Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

APRIL 23, 2008

I'm prepping for a workshop on Social Media and wanted do a round up of recent compelling examples of arts organizations using social media strategies and tools. I was particularly interested in examples using blogs, Twitter, Flickr, Youtube, and Facebook. what goes on inside a theater, a museum, a historical home?

Arts 74

Arts Social Media Examples Artist 74

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 3, 2014

During a workshop on museum visitor participation, someone spoke up and objected: "this might work in California, but it will never work in Texas." I saw how participatory techniques were working in diverse museums around the world. What plays well at one museum may fall flat a few miles away. This is a human desire.

Culture 49

Culture Participatory New Zealand Museum 49

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 16, 2010

I spent last week in the glorious country of Taiwan, hiking, eating, and working with museum professionals and graduate students at a conference hosted at the Taiwan National Museum of Fine Arts. It's not topic-specific; I've done these exercises with art, history, science, and children's museums to useful effect.

Museum 41

Museum Technique Taiwan Social 41

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.

Museum 51

Museum Roles Game Participatory 51

Museum 2.0

JULY 23, 2019

Me with a friend As I keep saying, I’ve been to a few museums of late. In reflecting on the sample, I’ve made some broad reflections on museum workers and visitors. Today, I wanted to think about participatory elements, something so essential to this blog. People go to museums for leisure.)

Museum 35

Museum Participatory Interaction Classroom 35

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 9, 2010

Recently, I was giving a presentation about participatory techniques at an art museum, when a staff member raised her hand and asked, "Did you have to look really hard to find examples from art museums? Aren't art museums less open to participation than other kinds of museums?" In Your Face ).

Museum 29

Museum Difference Participatory History 29

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 15, 2009

Over the past year, I've noticed a strange trend in the calls I receive about upcoming participatory museum projects: the majority of them are being planned for teen audiences. Why are teens over-represented in participatory projects? Teens are a known (and somewhat controllable) entity.

Teen 24

Teen Participatory Experiment Museum 24

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?" But when it comes to socializing with strangers, their interest is incredibly low.

Teen 49

Teen Social Museum Participatory 49

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

MAY 7, 2010

Nina has written a fantastic book engagement called The Participatory Museum. If you want a chance of winning a copy, leave a comment saying how you might apply some of the science of participation to your social media strategy. What does this have to do with nonprofits and social media?

Model 98

Model Activities Active Activism 98

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 30, 2013

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. 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. That didn''t happen.

Measure 47

Measure Arts People Museum 47

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.

Museum 20

Museum Audience Music Arts 20

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 49

Question Participatory Museum Evaluation 49

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 22, 2010

If your goal is to promote a social experience among visitors, it can be tricky if they can't read or speak the same tongue. Many fabulous participatory projects--like the Johnny Cash Project or the Art Gallery of Ontario's " In Your Face "--don't require language. designate the difference between languages using design.

Museum 38

Museum Work North America Language 38

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

MARCH 7, 2007

great example of the innovative new things we can do with Flickr in terms of. advocacy and leveraging the social community there: Starbucks Campaign. Maybe he share some reflections in the comments - like for example - about the making of the video which is quite good in terms of production values, although not glossy campaign video.

Meme 50

Meme Participatory Campaign Flickr 50

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. In this post, Jasper shares some lessons learned from a recent experiment to design a more social comment station.

Museum 34

Museum Comment Experiment Participatory 34

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.

Museum 54

Museum Photo Policy Open 54

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 11, 2008

The Art of Participation provides a retrospective on participatory art as well as presenting opportunities for visitors to engage in contemporary (“now”) works. As the museum's website puts it, "this exhibition examines how artists have engaged members of the public as essential collaborators in the art-making process."

Participatory 20

Participatory Arts Design Museum 20

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 9, 2017

A colleague at UC Santa Cruz asked me to participate in a social practice symposium called Against Participation. I've met too many young, talented people of color who want to work in museums but feel belittled, tokenized, or unsupported in their careers. At first, I thought it was a joke.

Participatory 20

Participatory Museum Voice Press 20

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 10, 2012

Let's look at the statistics from three big participatory projects that wrapped up recently. The Brooklyn Museum just finished the public stage of GO , a "community-curated open studio project." In each of these examples, the press and public dialogue mostly revolved around the idea of public voting for art. Full stats here.

Arts 47

Arts Artist Museum Award 47

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

DECEMBER 23, 2010

During 2010, I been able to read, blurb, write reviews, do blog giveaways, or author guest posts and interviews for a lot of terrific books that would be useful to nonprofit professionals in the social media, marketing, and ICT areas. Hands-On Social Marketing: A Step-by-Step Guide to Designing Change for Good by Nedra Kline Weinreich.

Amazon 116

Amazon Nonprofit Social Media Oregon 116

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 22, 2009

What does the word "participatory" mean to you? The various definitions of participatory projects can lead to confusion and misunderstandings. Participation in science research is a good basis on which to develop a framework for participatory models because it is based on a consistent scientific process with many steps.

Public 36

Public Research Participatory Report 36

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. That's why I asked.

Technique 50

Technique Question Design Develop 50

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 15, 2008

The presumed answer is "yes" your museum needs a blog, a pony, or a set of comfy couches. Does your museum need a custom online social network? A social networking site is one in which users connect with one another. Why might a museum create its own social network? In this case, it's debatable. exclusivity.

Museum 20

Museum Social Network Case Study Discussion 20

Museum 2.0

MARCH 27, 2009

This week, the Denver Art Museum (DAM) opened a new temporary exhibition called The Psychedelic Experience , featuring rock posters from San Francisco in the heyday of Bill Graham and electric kool-aid. It is an incredible museum experience. The visitor is given a copy of her poster and the museum keeps a copy as well.

Denver 21

Denver Museum Arts Remix 21

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 People who engage deeply in any online community, whether a bulletin board or social networking site, want to meet in person. The event brought hundreds of hip, young professionals to the museum for lots of booze and partying.

Museum 22

Museum Hosting Model Community 22

Museum 2.0

MAY 19, 2016

For example, when we held community meetings about the development of a new creative town square next to our museum, a group of middle/upper-class moms talked about not feeling safe downtown. Not surprisingly, a different focus group of social service providers and homeless adults had a very different set of concerns about downtown.

Build 35

Build Community Museum Participatory 35

Museum 2.0

MARCH 10, 2008

Thank you to Susan Spero and all the folks at JFKU and Left Coast Press for starting a highly stimulating conversation this weekend at the colloquium on Museums and Civic Discourse. There were, as we say in the museum business, some good aha moments. What role should museums play in promoting discourse?

Museum 20

Museum Site Facilitation Participatory 20

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 22, 2008

Imagine that your museum is ready to start creating content on a small-scale in Web 2.0. Let me give you an example. Imagine you are the Boston Museum of Science, and you are ready to make some videos to post on YouTube. When I search for "Boston Museum of Science" on YouTube, I find 83 videos. Where should you start?

Museum 22

Museum Technorati Boston YouTube 22

Museum 2.0

MAY 20, 2008

What makes an exhibit “social?” This blog often analyzes how websites, designed spaces, even dogs promote participatory experiences among users. Today, we look inward for a how-to on one type of participatory design as applied to museum exhibits. Exhibits that induce pointing are social in a couple of ways.

Design 21

Design Participatory Social Museum 21

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. The paper is the easy part.

Museum 20

Museum Library Participatory Wikipedia 20

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 16, 2010

How do you find your way around a multi-faceted museum? I spent some time playing with this question last week at the Milwaukee Art Museum, a large general museum that is moving toward redesign of the permanent galleries. The instruction becomes a kind of social object that gives people something to talk about.

Experiment 44

Experiment Lesson Learning Museum 44

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 20, 2010

Audience segmentation and research has become a hot topic in museums, especially when it comes to crafting appealing offerings that are customized to different kinds of visitors. I sat down with Kristen Denner, Director of Membership and Annual Fund, to learn more about the program's development and the museum's goals for its future.

Interview 46

Interview Director Museum Arts 46

Museum 2.0

MARCH 28, 2008

Museums (and libraries) are trusted sources of information. In February 2001, AAM commissioned a study about the trustworthiness of museums and found that "Almost 9 out of 10 Americans (87%) find museums to be one of the most trustworthy or a trustworthy source of information among a wide range of choices.

Participatory 20

Participatory Museum Teen Voice 20

Museum 2.0

MARCH 21, 2011

This expresses itself most powerfully in museums when we talk about building relationships with visitors over time. But museums are one-night stand amnesiacs in the relationship department. This is terrible, both for the visitor and for the museum. Sometimes an extra seat can make the difference between solo and social.

Relationship 46

Relationship Museum Game Personal 46

Museum 2.0

MARCH 18, 2015

There are lots of great science museum resources, but not where these kids can walk after school. I feel very careful talking about the ways that the particular populations who we choose to work with for social justice reasons are also the people who make our work possible because of cultural expectations. For example, kids and tools.

Green 20

Green Interview Share Community 20

Museum 2.0

MARCH 12, 2009

April 5 is the first day of a class I’m teaching called Social Technology, in which we are focusing on designing an exhibition that features social objects , that is, exhibits or artifacts that inspire interpersonal dialogue. Most social objects that mediate conversation among strangers are incidental.

Design 20

Design Experiment Seattle Social 20

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 7, 2010

Last week marked four years for the Museum 2.0 People--especially young folks looking to break into the museum business--often ask me how I got here. Ed Rodley recently wrote a blog post about museum jobs entitled "Getting Hired: It's Who You Know and Who Knows You." hour at the Museum. I made $26/hour at NASA and $7.25/hour

Museum 52

Museum Boston Participatory Job 52