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. We have spent the past three years planning and raising money for a project to build a creative town square for our city on the front porch of the museum. I like change.

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Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 17, 2012

When I started this blog in 2006, I made a multi-media introduction to the concept of "museum 2.0" Venue as content platform instead of content provider: the museum becomes a stage on which professionals and amateurs can curate, interpret, and remix artifacts and information. The museum gets better the more people use it.

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Connection Cafe

MARCH 31, 2015

I recently had the pleasure of attending the South Carolina Federation of Museums Conference in Florence, SC. Here’s what I learned: At the core of each museum is a personal mission. I wasn’t familiar with many of the museums who were in attendance at SCFM, even though I’ve lived and worked here for 40 years now!

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South Carolina Museum Conference Personal 20

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 18, 2013

This August/September, I am "rerunning" popular Museum 2.0 Originally posted in April of 2011, just before I hung up my consulting hat for my current job at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. I''ve spent much of the past three years on the road giving workshops and talks about audience participation in museums.

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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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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. We actively seek participation and develop structured opportunities for visitors to collaborate with us. Last month, a couple came in and asked if they could stage a pop up tea ceremony at the museum.

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Platform Open Museum Participatory 41

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

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

MARCH 28, 2012

At the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (MAH), we've started experimenting with a "community first" approach to program development. We asked the whole group to brainstorm communities/constituencies who they thought could make a stronger connection with art, history, and culture. Then, we went honeycomb-crazy.

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Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 15, 2012

We've gotten a little more organized at The Museum of Art & History , and we've now released opportunities for summer internships. These are unpaid part-time and full-time opportunities to help design public programs, develop new uses for the museum, perform visitor research, and pursue unusual projects.

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Museum 2.0

AUGUST 22, 2012

At the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, we take our interns seriously, give them real responsibility, creative challenges, and meaningful work opportunities. Second, and highly experimental, is the Museum Camp Internship. And of course, much more to come about Museum Camp in the months to come.) Exciting, right?

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Museum 2.0

APRIL 29, 2015

These are the slides and notes for the talk I gave at the American Alliance of Museums conference on Monday, April 27 about the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. When I became the director of the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History four years ago, I took this work with me.

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Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

MAY 7, 2010

Nina has written a fantastic book engagement called The Participatory Museum. Despite its long history, few researchers studied the use and impact of citizen science until the 1980s. Most of my work involves museums, but these categories can be useful in any project that involves user participation.

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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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Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 2, 2011

And that's what this post is about--how we advertise the culture at our organizations (or not) when we offer new positions. I had a bit of a wakeup call about internships last month at an "emerging leaders" lunch event at the Mid-Atlantic Association of Museums conference. We might never get there.

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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 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. The Museum 2.0 In 2008 and 2009, there were many conference sessions and and documents presenting participatory case studies, most notably Wendy Pollock and Kathy McLean's book Visitor Voices in Museum Exhibitions.

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Question Participatory Museum Evaluation 49

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

with cultural professionals, I like to use Tim O'Reilly's simple definition: software that gets better the more people use it. Museum professionals tend to think this is OK because they think of the contributory act as the important part of the participation. When I talk about Web 2.0 nothing happens.

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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. If there are museum objects and visitors'' objects on display together, all should be afforded the same level of exhibit design, labels, etc. Constrain the input, free the output.

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Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 19, 2016

We believe that partnerships build a stronger museum and a stronger community. We were seven people in a room, laser-focused on making the MAH a community gathering place and cultural center. Like most museums and nonprofits, we have a donor database. The reality is that growth has meant more structure. SALESFORCE.

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Collaboration Tools Build Organization 20

Forum One

DECEMBER 13, 2023

Forum One partnered with the Museum to launch their new brand to the world. 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.

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Forum One

DECEMBER 13, 2023

We partnered with the Museum to launch their new brand to the world. 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. This beautifully designed branding and website won five awards this year!

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Celebrate Award Colorado Museum 46

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 28, 2011

Payne," member of the incredibly popular Santa Cruz roller derby team, wants to pitch a partnership with our museum. She doesn't have a specific idea for a partner event or exhibit, but she feels like we have a lot to offer each other in terms of publicity and a shared focus on enhancing cultural experiences in the community.

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Museum 2.0

JULY 4, 2007

On Tuesday, I reviewed Elaine Gurian’s essay, Choosing Among the Options , on museum archetypes and self-definition. Today, discussion with Elaine about ways museums choose their direction, how change is possible, and new museum types to be added to the list. What if you don’t want to be identified as one type of museum?

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Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 5, 2013

"The words we use in attempting to change museum directions matter. We need translators within each cultural context. Our museum in Santa Cruz has been slammed by those who believe participatory experiences have gone too far. I''ve always known that some people feel that social work means mission creep for museums.

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Museum 2.0

JUNE 16, 2020

Andrea has been a leader in the museum technology field. For the last three years, I’ve had the pleasure of collaborating with the Smithsonian Latino Center as part of the Educators Advisory Council, in preparation for the forthcoming Molina Galleries , which will focus on celebrating the contributions of Latinos in the History of America.

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Museum Detroit Arts Leadership 22

Museum 2.0

JULY 30, 2014

Our work to transform the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History into a participatory and community-centered place has been heavily supported by the James Irvine Foundation. Interestingly, they argue instead that structural change--including but not exclusively programmatic change--is what makes the difference in participant makeup.

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Museum 2.0

AUGUST 13, 2009

Earlier this year, the New Museum and Creative Time commissioned a traveling piece by artist Jeremy Deller called "It Is What It Is: Conversations About Iraq." I saw It Is What It Is twice at the Hammer Museum. Why would I want to talk about Iraq on a visit to an art museum? Even for me, the barriers were too high.

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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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Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

AUGUST 24, 2016

We learned about the country’s history, political complexity, religions, people, and ancient and contemporary life. exploration of the issue, environment, local population, culture, political and religious context and additional relevant content that provides an authentic narrative to follow. Exercise #1: Herding Sheep.

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Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 23, 2010

The reward for participants of having your contribution displayed is fairly and clearly structured. Participating in this made me wonder: could a museum or library run a project like 3six5? The reasons to do so are many, particularly for a history-focused institution. Complexities of project management.

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Non Profit Quarterly

NOVEMBER 17, 2021

a democratically structured non-profit which issues the local currency; the Schumacher Center (which retains its affiliation with BerkShares, Inc.); Beyond the direct advantage to small merchants, digital BerkShares’ competitive fee structure is meant to keep more area capital at work in the Berkshires.

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Museum 2.0

JULY 24, 2012

When we talk about making museums or performing arts organizations more participatory and dynamic, those changes are often seen as threatening to the traditional arts experience. Museums no longer showed human horns alongside historic documents; theaters made differentiations among types of live entertainment. I can't wait.

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Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 25, 2008

Why do you care about and or work in museums? I don't work in museums because I love them. I didn't grow up staring open-mouthed at natural history dioramas or wandering through art galleries. When I visit a new city, I don't clamor to visit museums. I don't work in museums because I love them. I go on hikes.

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