Connection Cafe

SEPTEMBER 18, 2019

The following post was originally published on the Center for the Future of Museums blog. On Wednesday, August 8, over 300 museum professionals joined CFM director Elizabeth Merritt and Seema Rao, principal of Brilliant Idea Studio , to explore self-care in the museum workplace. Questions. We’d love to share.

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Museum Culture Professional Training 21

Connection Cafe

AUGUST 1, 2019

Museums and nonprofits can also reap huge benefits from employing artificial intelligence, particularly in their membership and development departments. Nonprofits and museums depend on dedicated, but oftentimes limited, development staff to sift through countless prospects to determine which ones are priority.

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Museum Game Chicago Indianapolis 29

Museum 2.0

MAY 2, 2012

Today is my one-year anniversary as the executive director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. A year ago, I put my consultant hat on the shelf and decided to jump into museum management (a sentence I NEVER would have imagined writing five years ago). I'm open to any questions you want to raise in the comments.

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Museum Director Participatory Culture 55

Museum 2.0

MARCH 26, 2014

Last week''s New York Times special section on museums featured a lead article by David Gelles on Wooing a New Generation of Museum Patrons. In the article, David discussed ways that several large art museums are working to attract major donors and board members in their 30s and 40s. David describes himself as a "museum brat."

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Museum Generation Interview Donor 54

Connection Cafe

OCTOBER 16, 2013

.” In it the authors discussed how you should use social media at a nonprofit and it made me curious about how museums are using Twitter. Here are eleven things your museum should should do to get the most out of Twitter: Create a Twitter account. Gull Wings Children’s Museum does a good job of tweeting about their programs.

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Museum Twitter Social Media Arts 39

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 13, 2013

So this week, I want to honor this conversation with links to a few of the great posts and a couple other sources that inform the way I think about diversity and engagement. Jada is passionate about supporting the future of African-American heritage institutions and working to diversify the museum field as a whole.

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Arts Question North Carolina Museum 48

Museum 2.0

APRIL 21, 2020

This week we're hearing from Eastman Museum's Kate Meyers Emery. And, with her, I've had conversations that stick with me. I honestly still think about a conversation I had with her years ago about interpretation. I honestly still think about a conversation I had with her years ago about interpretation.

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Digital Museum Social Media Public 52

Connection Cafe

SEPTEMBER 30, 2013

Conversations started as part of these points: Lack of necessary information: Make sure you define what is necessary. This will let you identify how to have the conversation about membership. Be able to answer the question “Why should I be a member at your organization?”. Follow up with visitors via email or letter.

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Conversation Rate New York City Arts 35

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 14, 2013

One of the greatest gifts of my babymoon is the opportunity to share the Museum 2.0 First up is Beck Tench, a "simplifier, illustrator, story teller, and technologist" working at the Museum of Life & Science in Durham, NC. As a person who works for a science museum, I work in an environment that supports play.

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Museum Roles Game Participatory 51

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 26, 2012

Writing my masters thesis for Gothenburg University’s International Museum Studies program while also working four days a week as the Director of Community Programs at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History this spring was certainly a challenge but also an incredible opportunity.

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Museum Program Participatory Community 49

Forum One

NOVEMBER 3, 2022

The Pacific Science Center (PacSci) is an independent, non-profit museum in Seattle with a mission to ignite curiosity and fuel passion for discovery, experimentation, and science for people of all ages and backgrounds. SILVER – Virtual & Remote Experiences-Arts & Culture for Virtual & Remote. Pacific Science Center.

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Award Washington National Drupal 77

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 10, 2014

Any questions? One, from a museum director. The question that comes up every time, the question so big it deserves the impropriety of all caps: BUT WHAT ABOUT QUALITY? The word "quality" is often code for aesthetic quality, as judged by a specific set of cultural expectations and preferences. Core Museum 2.0

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Participatory Museum Arts Culture 55

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. This post shares some of the most interesting questions I've heard throughout these experiences. Feel free to add your own questions and answers in the comments! BROAD QUESTIONS ABOUT AUDIENCE PARTICIPATION 1.

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Question Participatory Museum Evaluation 49

Museum 2.0

JUNE 26, 2013

Over the past three years, the Detroit Institute of Art (DIA) has served as the museum poster child for the debate on the public value of the arts. Last year, the DIA was saved from financial crisis by voters in its three neighboring counties who elected to take on an additional property tax to support the museum.

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Detroit Museum Michigan Arts 52

Museum 2.0

APRIL 18, 2011

I asked Wendy Pollock and Kathleen McLean, authors of the new book The Convivial Museum , to share a guest post about the book. At first glance, our new book, The Convivial Museum , is about the most simple ideas. They collaborated on this photo essay that demonstrates the simplicity and power of their vision. Nothing new here!"

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Museum Photo Minneapolis California 50

Museum 2.0

JULY 15, 2015

I decided to give myself a gift this year: permission to change the Museum 2.0 But I also know there is huge potential to improve Museum 2.0. My decision crystallized last week, when I read Diane Ragsdale's thought-provoking post about the Irvine Foundation's recent report on the cultural lives of Californians. Frequently.

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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. I said to him: I can't really answer that question. Developing new staff policies.

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Participatory Question Work Artist 20

Connection Cafe

MAY 29, 2014

Last week I had the opportunity to attend and present at the Association of Children’s Museums annual conference, #interactivity2014, with Julia Kennard, CFO from EdVenture, Carole Charnow, President and CEO from Boston Children’s Museum and Katie Boehm, Annual Fund & Events Manager from KidsQuest. So that’s the theory.

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Museum Interaction Associations Donor 33

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. As I did at the one-year and three-year mark, here are some of the things I'm most proud of, mistakes I've made, and questions on my mind as we head into the next five years.

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Museum Director Arts History 20

Museum 2.0

MARCH 4, 2015

This week marks five years since the book The Participatory Museum was first released. Across the museum field, the questions about visitor participation have gone from "what?" Over the past four years, I''ve been running a small regional art and history museum in Santa Cruz, CA. and "why?" to "how?".

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Participatory Museum Empowerment Facilitation 20

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

DECEMBER 6, 2010

Note from Beth: If you’ve been following my blog lately, you know I’ve been having this conversation with Marnie Webb about abundance. A month or two ago, museums and galleries around the world participated in a Twitter event called Ask a Curator. How did you get 340 museums to participate?

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Arts Twitter Examples Los Angeles 101

Forum One

NOVEMBER 21, 2022

The Pacific Science Center (PacSci) is an independent, non-profit museum in Seattle with a mission to ignite curiosity and fuel passion for discovery, experimentation, and science for people of all ages and backgrounds. Silver – Virtual & Remote Experiences, Arts & Culture. After the conversation, diners?engage?in

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Award Colorado Washington Children 46

Forum One

NOVEMBER 18, 2022

The Pacific Science Center (PacSci) is an independent, non-profit museum in Seattle with a mission to ignite curiosity and fuel passion for discovery, experimentation, and science for people of all ages and backgrounds. Silver – Virtual & Remote Experiences, Arts & Culture. After the conversation, diners?engage?in

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Award Colorado Washington Children 46

Museum 2.0

JUNE 28, 2017

One of the biggest questions on my mind as I listen is: why isn’t my industry scaling up the way these businesses do? I can think of many extraordinary innovators in the nonprofit cultural sector--people and organizations creating brilliant programs, site-based experiences, and products. Change may be necessary. Skills mismatch.

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Culture Organization Model Podcast 21

Museum 2.0

APRIL 17, 2013

When we talk about museums or cultural institutions as vehicles of social and civic change, what does that really mean? Last week I had a conversation that changed my perspective on this question. Museum work is mostly non-contact. This is the wrong analogy and the wrong question. We all work for nonprofits.

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Arts Work Museum Homeless 51

Museum 2.0

APRIL 1, 2009

On Monday, I gave the keynote at the Museums in Conversation conference in Tarrytown, NY. I learned to cultivate creative greed while working on Operation Spy at the International Spy Museum, where I was lucky to be working on a project that was so new to us that we didn't have any pre-established models or structures for doing it.

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Museum Conversation Columbus Local 20

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 30, 2013

Earlier this fall, I read this headline: "Stanford study: Participation in a cultural activity may reduce prejudice." When the music video was focused on Mexican culture, the researchers found that the white and Asian participants demonstrated a decrease in prejudice against Latinos, both immediately after the activity and six months later.

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Measure Arts People Museum 47

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 3, 2014

This person is writing about a participatory element (the "pastport") that we included in the exhibition Crossing Cultures. Crossing Cultures features paintings by Belle Yang that relate to her family''s immigration experiences. We created a simple wheel with open-ended questions about identity and place, setting it in a lounge area.

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Participatory Museum History Arts 45

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 9, 2010

Jasper Visser and his colleagues at the not-yet-physically-open National Historisch Museum of the Netherlands have impressed me with their innovative, thoughtful approach to developing a dynamic national museum. Last weekend my museum presented itself at the Uitmarkt in Amsterdam.

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Museum Comment Experiment Participatory 34

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

OCTOBER 13, 2010

As part of my work as Visiting Scholar at the Packard Foundation and coaching grantees on becoming a Networked Nonprofit and using social media effectively, I’ve also been talking to boards including the museum board above. Tags: Networked Nonprofit Organizational Culture leadership.

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Museum 2.0

MARCH 3, 2010

As many of you know, I've been working for the past year+ on a book about visitor participation in museums, libraries, science centers, and art galleries. The Participatory Museum is a practical guide to visitor participation. The Participatory Museum is an attempt at providing such a resource. Want to buy a book ?

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Participatory Museum Vietnam Netherlands 30

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 30, 2008

Dear Museums on Twitter, Thanks for experimenting in a new and largely uncharted online environment. So here is a list of suggestions that hopefully will improve the way your museum thinks about using Twitter. Or it's rainy so you suggest I visit the museum? I am a museum of Native Cultures and Art!"

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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. And when I think back on the past year, some of the most magical things that have happened at the museum have NOT been designed by us. 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

NOVEMBER 13, 2009

Yesterday, NTEN;s Holly Ross hosted an online conversation with Seth Godin and me, along with Roxy Allen and 100 plus NTEN members. This conversation came about after Seth's provoking post " The Problem with Non " took a swing at nonprofits for lack of adoption of social media, saying it was all due to fear.

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Museum 2.0

MAY 10, 2017

This is the tenth 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. When we started working on the food side of the Abbott Square project, it raised some basic questions about community inclusion. All those people eat.

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Arts San Jose Museum History 24

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 2, 2013

George Scheer is the director and co-founder of Elsewhere Collective, a fascinating "living museum" in a former thrift store in Greensboro, NC. In this post, George grapples with the challenges of balancing the care for a museum collection with that of contemporary artists-in-residence who are constantly reinterpreting it.

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Artist Museum Proposal Participatory 49

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 1, 2012

That contemporary art museum is on the front of the LA Times again," she said. I can't believe that an art museum can be front page news in LA for days." He was mandated to turn the ship around financially and to expand the reach of the museum in the community. The discussion then shifted to the overall direction of the museum.

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