Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

SEPTEMBER 29, 2015

In some ways, a design lab can be thought of as “participatory research and testing.”. Participants voted on the questions that would be most important for the Brainerd Foundation to consider in its strategy: How might we adopt a hybrid model of new and old power? How do we leverage the “rain” of culture change?3.

Design 50

Design Strategy Facilitation Advocacy 50

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

Our archeology did not aim to uncover the hidden voice of my grandmother, but instead to begin an ongoing practice of recreation. People dig in, exchanging treasures with one another like tactile memories, constituting the personal as part of a public commons.

Collaboration 36

Collaboration North Carolina Museum Artist 36

Museum 2.0

JULY 20, 2016

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. That work showed in the human voices and stories throughout the museum. Of course, these are tools of user-centered institutions!

Museum 20

Museum Audience Music Arts 20

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

FEBRUARY 24, 2009

I remember in 2005 the Global Voices Summit used IRC as a backchannel -- no so much for people in the room, but for remote participation. They appointed a person in the room as the "Backchannel Advocate" and the speaker would ask them verbalize questions from the backchannel. Robert Scoble calls this taking a twitter break.

Reflection 69

Reflection Conference Resource Arts 69

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. Every program, old and new, should be evaluated against the mission (and the business model) for soundness. While most of the voices represented are positive about a "Smithsonian 2.0"

Slides 20

Slides Process Video Open 20

Museum 2.0

APRIL 1, 2008

Each person with an account on Twitter effectively has two social networks—your outgoing set of followers (people who receive your tweets) and your incoming set of tweets from the people you follow. to be a more participatory site with comment streams rampantly debating each post topic, but the reality is that my voice dominates the site.

Twitter 24

Twitter Participatory Broadcast Museum 24

Museum 2.0

MARCH 15, 2010

It's not the extent to which they are participatory. Small museums, which are most likely to cultivate local, distinctive voice and approaches, often have an inferiority complex. Especially when it comes to small museums with limited collections, a distinctive personality is often the best thing the institution has to offer.

Support 41

Support Museum St. Louis NSF 41

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 7, 2010

I also learned that the best money in museums for someone who's starting out is in art modeling. I survived the first half of 2003 financially on art modeling and poetry gigs. After being rejected for a job at the Institute of Learning Innovation (founded by one of my heroes, John Falk), I discovered that person in Anna Slafer.

Museum 52

Museum Boston Participatory Job 52

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 20, 2009

To me, an open photo policy is a cornerstone of any institution that sees itself as a visitor-centered platform for participatory engagement. If your argument is based on visitor comfort and distraction, it should be backed up by visitor research, not personal impressions. hate the sight of people taking photos in museums.

Museum 54

Museum Photo Policy Open 54

Connection Cafe

MARCH 11, 2010

And for anyone attending the event and looking for some insight into how to get in on the philanthropic and social advocacy action, here are some of my recommendations on sessions, events and activities that have gold stars next to them on my personal event agenda. What is influence and how is it measured? Data will be shared!

Conference 38

Conference Government Social Media Influence 38

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 26, 2008

People already know how to leave voice and text messages and don't have to grapple with a comment system to do so. This was surprising given that participants were required to do a lot more to post a comment on the voicethread than on the blog: they had to register an account, have a microphone, and record their voice.

Museum 20

Museum Audio Participatory Phone 20

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

OCTOBER 18, 2011

The Wikimedia Foundation ambitiously envisions a “world in which every single person on the planet is given free access to the sum of all human knowledge.” They then formed task forces to consider various options and make decisions, using a consensus-based model.

Open Source 92

Open Source Open Case Study Wikipedia 92

Museum 2.0

JUNE 6, 2008

People who work with non-professionals on participatory projects often talk about finding "neutral" sites for meetings or meeting on their (the non-professionals') territory. We had to be honest with them (and express our own personal frustration at changes we could not control) for this to not be a disaster.

Virtual 21

Virtual Tech Lesson Develop 21

Connection Cafe

NOVEMBER 1, 2018

Jeremy: Well first, Rachel, it’s great to be here and great to be with this amazing group here in person and around the world. You see them in business models like Airbnb, right? So that’s an extraordinary model and the reason it’s been able to scale so quickly is because of new power. Showing voice.

Social 22

Social Game Model Fun 22

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

NOVEMBER 4, 2013

Back to the Roots’ mission is to make food personal again through the passionate development of tools that educate and inspire, one family at a time. The organization delivering services to people at risk and affected by trafficking, and integrates revenue streams into their service model. IDEO.org).

Impact 122

Impact Method San Francisco Social 122

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 8, 2008

I have a lot of conversations with people that go like this: Other person: "So, you think that museums should let visitors control the museum experience?" Other person: "But doesn't that erode museums' authority?" In these conversations, people often say, "don't expert voices matter?" It lets you be the only expert with a voice.

Authoring 42

Authoring Platform Museum YouTube 42

Museum 2.0

MAY 15, 2008

But we're trying to model a kind of conversation with important people, powerful people, but particularly knowledgeable people, where we say--YOU can go up to a person with a lot of knowledge and ask him "why?," To do this kind of modeling, Robert and Jad actively portray themselves as novices. ask him "how does he know that?"

Conversation 20

Conversation Arts Museum Voice 20

Museum 2.0

JUNE 2, 2010

This post recaps those sessions and other personal highlights of the conference. This session was participatory in several ways, including interactive music-making machines in the audience and half the time reserved for Q&A. Third, museums as a "place to be heard"--to share your voice, your stories, your interpretation.

Slides 22

Slides Museum Los Angeles San Jose 22

Bloomerang

SEPTEMBER 24, 2021

You did a webinar for us last year, had to have you back, check her out over at Leadership Savvy, does a lot of good work helping folks with strategic planning, which you’re going to talk about obviously, and just an awesome person. So then we’ll talk about what are some participatory planning methods. Here we go.

Community 79

Community Video Slides Survey 79

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 7, 2009

Every time a colleague tells me her museum has just hired a "community person," a part of me cringes. And second, the communities they manage often become unhealthily centered on the managers' personalities and abilities, causing problems if those community managers ever choose to leave. Why does this happen in the first place?

Community 40

Community Management Museum Aggregator 40

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 24, 2011

I was talking this week with Mark Allen, the founder of Machine Project (an alternative arts space in LA), about different models for community engagement in cultural institutions. In fact, I find that participatory products are often more likely to reflect a formal sensibility than their traditional counterparts.

Voice 42

Voice Los Angeles Denver Museum 42

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 6, 2019

I spent 2007-2011 traveling the world, doing participatory projects and consulting gigs, and writing my first book. You gave me support as I struggled to lead a museum through a participatory rebirth. is about participation, but I never fully succeeded in making it participatory. The response to this blog changed my life.

Museum 27

Museum Reflection Participatory Attitude 27

Museum 2.0

JUNE 29, 2010

You can join the conversation in the blog comments and add your own voice to the debate. It is crucial that LAMs be considered public civic spaces, but Oldenburg's model leaves a lot to be desired. Nina's research keeps finding that the right kind of constraints work to produce a better participatory museum experience.

Place 30

Place Discussion Library Museum 30

Museum 2.0

MARCH 6, 2019

While I originally wrote this post to advocate for more participatory practice (i.e. The Future of Authority: Platform Power (first published October 2008) I have a lot of conversations with people that go like this: Other person: "So, you think that museums should let visitors control the museum experience?" Me: "Sort of."

Authoring 44

Authoring Share Museum YouTube 44