Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JULY 1, 2009

Submitted by Nina Simon, publisher of Museum 2.0. I’ve had it with museums’ obsession with open-ended self-expression. And yet many museums are fixated on creators. Museums see open-ended self-expression as the be-all of participatory experiences. You see the overall value of the project.

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Participatory Experiment Museum Teen 50

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 16, 2013

It's not every day that a visitor buys pizza for everyone in the museum. Then again, Saturday was hardly normal at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. It was an opportunity for people who participate with Ze Frank's projects online to come together in real space and connect with him and with each other.

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Reflection Community Museum Participatory 43

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 19, 2015

One of my favorite comments on the first post in this series came from Lyndall Linaker, an Australian museum worker, who asked: " Who decides what is relevant? Community First Program Design At the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History , we've gravitated towards a "community first" program planning model. My answer: neither.

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Teen Museum Voice Collaboration 20

Museum 2.0

APRIL 18, 2008

Thanks to Bryan Kennedy from the Science Museum of Minnesota for providing this overview/reflection on the Museums and the Web conference that recently concluded in Montreal. Museums and the Web 2008 guest blogger Bryan Kennedy here. The Walker Art Center is turning its teen website over to the teens.

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Museum Web Teen Flickr 20

Museum 2.0

JULY 26, 2010

From a museum perspective, I think there's a lot to learn from these venues' business models, approach to collecting and exhibiting work, and connection with their audiences. This list is by no means exhaustive: please add your favorites (especially non-American ones) in the comments. Machine Project (Los Angeles, CA).

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Culture Alternative St. Louis Los Angeles 49

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 3, 2008

I’ve received a few inquiries over the last year about museums and geocaching. to ask him all the dumb questions about geocaching and museums you can imagine… and a few more. Sounds like there might be some overlap with your museum audience? Both geocaching and museums are fundamentally about exploration and discovery.

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Museum Teen Arts Project 20

Museum 2.0

MARCH 16, 2009

I’ve had it with museums’ obsession with open-ended self-expression. And yet many museums are fixated on creators. Museums see open-ended self-expression as the be-all of participatory experiences. First, exhibits that invite self-expression appeal to a tiny percentage of museum audiences.

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Participatory Experiment Museum Teen 44

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

This summer, I worked with the Chabot Space & Science Center on a design institute in which eleven teens from their Galaxy Explorers program designed media pieces for an upcoming Smithsonian exhibition on black holes. There was no initial design, no graphics, and no idea of where the teen' work would fit into an overall structure.

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Teen Volunteer Create Design 20

Museum 2.0

JULY 31, 2013

I spent the weekend queuing up posts for my forthcoming blog-cation--nine weeks of guest posts and reruns from the Museum 2.0 You''re in for a treat, with upcoming posts on creativity, collections management, elitism, science play, permanent participatory galleries, partnering with underserved teens, magic vests, and more.

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Museum Participatory Reflection Conference 35

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). It's the ability for me to work with my CFO to be able to budget and align the right kinds of resources for new projects. A crew that has the capacity to build a sign at the last minute.

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Arts Interview Teen Artist 46

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

NTEN

JUNE 21, 2011

The speakers for this panel include: Tracy Fullerton - Electronics Arts Game Innovation Lab Ruth Cohen - American Museum of natural History Elaine Charnov - The NY Public Library Jason Eppink - Museum of the Moving Image Syed Salahuddin - Babycastles Elaine Cohen: The New York Public Library 100 Years of the flagship library in New York.

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Game Culture Change Museum 52

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

In the spirit of a popular post written earlier this year , I want to share the behind the scenes on our current almost-museumwide exhibition at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, Santa Cruz Collects. As always, I welcome your questions and comments. Pocket Museums in bathrooms. Digital Collections comment wall.

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Participatory Museum History International 44

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. Museum staff create an exhibit by a traditional internal design process, but the exhibit, once open, invites visitors to contribute their own stories and participation.

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Participatory Design Difference Museum 27

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 25, 2009

Many institutions do this unintentionally--by providing post-its or comment books, pens or crayons. I encourage you to share your own rules and thoughts on this in the comments. This technique was used in the Slavery in New York exhibition at the New-York Historical Society and continues in the popular StoryCorps project.

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Design Goal Difference Platform 31

Museum 2.0

MARCH 18, 2015

The people were of all ages--moms with babies strapped to their fronts, six year-olds using skillsaws, pre-teens building robots, teenagers doing homework. There are lots of great science museum resources, but not where these kids can walk after school. Any big museum has barriers and limitations to full community ownership.

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Green Interview Share Community 20

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 7, 2008

For many museums, visitor research--how people use the museum, navigate exhibits, and understand content--may be an equally important arena in which to adopt groundswell listening techniques. I spent an hour this morning "brand listening" to what the online world says about one of my favorite museums, the Exploratorium.

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Museum Teen Second Life Discussion 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 5, 2009

I just returned from the American Association of Museums (AAM) annual meeting in Philadelphia. I led two sessions, one on visitor co-created museum experiences, and the other on design inspirations from outside museums. This spanned all the projects. This is a question we grappled with in the Tech Virtual project.

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Slides Participatory Museum Children 20

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 21, 2016

They were there for project brainstorming. It encourages process-driven performances and art projects. They live their mission, working in questions and projects rather than exhibitions and programs. This makes Temple Contemporary excel at responsive, relevant projects. They were there for artist talks.

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Process Share Philadelphia Arts 20

Museum 2.0

JULY 9, 2007

Last week, Elaine Gurian and I talked about radical change in museums. Former museum start-up queen, Jen is taking a small organization whose goal is to promote girls’ involvement in math and science through research and programming to new, innovative, exciting places. Braincake isn’t some fakey attempt to pander to teens.

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Interview Museum Teen Myspace 20

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 13, 2007

The essays in this section, on “Expressing and Co-Creating,” present projects in which visitors create exhibition content, contribute to its creation, or get a heavy done of meaning-making in their experience of museum content. Who controls the content in the museum? Who controls the museum experience? Of course not.

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Voice Create Museum Arts 20

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 4, 2013

This August/September, I am "rerunning" popular Museum 2.0 If you like the post, please check out the thoughtful and complicated comments on the original post. Diane is both visionary and no-nonsense about deconstructing the barriers that many low-income and non-white teenagers and families face when entering a museum.

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St. Louis Museum Audience Teen 45

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 16, 2007

Last week, I wrote about the ways that dogs can be useful social objects --and you had lots of good comments and input. Sure, it's social, but people stick to their own "pods"--families, teens, adults--and don't diverge or merge. Ideas participatory museum Unusual Projects and Influences visitors. Why does this happen?

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Museum Participatory Teen Game 20

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 20, 2019

I tell the story of the one-man band because I think many museum professionals feel like him. But, most importantly, few museum professionals have a free hand or moment. I hope to hear you articulate your thoughts in comments or on social. Museums rarely have the funding to replicate positions. Are we using them well?

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Museum Accessibility Articulate Teen 29

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 7, 2007

You can upload photos to it, tag them, share them, comment on them, and search for them. Where else can you find Pakistani bathroom signage or Mexican biker teens while researching a project? Commenting and review functionality. Five stakeholders in different cities want to see the work that's been done so far.

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Flickr Work Photo Teen 20

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 30, 2007

This week, we're looking at the first section, Talking Back and Talking Together , which features comment boards, talk-back walls, and discussion forums at a variety of museums. Rather than rehash each of the projects (hint: read the book!), I invite you to do the same in the comments. In the OSC study, only 1.4%

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Voice Museum Lesson Pledge 20

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

AUGUST 3, 2008

What follows below is no doubt incomplete and I sure I've gotten ages wrong too -- so please make additions and corrections in the comments. She is a real community person and is often promoting other people's projects. Nina Simon a proud member of Gen Y, writes the very awesome Museum 2.0 Blogs by Gen Y. Nonprofit Technology.

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Blogger Change Social Philanthropy 50

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. " At that comment, all the avatars started clapping, cheering, and agreeing with quips like "Wow, MacArthur Foundation really gets it. local time). They are walking the walk, talking the talk."

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Digital Learning Media Avatar 50

Museum 2.0

APRIL 18, 2012

Last Friday, I witnessed something beautiful at my museum. A group in their late teens/early 20s were wandering through the museumwide exhibition on love. They were in a playful mood, talking about the objects, playing the games, responding on the comment boards. Kyle had brought his baby with him.

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Community Teen Build Social 42

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 18, 2008

In many museums, comment cards are currently the most "participatory" part of the visitor experience. There are few, if any, ways to write back and continue the conversation with the visitor who commented. In other words, comment cards aren't effectively organized for use. Enter the internet.

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Comment Tools Museum Conversation 20

Museum 2.0

APRIL 6, 2011

Let's say you spend a year working with a group of teens to co-create an exhibition, or you invite members and local artists to help redesign the lobby. In many cases, once the final project is launched, it's hard to detect the participatory touch. Community processes are both exciting and time-consuming. An interactive changes that.

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Participatory Process Museum Children 48

Museum 2.0

JUNE 3, 2015

Last month at the AAM conference, a speaker said, "we should all be using measures of quality of life to measure success at our museums." Many museums (mine included) are fairly new to collecting visitor data. Want to know how many kids ate fruits and vegetables, or how many teens graduated high school, or how many people are homeless?

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Local Data Learning Childhood 20

Museum 2.0

APRIL 30, 2007

James Yasko is writing an article for an upcoming issue of Museum News on museums and Web 2.0. Here's the question: What advice do you have, as one who keeps up with technology as it relates to museums, to a group looking to incorporate Web 2.0 Executive, marketing, content, and IT/web folks all have a stake in these projects.

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Museum Advice Interview Web 20

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

MAY 20, 2015

Later, when were chatting with a small group of people in the lobby, we noticed a group of teens walking by looking a little sad. ABCs: He started off with some basics – a riff on Guy Kawasaki’s Always Be Commenting. @rauldemolina : These kids didn’t make @labanda !

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Digital Learning Artist Miami 50

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 22, 2008

There are lots of things visitors can’t do in museums. But what about the things that museum professionals can’t (or feel they can’t) do? This week at the ASTC conference, Kathy McLean, Tom Rockwell, Eric Siegel and I presented a session called “You Can’t Do That in Museums!” And so my question is, why are we keeping them away?

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Museum Professional Teen Map 20

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 19, 2008

Every museum has a number for its operating cost per visitor. Most museums don't strategically set this number--too many operating costs are fixed by building needs--but they can use it to assess how expensive each visitor interaction is and evaluate the efficacy of programs. So where do online initiatives fit in?

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Virtual Museum North Carolina Evaluation 20

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. At one point, he commented that there's a difference between the "framework" and the "sensibility" for engagement.

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Voice Los Angeles Denver Museum 42