Evaluation, History, Museum and Participatory

Adventures in Evaluating Participatory Exhibits: An In-Depth Look at the Memory Jar Project

Museum 2.0

JUNE 25, 2014

A man walks into a museum. Two years ago, we mounted one of our most successful participatory exhibits ever at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History: Memory Jars. Two years later, this project is still one of the most fondly remembered participatory experiences at the museum--by visitors and staff.

Participatory

Participatory Evaluation Project Museum

Guest Post: Using Visitor Participation to Improve Object Labels at the San Diego Natural History Museum

Museum 2.0

MARCH 29, 2011

Last month, I learned about a fabulous, simple participatory experiment called “Case by Case” at the San Diego Museum of Natural History that uses visitor feedback to develop more effective object labels. To date, the solution has been to put photos on the walls, pray for funding, and ignore the front-end evaluation bit.

San Diego

San Diego History Museum Participatory

Guest Post: Community and Civic Engagement in Museum Programs

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 26, 2012

Visitors bond and bridge through participatory experiences at MAH. I chose to focus my thesis on Community and Civic Engagement in Museum Programs. The purpose of my thesis was two-fold: To research and analyze community and civic engagement practices, methods, theories and examples in other museum programs.

Museum

Museum Program Participatory Community

Museum 2.0 Rerun: Answers to the Ten Questions I Am Most Commonly Asked

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.

Museum

Museum Question Participatory Evaluation

12 Ways We Made our Santa Cruz Collects Exhibition Participatory

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. This exhibition represents a few big shifts for us: We used a more participatory design process. We had some money.

Participatory

Participatory Museum History International

Yes, Audience Participation Can Have Significant Value

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.

Audience

Audience Museum Participatory History

Answers to the Ten Questions I am Most Often Asked

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.

Question

Question Participatory Museum Evaluation

Art Brings People Together: Measuring the Power of Social Bridging

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 30, 2013

The book of the same title that he edited is rocking my world, both as a museum professional who cares about inclusion and as a new mother. So consider this just the first of many posts related to issues of cultural inclusion, evaluation, and impact. This blog is about shared learning, and I went to engineering school.

Measure

Measure Arts People Museum

Engagement, Distraction, and the Puzzle of the Puzzle

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 9, 2011

Two weeks ago, we inaugurated a Creativity Lounge on the third floor of our museum. It's a little living room in a lobby area that invites people to lounge on comfortable chairs, leaf through magazines and books related to art and Santa Cruz history, and generally hang out. Lisa was thrilled that her work was on display at the museum.

Museum

Museum Arts History Columbus

Improving Family Exhibitions by Co-Creating with Children

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 28, 2010

Every once in a while I come across a project I wish I could have included in The Participatory Museum. For one year, a group of twelve schoolchildren age 9-11 were invited to work with staff at the Wallace Collection to develop a family-focused exhibition using the museum's artifacts. it's a Secret! , What made Shh.

Children

Children Museum Create Project

New Models for Community Partnerships: Museums Hosting Meetups

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 18, 2008

I've long believed that museums have a special opportunity to support the community spirit of Web 2.0 This month brings three examples of museums hosting meetups for online communities: On 8.6.08, the Computer History Museum (Silicon Valley, CA) hosted a Yelp! Me: Have you ever been to this museum? several years.

Museum

Museum Hosting Model Community

Guest Post: Lessons Learned Designing a Mobile Game for Balboa Park

Museum 2.0

MAY 24, 2011

When I worked briefly with the Balboa Park Online Collaborative to conceptualize a mobile phone-based game to connect visitors to the park to its cultural institutions and history, I knew Ken would be the perfect person to make it happen. Lessons Learned 3: This is not a museum talking (what a relief!) If none, why the heck not?

Lesson

Lesson Game San Diego Design

Everyone's Smithsonian: Video, Slides, and an Open Strategic Planning Process

Museum 2.0

MAY 29, 2009

Two weeks ago, I conducted a participatory exhibit design workshop with staff at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. Between the giant squid brainstorming and experimentation, I gave a talk to the larger Smithsonian Institution about multi-platform museum experiences. I am an impatient person.

Slides

Slides Process Video Open

Six Steps to Making Risky Projects Possible

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Unsurprisingly, some of my favorite museums are small, funky places run by iconoclasts—but that’s not useful to most professionals who work for organizations in which they have little control over size or leadership matters. There are several good resources on evaluating participation. It’s nice to have both.

Project

Project Museum Teen North Carolina

AAM Recap: Slides, Observations, and Object Fetishism

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. what is the value of the exhibition experience to non-participants, that is, regular museum visitors?

Slides

Slides Participatory Museum Children

Participation, Contemplation, and the Complexity of "And"

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 5, 2013

"The words we use in attempting to change museum directions matter. Our museum in Santa Cruz has been slammed by those who believe participatory experiences have gone too far. I am glad this conversation is happening and that both museum professionals and local Santa Cruzans are engaged. But we do have ''and.''

Participatory

Participatory Museum Arts History

What are Your Engagement Goals?

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 24, 2014

Inspired by Stacy, I wanted to share some of the work we are doing at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History to clarify what we mean by engagement. This is a big year for us in naming and evaluating our work. In early 2014, we developed a set of five engagement goals: Relevant, Sustainable, Bridging, Participatory, Igniting.

Goal

Goal Museum Evaluation History

Quick Hit: Five Evaluation Reports on Participatory Projects

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 4, 2010

I want to share a few fabulous evaluation and research studies that have greatly informed my work (and specifically, the development of The Participatory Museum , which is going to the printer this weekend). The Catalyst for Change social impact study from the Glasgow Open Museum. Tags: evaluation Quick Hits.

Participatory

Participatory Evaluation Project Report

The Participatory Museum Process Part 1: Overview and Statistics

Museum 2.0

MARCH 10, 2010

This is the first of a four-part series on the behind-the-scenes experience of writing The Participatory Museum. Overview: Stages of Development and Participation Types The Participatory Museum was written over a 15 month period that began in December of 2008. Many of the book sections started as blog posts on Museum 2.0.

Participatory

Participatory Museum Statistics Process

Using Social Bridging to Be "For Everyone" in a New Way

Museum 2.0

MAY 8, 2013

Like a lot of organizations, my museum struggles with two conflicting goals: The museum should be for everyone in our community. At the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History , we''re approaching this challenge through a different lens: social bridging. And rarely the twain shall meet.

Museum

Museum Social Arts History

A Simple A/B Test for Visitor Talkback Stations

Museum 2.0

MARCH 5, 2014

Consider three very different talkbacks in the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History''s fall exhibition, Santa Cruz is in the Heart: cocktail napkins, rear view mirrors, and refrigerator certificates. design evaluation Museum of Art and History participatory museum usercontent'

Test

Test Museum Participatory Measure

What Do You Need to Make the Argument for Participatory Design?

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 23, 2009

As many of you know, I’m writing a book about participatory design for museums. The book is intended to be a practical guide to participatory museum experiences focused on design strategies, case studies, and activities. The WHY of participatory design is really important. And there’s a third reason.

Participatory

Participatory Design Museum Wiki

State Fairs and Visitor Co-Creation: An Interview about MN150

Museum 2.0

JULY 17, 2008

Traditional exhibition design, in which the museum has a specific story or message to tell, doesn't easily accommodate visitor co-creation. This realization--that a single museum voice was not the best way to tell a particular story--formed the basis for MN150 , the exhibition explored in this post. So we got down to roughly 400.

Interview

Interview Minnesota Museum History

Nonprofit Technology

Adventures in Evaluating Participatory Exhibits: An In-Depth Look at the Memory Jar Project

Guest Post: Using Visitor Participation to Improve Object Labels at the San Diego Natural History Museum

Trending Sources

Guest Post: Community and Civic Engagement in Museum Programs

Museum 2.0 Rerun: Answers to the Ten Questions I Am Most Commonly Asked

12 Ways We Made our Santa Cruz Collects Exhibition Participatory

Yes, Audience Participation Can Have Significant Value

Answers to the Ten Questions I am Most Often Asked

Art Brings People Together: Measuring the Power of Social Bridging

Engagement, Distraction, and the Puzzle of the Puzzle

Improving Family Exhibitions by Co-Creating with Children

New Models for Community Partnerships: Museums Hosting Meetups

Guest Post: Lessons Learned Designing a Mobile Game for Balboa Park

Everyone's Smithsonian: Video, Slides, and an Open Strategic Planning Process

Six Steps to Making Risky Projects Possible

AAM Recap: Slides, Observations, and Object Fetishism

Participation, Contemplation, and the Complexity of "And"

What are Your Engagement Goals?

Quick Hit: Five Evaluation Reports on Participatory Projects

The Participatory Museum Process Part 1: Overview and Statistics

Using Social Bridging to Be "For Everyone" in a New Way

A Simple A/B Test for Visitor Talkback Stations

What Do You Need to Make the Argument for Participatory Design?

State Fairs and Visitor Co-Creation: An Interview about MN150

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