Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

APRIL 1, 2010

I had too look no further than Shelley Bernstein's blog over at the Brooklyn Museum to find some thoughtful experimentation and useful examples. Back in December, the Brooklyn Museum started to experiment with FourSquare running a promotion to get people to check in and get a free membership.

Museum 97

Museum Mashup Badge Participatory 97

Museum 2.0

APRIL 18, 2018

You can now read all the chapters in The Art of Relevance for free online. Take five minutes and learn how the Science Museum in London created better experiences for deaf visitors. Why make the book available for free under a Creative Commons license? Free previews are powerful. Free previews are powerful.

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Arts Free Chapter Cleveland 40

Museum 2.0

APRIL 1, 2010

This is the final segment in a four-part series about writing The Participatory Museum. This posts explains why and how I self-published The Participatory Museum. Few publishers was open to Creative Commons licensing and to giving away the content for free online. Check out the other parts here. Why Self-Publish?

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Participatory Museum Process Adobe 33

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). I'm open to any questions you want to raise in the comments.

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Museum Director Participatory Culture 55

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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Museum Question Participatory Evaluation 45

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

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 6, 2009

This post was written by Jaime Kopke , the founder/director of the Denver Community Museum , a pop-up community-generated institution that ran from Oct 2008-April 2009. The Denver Community Museum (DCM) was a grassroots operation in almost every sense. It was free to participate in and to visit.

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Denver Museum Community Participatory 29

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

APRIL 25, 2011

I've spent much of the past three years on the road giving workshops and talks about audience participation in museums. Feel free to add your own questions and answers in the comments! The Museum 2.0 Are there certain kinds of institutions that are more well-suited for participatory techniques than others? Yes and no.

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Question Participatory Museum Evaluation 49

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

JULY 12, 2011

A museum holds a free program in a semi-public space. Last weekend, my museum did a little pilot of a new program, Downward Draw. We held a free yoga class in the plaza outside the museum and invited artists to come and draw/paint the yoga-doers in motion. Ready for a math problem? How many people participated?

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Participatory Museum Measure Activities 41

Museum 2.0

MARCH 13, 2013

Visitor-contributed photos surround a collection piece in Carnegie Museum of Art's Oh Snap! It can be incredibly difficult to design a participatory project that involves online and onsite visitor engagement. The museum selected and is featuring 13 works recently added to our photography collection.

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Authoring Open Experiment Museum 53

Museum 2.0

MAY 29, 2013

At our museum, we''ve gotten better at communication up from the front desk to the office. People use it to share surprises in the archives, inspiring meetings with artists, dead birds in the lobby, and free food in the fridge. participatory museum professional development' Kudos to Sarah for making it happen.

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Facebook Museum Participatory Adopt 55

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 31, 2012

Three of them are being hosted at my museum , and one at a mystery location. You Can't Do That in Museums Camp - July 10-12, 2013. In July of 2013, the MAH will host our first You Can't Do That in Museums Camp (or better name to be suggested by you), inviting 80 creative people to collaborate on an experimental exhibition.

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Professional Develop Museum Arts 35

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

SEPTEMBER 8, 2016

Last week I was honored to be a counselor at Museum Camp , an annual professional development event hosted by the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (MAH). Nina Simon, the executive director of the museum, is an expert in participatory design and fantastic facilitator.

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Causes Change Museum Social 50

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 5, 2008

I was fascinated by our discussion, and Bob came to mind last month, when I was asked to write an article for the Association of Children's Museums quarterly journal, Hand to Hand , about children's museums and Web 2.0. To understand more, I turned to Elaine Gurian's article The Molting of Children's Museums? Why the uniformity?

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Classroom Children Museum Model 22

Museum 2.0

MARCH 27, 2013

There's a constant dialogue in participatory work about how to make peoples' contributions meaningful. I've written about different structures for participatory processes (especially in museums), and recently, I've been interested in how we can apply these structures to the design of public space. Non-Participation 6.

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Design Participatory Children Museum 49

Museum 2.0

MAY 9, 2008

There's a tag applied to many Museum 2.0 Posts under that tag tend to examine non-museum things, from malls to games to ad campaigns , and draw some design lessons for museums from their foreignness. What aspects of that socialness are desirable in museums (and how might we mirror buses or trains to promote them)?

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Participatory Design Museum Childhood 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

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 1, 2006

Ready to turn your institution into a site of participatory engagement? specializes in designing museum experiences and exhibitions that are community informed, socially stimulating, technologically ambitious, and intriguingly experimental. Want to bring the spirit of this blog to your colleagues and projects?

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Museum Professional Service Participatory 21

Museum 2.0

JULY 31, 2013

I spent the weekend queuing up posts for my forthcoming blog-cation--nine weeks of guest posts and reruns from the Museum 2.0 You''re in for a treat, with upcoming posts on creativity, collections management, elitism, science play, permanent participatory galleries, partnering with underserved teens, magic vests, and more.

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Museum Participatory Reflection Conference 35

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! Lots of people come in for free to party and ignore the exhibits?

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Museum Hosting Model Community 22

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 26, 2008

This week, I'm launching a new site: the Voicemail Museum. It's an experiment that merges two of my greatest interests: finding novel, easy ways for visitors to contribute content to museums finding questions that draw such compelling responses that random peoples' answers would be worth browsing To participate, all you need is a phone.

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Museum Audio Participatory Phone 20

Museum 2.0

JULY 17, 2012

But we've just compiled all our attendance data for the past year at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History (our fiscal year ends on June 30), and several people have written to me asking for the numbers behind our turnaround. The busiest day in both 2011 and 2012 is our longtime community program, Free First Friday.

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Museum History Arts Artist 47

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. Or “I love the MAH because it is a truly participatory space where diverse groups can enjoy, express themselves, and learn from/about/with others.”

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Public Museum Arts History 27

Museum 2.0

APRIL 21, 2011

I'm reaching the end of my consulting days, with just one more day on the road before I dedicate myself to Santa Cruz and The Museum of Art & History. The one-hour conversation will be wide-ranging, free-wheeling, and open to your comments and questions. I wanted to let you know about a bonus opportunity that has popped up.

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Arts Model Wisconsin Business 26

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

DECEMBER 23, 2010

The book is available on Amazon or as a free download. 9 The Participatory Museum by Nina Simon. I first met Mary in 2005 through my connection with the Global Voices community and can say that Mary is among the most knowledgeable and experienced digital activists in the world. You can pick up a copy here.

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Amazon Nonprofit Social Media Oregon 116

Museum 2.0

MARCH 18, 2015

There are lots of great science museum resources, but not where these kids can walk after school. So the Community Science Workshop model is to put a drop-in, FREE community science center in a place that is walkable to kids'' lives and schools. It''s not a Community Science Workshop if it''s not free to participants.

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Green Interview Share Community 20

Museum 2.0

APRIL 8, 2010

Many of the talks are related to The Participatory Museum and I will have books for sale on all of these forays. Here's the list for the next two months: April 14-17 - Denver for Museums and the Web conference. April 29 - I'm heading to the Oakland Museum for the preview of its reopening. Both are open to the public.

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Los Angeles Museum Participatory Minneapolis 22

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

OCTOBER 23, 2018

You can download it for free right now. This project wove together many different participatory threads. We partnered with foster youth, former foster youth, artists, and community advocates to create an exhibition that used art to spark action on issues facing foster youth. Short story: we learned a lot. What did we learn?

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Issue Childhood Community Create 45

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. Free tickets. The best book I've read on the topic is Facilitators Guide to Participatory Decision-Making by Sam Kaner. Child care.

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Build Community Museum Participatory 35

Museum 2.0

JUNE 1, 2016

It's packed with practical theories, rags-to-relevance case studies, and inspiring stories from museums and libraries, theaters and parks, dance companies and orchestras, afterschool programs and activists, churches and synagogues. My last book, The Participatory Museum , did well. and then do a little bit more.

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Arts Advocacy Team Dallas 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

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Museum Boston Participatory Job 52

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 16, 2009

Offering free workshops open to the public on participatory museum practice in Wellington (Nov 26), Christchurch (Nov 27), and Auckland (Dec 14). Leading internal workshops with Te Papa (Nov 25), the Powerhouse Museum (Dec 8-9) the State Library of Queensland (Dec 10-11), and the Auckland War Memorial Museum (Dec 15).

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New Zealand Australia Participatory Museum 22

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? Many museums have been experimenting in these spaces by creating institutional profiles, museum affinity groups, and connecting with visitors and other museum professionals individually.

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Museum Social Network Case Study Discussion 20

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.

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Interview Director Museum Arts 46