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). The possible determinism of cultural geography.

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Museum Director Participatory Culture 55

Museum 2.0

JULY 1, 2011

I've now been the Director of The Museum of Art & History in Santa Cruz for two months. But the point is that the MAH, like just about every other museum in the known universe, was content to define the museum experience as something removed from the outside world, a rarefied church-like space of refined artistic reflection.

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Museum History Arts Work 31

Museum 2.0

MAY 15, 2012

Last week, I sat down on a toilet in our museum and found myself looking at an interactive station intended to test a “Legends of the Stall” sign concept for the restrooms. Some of my happiest moments as a director come when I encounter awesome things in our museum that I had absolutely nothing to do with. Sorry for the delay.

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Culture Build Museum Articulate 53

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

MARCH 24, 2020

The last ten years saw our work move toward the service sector as rentals become a very real part of our business model. We've morphed ourselves into an alternate history. While donations are going down, global interest in museums seem a boom industry. Do we refer to Mar a #museum social media guru, maven, connoisseur?

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Museum Work Time Doc 20

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 4, 2015

Each of these women push the boundaries of cultural institutions in different ways, with digital and physical manifestations. Ravon and Amanda are using several social media channels to explore and share museum exhibitions, programs, and projects. She writes about race, history, parks, culture, and politics.

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Culture Work Museum New York City 20

Connection Cafe

FEBRUARY 25, 2014

Last week Ginny Fitzgerald, the Director of Visitor Services and Membership at Chicago History Museum, joined us to host a webinar about how she prepares her team for peak attendance times. Chicago History Museum defines their summer season as June 1 through August 31. Summer Tourism. Spring Field Trips.

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Arts Culture Business Chicago 32

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.

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Museum Arts History Professional 49

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 25, 2018

For the past five years, each summer, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History has hosted MuseumCamp. This new, experimental training is a hands-on deep dive into the MAH’s model. I'm excited to share the MAH's community-first model and to invite you to this in-depth, immersive learning experience.

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Community Participatory Museum Registration 31

Whole Whale

SEPTEMBER 20, 2022

AS works with nonprofits across a wide range of industries, including arts and culture, the environment, foundations, and government. Previously, CAP has served clients in education, human services, youth serving organizations, religious organizations, and arts, culture, history, and environmental. Website: [link].

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Consultant Fundraising Phoenix Atlanta 52

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

APRIL 1, 2013

It takes you through the technologies and tools for each channel for different goals and offers up lots of case studies from organizations such as National Wildlife Federation, Red Cross, AARP, Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, American Museum of Natural History, SEIU and others. The book offers some recipes for culture change.

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Campaign Online Chapter Model 97

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 20, 2016

When we say we want our museum to be "audience-centered," what do we mean? However, I have enormous respect for the customer-centered model when it is executed in ways that truly invite visitors in on their own terms and deliver satisfying experiences. Many of my favorite museums, libraries, and zoos are customer-centered places.

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Museum Audience Music Arts 20

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

JULY 6, 2011

It's a rough week for cultural practitioners. In Minnesota, the state budget standoff has closed the Minnesota History Center and the many other arms of the MN Historical Society. In Minnesota, the state budget standoff has closed the Minnesota History Center and the many other arms of the MN Historical Society. Let me explain.

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Business Minnesota Museum Netherlands 50

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 20, 2009

I'm working on a section of my book about sharing social objects and am writing about the most common way that visitors share their object experiences in museums: through photographs. Revenue Streams: Museums want to maintain control of sales of "officially sanctioned" images of objects via catalogues and postcards.

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Museum Photo Policy Open 54

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 26, 2018

Our goal is to help civic and cultural institutions become more representative OF, co-created BY, and welcoming FOR their diverse communities. We've see this model succeed at the MAH and at other community-centered organizations around the world. The model we landed on was movement building. Publishing toolkits. Consulting.

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Los Angeles Network Oakland Change 31

Whole Whale

MAY 20, 2021

AS works with nonprofits across a wide range of industries, including arts and culture, the environment, foundations, and government. Previously, CAP has served clients in education, human services, youth serving organizations, religious organizations, and arts, culture, history, and environmental. Website: [link].

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Consultant Fundraising Phoenix Atlanta 52

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 17, 2017

Dear Museum 2.0 friends, I want to share two great opportunities to get involved at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History in 2017. Each summer, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History hosts MuseumCamp , a professional development experience that is part retreat, part unconference, part adult summer camp.

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Job Museum Childhood Arts 20

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 22, 2014

Imagine an institution with a commitment to rigor, depth, and delight in the exploration of contemporary culture. The Centre de Cultura Contemporania de Barcelona ( CCCB ) has just launched a new biennial Cultural Innovation International Prize. What new models are currently being used in this field? Imagine these two together.

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Audience Ideas Proposal Museum 42

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 27, 2017

Our county board of supervisors had brought their official meeting to the museum. In it, I argued that museums could give up control of the visitor experience while still maintaining (a new kind of) power. Museums could make the platforms for those experiences. Traditionally, museums and cultural organizations offer programs.

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Platform Impact Childhood Museum 31

Museum 2.0

MARCH 14, 2017

This is the second installation 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. The MAH fundamentally has two jobs: we bring art and history out into our community, and we invite our community in.

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Public Museum Arts History 27

Bloomerang

FEBRUARY 21, 2024

Museum passes Offer a local museum bundle for those looking to explore more of the cultural and historical opportunities your city has to offer. For example, you could create a bundle with art, history, and science museum passes. Consider your target audience’s age to find a musician who appeals to their interests.

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Artist Classes Arts Local 75

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 18, 2011

We’ve been doing a little experiment at our museum with labels. The Santa Cruz Surfing Museum recently loaned us some fabulous surfboards that tell the co-mingled history of surfing and redwood trees in Santa Cruz. We decided to approach the label-writing for these boards in a participatory way.

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Participatory San Diego Museum History 48

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 11, 2012

For years, I'd give talks about community participation in museums and cultural institutions, and I'd always get the inevitable question: "but what value does this really have when it comes to dollars and cents?" We're hearing on a daily basis that the museum has a new role in peoples' lives and in the identity of the county.

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Audience Museum Participatory History 47

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 8, 2014

How does this question play out in museums? At the 2013 American Alliance of Museums annual conference, a group of exhibition designers explored authenticity in a session called Is it Real? They explored a huge range of museum objects and grey areas of "realness." They arbitrated replicas, reproductions, models, and props.

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Artist Museum Washington Arts 55

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

For years, I've been fascinated and a bit perplexed by the Elsewhere Collaborative , a thrift store turned artists' studio/living museum in Greensboro, North Carolina. By calling ourselves a museum, we respond to those cultural institutions that have separated practice from production, exhibition from process, and work from play.

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Collaboration North Carolina Museum Artist 36

Museum 2.0

MAY 13, 2015

Visitors in front of the African Elephant Diorama at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County (NHMLAC photo) This guest post was written by Karen Wise, Vice President, Education and Exhibits at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. “I History exhibits with hundreds of objects and no coherent story.

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Los Angeles Museum History Artist 20

Museum 2.0

APRIL 4, 2012

Museums have been grappling with this question for years ( here's a 2007 roundup of such projects ), most aggressively in zoos and natural history museums where staff hope to inspire conservation and in history/concept museums that focus on civic engagement and activism. No small task for a museum exhibition.

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Story Participatory Museum History 47

Museum 2.0

MAY 9, 2012

Last week, I was in Minneapolis for the American Association of Museums annual meeting. Kathleen McLean led a terrific session called "Dangerous Ridiculous" about risk-taking in museums. Interestingly, at my museum, our team is naturally better at ridiculous than we are at dangerous. I found this idea really powerful.

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Reflection Columbus Museum Participatory 43

Museum 2.0

JULY 27, 2011

I'm trying to reposition our museum as a cultural hub supporting creative and intellectual community growth. Our conversation made me reflect on the museums that most inspire me from a public service perspective--institutions with missions that stretch far beyond their walls. These museums work differently.

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Advocacy Public Service Homeless 44

Museum 2.0

APRIL 11, 2017

This is the sixth 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. John would run Abbott Square Market , a multi-vendor food and drink business, adjacent to the plaza, adjacent to the museum. Money is on the table.

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Technique Museum Exercise Structure 29

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. Now" is not an easy business model to chase--especially for institutions rooted in permanence. I used to work at The Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose, CA. What's trending.

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Content San Jose Museum Miami 20

Museum 2.0

APRIL 1, 2009

On Monday, I gave the keynote at the Museums in Conversation conference in Tarrytown, NY. Greed, because creative greediness motivates us to hunt down and steal the best design techniques the world has to offer, and generosity, because giving those great ideas and applications away is the only way to change the larger cultural landscape.

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Museum Conversation Columbus Local 20

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 27, 2012

Sure, I admire cultural organizations that have a strong mission to change education or diversify access or transform the role of art in everyday life, but I'm an insider. The election season, as well as a recent research study on museum membership, has change my perspective on this.

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Product Build Museum Arts 51

Museum 2.0

APRIL 2, 2014

In his thoughtful preface to this project, I reconnected with five lessons I''ve learned from participatory projects in museums and cultural sites. The fact that there is no original recording by Beck of the Song Reader songs, no model upon which "covers" would be based, frees the reader to imagine the songs in any number of ways.

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Participatory Arts Music Learning 52

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 31, 2009

In 2006, John Falk and Beverly Sheppard, seasoned museum researchers and practitioners, released a co-authored book entitled Thriving in the Knowledge Age: New Business Models for Museums and Other Cultural Institutions. In the three years since the book was published, what direction have you seen museums take and why?

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