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

OCTOBER 13, 2010

On October 20, a young woman named Kate will move into Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry and live there for a month. This post is not about the Month at the Museum concept or implementation. Instead, this post focuses on a fascinating aspect of Month at the Museum: the video applications. That will come later.

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Museum Contest Video Chicago 34

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 22, 2010

In the most extreme cases, I've talked to folks from museums that are government-mandated to provide all content in multiple languages who say they are unable to invite visitors to make comments because they'd have to translate all of them and simply can't dedicate the resources to do so.

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Museum Work North America Language 38

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. To that end, our exhibitions are full of participatory elements. And when I think back on the past year, some of the most magical things that have happened at the museum have NOT been designed by us.

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Platform Open Museum Participatory 41

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. When the music video was not focused on Mexican culture, no such change occurred. This blog is about shared learning, and I went to engineering school.

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Measure Arts People Museum 47

Museum 2.0

MAY 10, 2011

It's my second week as the Executive Director at The Museum of Art & History in Santa Cruz, CA, and boy is my everything tired. I'm also making the 2011-2012 budget, getting to know our terrific staff and volunteers, and starting up a few small participatory projects to launch us into being a more community-driven institution.

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Museum History Participatory Arts 53

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.

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Technique Question Design Develop 50

Connection Cafe

APRIL 21, 2014

million likes surely someone touting the effect of music and art on their lives can get just as many. Another idea – create an exit survey at your museum that asks simple questions like “what’s your favorite exhibit” or “how many times have you visited the museum.”. Annual Fund Fundraising Arts & Cultural museum'

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Arts Story Org Personal 37

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.

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Denver Museum Arts Remix 21

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

MAY 23, 2008

And now, the research group Forrester provides new insights about different kinds of participatory styles among users of social media sites. I've written before about three types of museum users: contributors, lurkers, and judges. You wouldn't create an exhibition on music that only appeals to musical learners.

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Profile Audience Participatory Tools 26

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

DECEMBER 7, 2007

I got my copy of the fall issue of Museums and Social Issues this week. The theme is "Civic Dialogue," and the journal includes articles on the historical, cultural, media, and museum practice of getting people talking to each other (including one by me about such endeavors on the web). A place many museums are not.

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Museum Lecture Denver San Francisco 22

Museum 2.0

APRIL 28, 2009

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 struggles with in applying participatory design techniques to museum practice. The most reliable question I'm using works in art museums.

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Technique Design Question Develop 52

Museum 2.0

APRIL 22, 2008

Why discuss gifting on Museum 2.0? One of my greatest interests is the "p articipatory museum," in which there is substantive, unfacilitated visitor-to-visitor interaction. When I heard the tollbooth story, I started thinking about gifting as a model for participatory experiences in museums. Gifting extends your message.

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Gift Participatory Museum Model 23

Museum 2.0

MARCH 6, 2018

95% of our piano users play music, beautifully. It invites visitors to make the museum better. When visitors share their brilliance, it brings the museum to life. I believe that every person who walks into our museum has something valuable to share. This is the participatory museum, played out loud.

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Participatory Museum Sound Homeless 37

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

APRIL 23, 2008

One of the best projects that illustrates the basic idea of Web2.0 - listening and conversation and stakeholders creating their own experience with your organization - comes from the Brooklyn Museum of Art. o is Transparency - and the best example of that is what the Indianapolis Art Museum has done with its pubic metrics on its web site.

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Arts Social Media Examples Artist 74

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 12, 2017

It was even more useful to learn how participatory writing visions can be. A SIMPLE WAY TO TRY IT This week, we experimented with visioning at my museum in an all-staff meeting. These included ideas like "musical chairs job shadowing," "foot massage conference-call room," and "more meetings in public settings."

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History Pennsylvania Michigan Indiana 26

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 3, 2009

Last month, the Christian Science Monitor published an article entitled, "Museums' new mantra: Connect with community." It took me a couple weeks (and various museum blog responses ) to realize what bugs me about this article--it treats "connecting with community" as a marketing ploy, a "mantra" rather than a mission.

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Community Museum San Diego San Francisco 22

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 16, 2007

Out on the boardwalk, or at the zoo or a museum, there's a common experience of the sights, sounds, smells, activities of the place. Ideas participatory museum Unusual Projects and Influences visitors. Tags: Core Museum 2.0 Maybe it's because people waiting in line are bored and want something to break up the monotony.

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Museum Participatory Teen Game 20

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 9, 2007

I'm gearing up for some conference talks next month, and one of these is part of a very cool session, Eye on Design, at the Western Museums Association conference. The coordinator asked several folks to pick a design trend from outside the museum world and discuss how they might be applied to museum design. the list goes on.

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Museum Participatory Interaction Captivate 20

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 16, 2009

Imagine bonfires, musical jam sessions, and iron chef exhibit design. The focus is on bringing in outside influencers--folks from the Burning Man festival to World Without Oil --to help museum experience designers recharge, connect, and explore new ways to do creative work in teams. Imagine making and playing together. Sounds good?

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Collaboration Registration Brain Participatory 20

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 7, 2008

For many museums, visitor research--how people use the museum, navigate exhibits, and understand content--may be an equally important arena in which to adopt groundswell listening techniques. I spent an hour this morning "brand listening" to what the online world says about one of my favorite museums, the Exploratorium.

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Museum Teen Second Life Discussion 20

Museum 2.0

JULY 27, 2009

I’ve long admired Improv Everywhere , the NYC-based participatory public art group. The recording starts with two and a half minutes of music without talking. But it’s rare that museum exhibit designers or audio tour developers are willing to explicitly require certain kinds of actions by visitors.

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Instruction Instructional Nicaragua Experiment 21

Museum 2.0

MAY 16, 2007

into the museum is the potential to encourage more positive in-museum interactions among strangers. I want in-person museum experiences to be more like experiences on social sites like Flickr, where strangers connect and form relationships around content. A lot of what interests me about bringing 2.0

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Museum Myspace Facilitation Social Network 20

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 22, 2012

What happens when a formal art museum invites a group of collaborative, participatory artists to be in residence for a year? Will the artists ruin the museum with their plant vacations and coatroom concerts? But for museum and art wonks, it could be. Will the bureaucracy of the institution drown the artists in red tape?

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Artist Museum Project Public 39

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 21, 2016

For example, right now, Temple Contemporary's offices are packed floor to ceiling with broken musical instruments from classrooms across the city of Philadelphia. The cuts were so deep that school music rooms are full of unplayable instruments. One of TUPAC's current questions is about the state of art education.

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Process Share Philadelphia Arts 20

Museum 2.0

JUNE 6, 2008

On June 4, we opened The Tech Virtual Test Zone , a new 2000 sq ft gallery at The Tech Museum of Innovation featuring exhibits on the theme of art, film, and music that were originally developed in Second Life by a community of creative amateurs. Some museum pros have been puzzled by this. or to start their own.

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Virtual Tech Lesson Develop 21

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 7, 2011

Maybe it's a live music concert, or a museum visit, or a play. Museums and other venues are offering special programs for teens, for hipsters, for people who want a more active or spiritual or participatory experience. For myself personally, this gulf rears its head every time I go to a live music concert.

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Arts Museum Music Calendar 50

Museum 2.0

APRIL 18, 2012

Last Friday, I witnessed something beautiful at my museum. I've been documenting lots of small bridging incidents at our museum over the past few months. It could have been the attitude of the museum that supports participation and conversation. At museums, we mostly bond with the friends and family with whom we attend.

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Community Teen Build Social 42

Museum 2.0

JUNE 2, 2010

This year, the American Association of Museums annual conference was in Los Angeles (my hometown). I hosted two sessions, one on design for participation and the other on mission-driven museum technology development. He started with museums as a "place to go"--to see things, consume experiences. In this case, a heck of a lot.

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Slides Museum Los Angeles San Jose 22