Museum 2.0

MARCH 16, 2009

I’ve had it with museums’ obsession with open-ended self-expression. When I talk about designing participatory experiences, I often show the above graphic from Forrester Research. And yet many museums are fixated on creators. Museums see open-ended self-expression as the be-all of participatory experiences.

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Participatory Experiment Museum Teen 44

Museum 2.0

MARCH 29, 2011

Last month, I learned about a fabulous, simple participatory experiment called “Case by Case” at the San Diego Museum of Natural History that uses visitor feedback to develop more effective object labels. To date, the solution has been to put photos on the walls, pray for funding, and ignore the front-end evaluation bit.

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San Diego History Museum Participatory 55

Museum 2.0

JULY 8, 2015

I wanted to open up conversation about how we judge the relative ethics of various sources of museum revenue--all of which have moral grey areas. 20 people commented on it. A small percentage comment on it. On platforms with many participatory options, more people are more active. of game viewers commented.

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Game Museum Participatory Comment 20

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 29, 2009

It's my "artistic rendering" of one of the most inspirational participatory projects I know of--the Bibliotheek Haarlem Oost book drops. Too often, cultural institutions design participatory projects that require visitors to learn new tools or make sacrifices to contribute. Tags: design participatory museum.

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Participatory Project Library Netherlands 40

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

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 22, 2010

In the most extreme cases, I've talked to folks from museums that are government-mandated to provide all content in multiple languages who say they are unable to invite visitors to make comments because they'd have to translate all of them and simply can't dedicate the resources to do so. So what are the options?

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Museum Work North America Language 38

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 16, 2013

It's not every day that a visitor buys pizza for everyone in the museum. Or that we take a group photo together at the end of the day. Then again, Saturday was hardly normal at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. The museum itself was well-integrated into the event. Online to onsite migration isn't always easy.

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Reflection Community Museum Participatory 43

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. The museum selected and is featuring 13 works recently added to our photography collection.

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Authoring Open Experiment Museum 53

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 Are there certain kinds of institutions that are more well-suited for participatory techniques than others? Yes and no.

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Question Participatory Museum Evaluation 49

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 24, 2012

I like to ask myself this question periodically, challenging myself to find substantive ways for visitors to contribute to our museum. To that end, our exhibitions are full of participatory elements. Visitors can comment on how we can improve or what they would like to see. We don't have to convince them that it's their museum.

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Platform Open Museum Participatory 41

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

MARCH 7, 2007

Maybe he share some reflections in the comments - like for example - about the making of the video which is quite good in terms of production values, although not glossy campaign video. This is a fun meme for user=generated content -- Take a photo of yourself with sign or message related to our campaign or cause.

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Meme Participatory Campaign Flickr 50

Museum 2.0

MAY 29, 2013

At our museum, we''ve gotten better at communication up from the front desk to the office. A colleague who''s out on maternity leave posts photos of her baby and makes everyone jealous. But on Facebook, it becomes a funny thing to comment on and connect with. Kudos to Sarah for making it happen.

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Facebook Museum Participatory Adopt 55

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 28, 2010

Every once in a while I come across a project I wish I could have included in The Participatory Museum. For one year, a group of twelve schoolchildren age 9-11 were invited to work with staff at the Wallace Collection to develop a family-focused exhibition using the museum's artifacts. it's a Secret! , What made Shh.

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Children Museum Create Project 46

Museum 2.0

JULY 20, 2010

Last week, I gave a talk about participatory museum practice for a group of university students at UCSC. During the ensuing discussion, one woman asked, "Which audiences are least interested in social participation in museums?" So what's a museum to do--especially one that is funded to encourage youth and teen participation?

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Teen Social Museum Participatory 49

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.

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Museum Audio Participatory Phone 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 3, 2011

Lots of museums these days have video comment booths to invite visitors to tell their stories, but how many of those booths really deliver high-impact content? Last week, I talked with Tina Olsen, Director of Education and Public Programs at the Portland Art Museum, about their extraordinary Object Stories project.

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Story Interview Museum Audio 53

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Imagine that your museum is ready to start creating content on a small-scale in Web 2.0. Conceptually, commenting on other sites signals your institution's willingness to engage with others on their own terms. Imagine you are the Boston Museum of Science, and you are ready to make some videos to post on YouTube.

Museum 22

Museum Technorati Boston YouTube 22

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

APRIL 23, 2008

One of the best projects that illustrates the basic idea of Web2.0 - listening and conversation and stakeholders creating their own experience with your organization - comes from the Brooklyn Museum of Art. o is Transparency - and the best example of that is what the Indianapolis Art Museum has done with its pubic metrics on its web site.

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Arts Social Media Examples Artist 74

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 4, 2010

It's rare that a participatory museum project is more than a one-shot affair. But next month, Britain Loves Wikipedia will commence--the third instance of a strange and fascinating collaborative project between museums and the Wikipedia community (Wikimedians). I hope you'll share your thoughts in the comments.

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Wikipedia Arts Museum Images 40

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.

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Relationship Museum Game Personal 46

Museum 2.0

APRIL 16, 2008

I've written before about the inspiring work that the Brooklyn Museum of Art is doing with their community-focused efforts. Click is an exhibition process in three parts: The Museum solicited photographs from artists via an open call on their website, Facebook group, Flickr groups, and outreach to Brooklyn-based arts organizations.

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Museum Participatory Artist Arts 24

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. Ideas participatory museum.

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Gift Participatory Museum Model 23

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

Museum 2.0

JUNE 12, 2012

--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. This post focuses on one aspect of the exhibition: its participatory and interactive elements.

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Participatory Museum Blackboard Game 51

Museum 2.0

APRIL 1, 2008

Last year, I wrote a post explaining what Twitter is and how it might be applied in museums. Now, a year later, I’m using Twitter on a daily basis, and it’s brought up some new observations about participation on websites and in interactive venues like museums. I’d love Museum 2.0 and post an average of five comments.

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Twitter Participatory Broadcast Museum 24

Museum 2.0

APRIL 3, 2009

We tried this at the Denver Art Museum last week, and it is incredibly challenging—you can’t just put out a box of chocolates and expect people to talk. Virtual-to-real design workshop at Museums and the Web—Friday, April 17 in Indianapolis. I encourage you to take part and document your triumphs and spectacular failures on this site.

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Experiment Seattle Indianapolis Denver 20

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Unsurprisingly, some of my favorite museums are small, funky places run by iconoclasts—but that’s not useful to most professionals who work for organizations in which they have little control over size or leadership matters. Many museums are making this shift as they hire “community managers” who communicate with users on an ongoing basis.

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Project Museum Teen North Carolina 22

Museum 2.0

MARCH 12, 2009

I believe that focusing specifically on the social capacity of an object, rather than its content or interpretation, yields new design techniques for museum exhibits and other participatory spaces. I want to connect these students to a larger group of people interested in exploring topics around social technology in museums.

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Design Experiment Seattle Social 20

Museum 2.0

MARCH 24, 2010

This is the third in a four-part series about writing The Participatory Museum. This post covers my personal process of encouraging--and harnessing--participation in the creation of The Participatory Museum. Every non-spammer editor who signed up was granted full access to change and comment on the content.

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Participatory Museum Process Experiment 33

Museum 2.0

APRIL 6, 2011

In many cases, once the final project is launched, it's hard to detect the participatory touch. The exhibition or program is of high quality, and from the visitor perspective, it may look like museum as usual. There might be a plaque listing names or a group photo of participants, but that's about it.

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Participatory Process Museum Children 48

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 10, 2009

This can be an incredibly technical topic, as it focuses on the ways that platforms (online, exhibits, museums) can harness the individual activities of many visitors and create meaningful experiential outputs that connect people to each other. But designing an entire museum that functions this way probably isn't your goal. exhibition.

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Social Network Tech Network Museum 22

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

NOVEMBER 28, 2009

For the social media library giveaway I asked folks to leave a comment on how they would use the books to shape their 2010 social media strategy. I had over 60 comments and boy was it hard to choose only one winner - so I didn't. Brian Reich author of Media Rules left a comment offering to include a copy of his book.

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Library Social Media Louisville Media 94

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. While subsequent museum staff have kept the project going, the community had connected with me as the focal point, and there has not been a new person who has been able to comparably rally the community to high levels of activity.

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Community Management Museum Aggregator 40

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

FEBRUARY 13, 2007

Photo from my flickr stream View the Tagging Screencast Presented by NTEN. 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.

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Screencast Instruction Instructional Tag 50

Museum 2.0

MAY 13, 2010

Oh, and they wanted it to be participatory. I talked with Sarah Rich , one of the project’s instigators and staff members, to learn more about 48 Hour Magazine and its implications for other participatory media projects. He set up an infrastructure for people to evaluate submissions by giving it a yes, no, or maybe, with comments.

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Participatory Journal San Francisco Interview 36

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 15, 2009

There are lots of museums (and organizations of all kinds) looking for ways to inspire users and visitors to produce their own content and share it with the institution online. The World Beach Project is managed by the Victoria and Albert Museum in London with artist-in-residence Sue Lawty.

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Project Museum Artist Map 38

Museum 2.0

MARCH 30, 2016

Our entire strategy at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History is rooted in community participation. We invite diverse locals to share their creative and cultural talents with our greater community at the museum. My museum can pursue radical collaboration because of our small size and local focus.

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Community Museum Local Participatory 20