67

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 8, 2006

Elisa’s focus is interactive arts, media design, and cultural management, and she has been involved in many pertinent projects, such as MUVI (the Virtual Museum of the Collective Memory of Lombardia). the question of how cultural objects are defined and valued and 2. How are you selecting the people who will record the sounds?

Interview 20

Interview Museum Culture Sound 20

Forum One

DECEMBER 13, 2023

Within the organization, the AARP Public Policy Institute maintains the AARP Livability Index , a key tool in their mission to promote the development of sound policies to address common needs for economic security, health care, and quality of life. We partnered with the Museum to launch their new brand to the world.

Celebrate 46

Celebrate Award Colorado Museum 46

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 24, 2011

This post features an interview with Sarah Schultz, a museum staffer at one of the institutions Light profiled in the book (the Walker Art Center). In my experience, innovation is about flexibility, capacity, and collaborative relationships. We are culturally in a time of serious recalibration and that's a bumpy ride.

Arts 46

Arts Interview Teen Artist 46

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 8, 2008

Today, the Luce Center at the Smithsonian American Art Museum (SAAM) is launching what they claim is the first ever alternate reality game (ARG) in a museum. Why would an art museum create an ARG? To tap into maker culture. And the "stuff" of the game is real stuff, artifacts created by players and sent to the museum.

Game 20

Game Museum Arts Alternative 20

Museum 2.0

MARCH 9, 2007

At the risk of sounding like the biggest dork on the East Coast, a few weeks ago I sat down with some friends to play the new Lord of the Rings board game. I think about this a lot with regard to museums and data. museum, in which every time a guest hits a button their entry is recorded and used to create something great.

Game 20

Game Museum Alternative Storytelling 20

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

OCTOBER 19, 2006

This morning I attended the MacArthur Foundation Digital Learning briefing that was taking place at the Natural History Museum in NYC. These are complex learning environments where young people are making decisions, learning and collaborating with peers, etc. Jenkins from MIT described something called "convergence culture."

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Digital Learning Media Avatar 50

Museum 2.0

MAY 7, 2010

Sound scary? The piece was developed in collaboration with Yoon Jin Kim, a Korean choreographer based in Seoul, and it uses the centuries-old idea of the kiseang, a geisha-like Korean woman who serves men, as the basis for a radical and provocative program.

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Audience New York Instruction Instructional 37

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

Amy Sample Ward

FEBRUARY 28, 2011

It sounded great, until her last comment: She told me that it was a really important program, because libraries are the heart of the community…well, in elementary schools at least. That word change supports co-design, it encourages collaboration, and it ensures engagement. Communities are flexible.

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Library Model Adopt Community 241

Museum 2.0

JULY 23, 2013

Any job with the word “coordinator” in it sounds like you might spend your time sorting socks into pairs. But this job is really important to the future of our museum, and I’m hoping that you or someone you know might be a great fit for it. What kinds of programs should we consider providing for these groups?

Program 39

Program Museum Work History 39

Museum 2.0

JUNE 12, 2012

It made me think in ways that I haven't before about the relation of art--as expressive culture--to democracy. Helene Moglen, professor of literature, UCSC After a year of tinkering, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History is now showing an exhibition, All You Need is Love , that embodies our new direction as an institution.

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Participatory Museum Blackboard Game 51