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

Have Fun - Do Good

JUNE 29, 2010

"If we start losing cultural diversity, we begin to lose our whole sense of community because community is defined by culture. My dad is the co-founder of the Global Center for Cultural Entrepreneurship. They also enrich the community's culture, and they use cultural capital. That's cultural entrepreneurship."

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Culture Global Interview New Mexico 51

Museum 2.0

JULY 20, 2016

When we say we want our museum to be "audience-centered," what do we mean? My career first got moving at a brilliant example of the customer-centered museum: the International Spy Museum. Many of my favorite museums, libraries, and zoos are customer-centered places. They care about visitor comfort.

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Museum Audience Music Arts 20

Connection Cafe

DECEMBER 10, 2013

How can arts and cultural organizations start leveraging content marketing? Surely this doesn’t apply to zoos, museums, and theaters does it? There are 5 steps to start a content marketing program at your arts and cultural organization. Do more people come for musicals than tragedies? Absolutely! Know your Constituents.

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Arts Culture Content Marketing 35

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.

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Measure Arts People Museum 47

Qgiv

JANUARY 4, 2022

For example, rather than needing to spend money printing out endless flyers for a direct mail campaign, you can easily plan and execute an email campaign instead for far less money and with a more sizeable return on your investment. Virtual tours for museums. Virtual silent auction. Virtual concert. Holiday concert. Egg My Yard”.

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Raise Ideas Online Help 98

Museum 2.0

JUNE 29, 2009

By a strange and lucky coincidence, I was at the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum (EMPSFM) in Seattle for a two-day workshop. EMPSFM is one of a handful of museums worldwide for which the death of the King of Pop is a very big deal. Are museums only relevant when they can serve our most pressing needs?

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Museum Teen Learning Music 34

Museum 2.0

JULY 26, 2010

I've been spending time recently interviewing people who run unusual cultural and learning venues. 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. Skill-sharing free schools. Community science workshops.

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Culture Alternative St. Louis Los Angeles 49

Museum 2.0

APRIL 2, 2014

It is what it sounds like: a book of original sheet music, beautifully designed and complemented with artwork and text. Beck''s project is unusual because he deliberately resurrected a mostly-defunct participatory platform: sheet music for popular songs. Sheet music is a beautiful analogy for this.

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Participatory Arts Music Learning 52

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JULY 26, 2017

Different culture has different understanding of philanthropy and we use different words to represent various aspects of the concept. In most cultures, philanthropy existed a long time ago. One of them was the curator of the world largest archaeological museum, Grand Egyptian Museum. I was there as a new trainer.

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Children Philanthropy Japan China 78

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 15, 2014

This week, my colleague Emily Hope Dobkin has a beautiful guest post on the Incluseum blog about the Subjects to Change teen program that Emily runs at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. Subjects to Change is an unusual museum program in that it explicitly focuses on empowering teens as community leaders.

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Teen Change Museum History 45

Museum 2.0

APRIL 23, 2014

Museums, Politics, and Power is a new blog that lives up to its name. Elsewhere in podcast-land, Radiolab did a fascinating piece about cultural appropriation and gate-keeping in hip hop music. Finally, if you need a hit of inspiration and historical museum-making, I strongly recommend checking out the Boston Stories project.

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Belarus Boston Sweden Ukraine 29

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

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 4, 2015

In pop culture-land, relevance is all about now. If people on the street are talking about X, the museum should be talking about X too. I used to work at The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, CA. Our mandate was to be the museum of Silicon Valley--not of its material history, but its pulse of innovation.

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Content San Jose Museum Miami 20

Museum 2.0

JULY 3, 2007

This week, we look at Chapter 5 of Elaine Gurian's book Civilizing Museums , Choosing Among the Options: An opinion about museum definitions in two parts. First published in Curator magazine in 2002, this essay presents five different museum "types" and their distinct opportunities and challenges.

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Museum Taxonomy Arts National 20

Museum 2.0

JULY 12, 2010

But then I started finding more humble projects related to broader issues, and I began to see Kickstarter as a potentially fascinating space for museums and cultural institutions. Why should cultural and arts organizations care about Kickstarter? Kickstarter is a symptom of changes in donor culture.

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Fund Museum Pledge Game 49

Museum 2.0

JULY 1, 2008

Dear Museum 2.0-ers, ers, Next week, I'll be going to DC for a meeting convened by the National Academy of Sciences and the Institute of Museum and Library Services on "Museums and Libraries in the 21st Century." Over the last 50 years, public-facing museums and libraries in the U.S.

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Museum Library Participatory Wikipedia 20

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.

Teen 20

Teen Museum Voice Collaboration 20

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

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JULY 3, 2009

Submitted by Nina Simon, publisher of Museum 2.0 On Friday, I offered a participatory design workshop for Seattle-area museum professionals ( slides here ). We concluded by sharing the tough questions each of us struggl es with in applying participatory design techniques to museum practice. questions that induce grappling.

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Technique Question Design Develop 50

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JUNE 8, 2011

Vince noted that their concert-goers are most open to engagement right after the performance – with email open rates soaring to 80%. I pointed to the Jo Johnson and the London Symphony’s Facebook page as an excellent example of engaging audiences before and after concerts.

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Social Media Experiment Media Social 116

Museum 2.0

APRIL 28, 2009

On Friday, I offered a participatory design workshop for Seattle-area museum professionals ( slides here ). We concluded by sharing the tough questions each of us struggles with in applying participatory design techniques to museum practice. Examples Here are some questions that I've seen work marvelously well.

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Technique Question Design Develop 52

Forum One

DECEMBER 13, 2023

Forum One partnered with the Museum to launch their new brand to the world. This work not only included launching a new website but also revitalizing the American Jazz Museum brand as a whole. It also won the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture a Silver Vega Award!

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Celebrate Award Colorado Museum 67

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 8, 2010

Growing a Strong Volunteer Culture Every year, thousands of new librarians and archivists graduate from MLS programs. This Pop Up Library just returned from a folk music festival. One lives a double life as a soul music collector and DJ. You go online, and that’s why physical culture is at risk.

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Chicago Library Public Culture 48

Forum One

DECEMBER 13, 2023

We partnered with the Museum to launch their new brand to the world. This work not only included launching a new website but also revitalizing the American Jazz Museum brand as a whole. It also won the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture a Silver Vega Award!

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Celebrate Award Colorado Museum 46

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 21, 2016

Looking closer, I saw that each seat had its own handwritten label, telling the story of the Philadelphia cultural institution from which it originated. For example, right now, Temple Contemporary's offices are packed floor to ceiling with broken musical instruments from classrooms across the city of Philadelphia.

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Process Share Philadelphia Arts 20

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 10, 2007

This dovetails nicely into last week's post about the idea that games may be a part of our cultural experience that is more general than just having fun, that making up games in the subway is as common as listening to music or rereading the ESL advertisements again and again. What are your favorite casual museum games?

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Game Museum Contest Environment 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 16, 2007

into the museum is the potential to encourage more positive in-museum interactions among strangers. I want in-person museum experiences to be more like experiences on social sites like Flickr, where strangers connect and form relationships around content. A lot of what interests me about bringing 2.0

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Museum Myspace Facilitation Social Network 20

Museum 2.0

JULY 27, 2009

In this way, the MP3 experiment is an example of the ways that technological barriers can become benefits by mediating otherwise uncomfortable interactions. The recording starts with two and a half minutes of music without talking. The MP3 experiment is an exercise in following instructions.

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Instruction Instructional Nicaragua Experiment 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?

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Artist Museum Project Public 39

Qgiv

OCTOBER 8, 2021

While you don’t have to put the latest gadgets and popular items into all of your baskets, being aware of cultural trends can help you find unique additions for your gift baskets. Pop Culture – No one is more passionate than pop culture lovers, so a themed gift basket will definitely spark a bidding war.

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Ideas Gift Movie Game 98

Museum 2.0

JULY 16, 2007

There have been some fun semantic jousting matches recently on the ASTC listserv about the difference between science museums and science centers. And earlier last month, the Museum of Television and Radio announced a name change to the Paley Center for Media. The word Museum is not powerful enough, alone, to attract or repel visitors.

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Museum Arts Library Listserv 22

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. In this case, a heck of a lot.

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Slides Museum Los Angeles San Jose 22

Forum One

FEBRUARY 22, 2010

Skeptics doubted the iPod in 2001 , but it went on to help revolutionize how people consume music and audio content. For example, while the iPad features a full-featured browser, it's more than just a web browser you tote with you. It's a great way to create better understanding across language and cultural barriers.

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Laptop Audio Nonprofit Ipod 67

Bloomerang

NOVEMBER 5, 2021

Well, that 80%, 60% of that money goes to large institutional organizations like hospitals and universities, and large cultural institutions, like museums, zoos, and libraries, and religious organizations. And then once in a while, we put together a Flickr album, and we send it to them with music behind it and a thank-you.

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Money Personal Relationship Raise 102

Qgiv

JUNE 9, 2021

You can procure items that encourage residents to explore the city in a fun way, such as local restaurant gift certificates or tickets to museums or sports games. You can even center your questions around your specific mission or choose a theme like Pop Culture or Movie Trivia. Travel auction – Who doesn’t love to travel?

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Ideas Fundraising Virtual Fun 59

Have Fun - Do Good

NOVEMBER 28, 2007

They were using music, dance, poetry, and storytelling, and they were succeeding. The little girls are part of a culture, the Shona culture in Zimbabwe, as maybe you know, uses poetry. The leader, for example, of a religious movement. The women are using those forms that are the most effective in their cultures.

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Photography Interview Zimbabwe Change 40