Museum 2.0

JUNE 29, 2009

By a strange and lucky coincidence, I was at the Experience Music Project and Science Fiction Museum (EMPSFM) in Seattle for a two-day workshop. EMPSFM is one of a handful of museums worldwide for which the death of the King of Pop is a very big deal. Are museums only relevant when they can serve our most pressing needs?

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Museum Teen Learning Music 34

Museum 2.0

MARCH 21, 2008

It's been awhile since I've shared the progress of The Tech Virtual , the web and Second Life-based virtual exhibit workshop that The Tech Museum of Innovation opened in December of 2007. Some of these people are professional artists or exhibit designers, but most are just talented folks with an interest in museums.

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Museum Virtual Tech Second Life 20

Museum 2.0

JUNE 8, 2010

This guest post was written by Rebecca Lawrence, Museum Educator, Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center in Pennsylvania. You can join the conversation in the blog comments, or on the Museum 2.0 The Schwenkfelder Library & Heritage Center (SLHC) is a small museum located in Pennsburg, Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.

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Place Museum Discussion Pennsylvania 27

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

APRIL 4, 2010

He is Deputy Director for the Contemporary Jewish Museum , and an expert in using social media in a museum setting. The social media lab for arts organizations is a combination of face-to-face workshops, phone calls, and online support via a wiki and Twitter over several months. I said yes. Photo by James Leventhal.

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Social Media Reflection Learning Social 94

Museum 2.0

APRIL 23, 2007

and with it flocks of museum studies / education / exhibit planning graduate interns. I’m always curious when I meet these folks, who are about my age, choosing a different entry path into the museum world. The value proposition of museum grad programs is cloudy in my mind. Sure, it’s great to learn museum theory and history.

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Museum Program Student Skills 51

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. The slides are also available for download.

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Slides Process Video Open 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 11, 2009

I'm doing a workshop with the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History which includes a public lecture on "the multi-platform museum" on May 18 at 3pm ET (GMT -5). What is a multi-platform museum? Tags: professional development. Next week, I'm doing something way less cool and way more convenient.

Museum 22

Museum Platform North America Lecture 22

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 26, 2009

This guest post was written by Ruben Huele and describes the scenario-based strategic process used at the Dutch Natural History Museum, Naturalis , to innovate the redevelopment of their permanent collection. The new building of Naturalis, the Dutch National Natural History Museum, opened in 1998. Following the Museum 2.0

Museum 20

Museum Process Wiki Netherlands 20

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JUNE 14, 2010

On Friday, I facilitated the final face-to-face workshop for the Social Media Lab for 25 arts organizations inspired by Thomas Edison’s approach. The whole idea got started a year ago when James Leventhal who is Deputy Director for the Contemporary Jewish Museum asked me if I would design some trainings for the local arts community.

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Social Media Media San Jose Social 99

Museum 2.0

JULY 26, 2010

Community science workshops. From a museum perspective, I think there's a lot to learn from these venues' business models, approach to collecting and exhibiting work, and connection with their audiences. In 2003, writer George Scheer inherited his grandmother's thrift store and decided to turn it into an artists' center and museum.

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Culture Alternative St. Louis Los Angeles 49

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).

New Zealand 22

New Zealand Australia Participatory Museum 22

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. The Museum solicited photographs from artists via an open call on their website, Facebook group, Flickr groups, and outreach to Brooklyn-based arts organizations.

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Arts Social Media Examples Artist 74

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. I'm giving a workshop on design techniques for encouraging user participation (sorry, it's full). May 17 - NYC.

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Los Angeles Museum Participatory Minneapolis 22

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. speculative (what if?

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Technique Question Design Develop 50

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

For years, I've been fascinated and a bit perplexed by the Elsewhere Collaborative , a thrift store turned artists' studio/living museum in Greensboro, North Carolina. By calling ourselves a museum, we respond to those cultural institutions that have separated practice from production, exhibition from process, and work from play.

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Collaboration North Carolina Museum Artist 36

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 29, 2009

Last week, Jim Richardson and I hosted MuseumNext , a 24-hour workshop for museum professionals focused on bringing new, wild museum projects into the world. We also ended the entire event with one of my favorite exercises, the Exquisite Corpse game, in which participants co-created comics of their craziest museum dreams.

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Facilitation Reflection Museum Participatory 32

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

MAY 20, 2010

Marnie also introduced me to social booking and tagging way back in 2004 as the originator of the NpTech Tag. When possible, I get a list of attendees at workshops or conferences, and I visit their web sites and social media outposts. My opening framework breaks down the strategy into strategy blocks.

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Social Media Media Social San Jose 115

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. instead of what is?)

Technique 52

Technique Design Question Develop 52

Museum 2.0

JULY 17, 2009

Museums site) asked me if I'd like to come to England this fall and put on some kind of camp with him, I was thrilled. We are using a hybrid unconference/workshop model in which participants work collaboratively to explore and brainstorm a few pre-selected "wild ideas" for future museum initiatives related to audience participation.

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Museum Unconference Skills California 20

Museum 2.0

APRIL 10, 2008

On Monday, David Klevan (from the US Holocaust Memorial Museum) and I spoke at the MAAM Creating Exhibitions conference about Web 2.0 and museums. framework, and David shared lessons learned from the huge range of projects the Holocaust Museum has initiated. I provided the Web 2.0 and sniff around.

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Web Time Museum Audio 44

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.

Community 22

Community Museum San Diego San Francisco 22

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 11, 2010

Dear Museum 2.0 As some of you know, I'm working on a project to open an experimental cafe in Santa Cruz that serves craft beer, Belgian frites, and intriguing encounters with strangers. Tags: Quick Hits. readers, I need your help. The cafe will also be an R&D innovation lab for the cultural sector.

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Project Help Badge Model 35

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 8, 2010

These evenings are also known as “Worklucks” for anyone to drop in and use the library as an open, communal workspace, a free coffeeshop, complete with free coffee and Wi-Fi. Tags: guestpost Unusual Projects and Influences. The Underground Library isn’t just a community archive of things past.

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Chicago Library Public Culture 48

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 18, 2010

Yesterday, I did a workshop with some local teenage girls in an after school program. Needless to say, this led to an interesting workshop. Tags: Talking to Strangers. We were in a busy downtown area of Santa Cruz with lots of people strolling and hanging out outside on a gorgeous day--prime "talk to strangers" material.

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Life Teen Culture Attitude 21

Museum 2.0

APRIL 8, 2010

In my experience, lobby feedback systems generate three kinds of responses: Effusive, generic platitudes: "Great Museum!" Even when the comments are good, museum staff processes are rarely set up to learn from them and adapt programming accordingly. Of course, people visit grocery stores much more frequently than they do museums.

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Build Museum Nebraska Comment 21

Museum 2.0

JUNE 5, 2009

I've been designing game-like experiences with museums for a long time. But this week, I participated in a game design workshop with Ken Eklund that totally changed my perspective. We rarely talk about this when we design museum exhibits. What does it mean to play well in your museum? Tags: design game.

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Game Design Museum Interaction 21

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. than by talking in suppositions.

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Virtual Tech Lesson Develop 21

Museum 2.0

MARCH 18, 2008

In the museum world, we often talk about lowering barriers to entry, helping people get through the door. And so today we look at an educational facility (not a museum) that swabs the deck with these barriers. There is a trapdoor in the ceiling that staff can open to drop a mop head on unsuspecting browsers.

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Education Museum Audience Design 21

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 5, 2009

Today, an interview with staff from a museum with an incredibly healthy attitude towards experimentation with social media. Three things stand out in this interview: Like the Brooklyn Museum , COSI’s social media strategy is focused on local community connections, not national outreach. I think, sadly, that we all know the answer.

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Conversation Columbus Change Museum 20

Museum 2.0

JUNE 3, 2009

The imaginative context of the workshops allowed us to get past petty sticking points and tackle big questions like how to balance creativity into your work, how to feel good about creating without evaluating the product, and how to deal with the tensions of working in teams. Tags: professional development. We had fun. We got inspired.

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Conference Professional PowerPoint Evaluation 21

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

But what staff thought of as "being open," the teens saw as "hiding" the real needs. People do not sign up to help design exhibits the way they sign up for an afternoon workshop. He's an entirely fictitious device used to create criteria, add drama, and help focus the kids on what would otherwise be an overwhelmingly open task at hand.

Teen 20

Teen Volunteer Create Design 20

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JUNE 23, 2015

I also facilitated several workshops for London-based nonprofit CEOs and communications directors on developing a strategy for their leadership profiles on social and internal champions (board, staff, and volunteers). This post is a roundup of what I learned from the speakers at the conference and some reflections on the workshops.

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Conference Learning Social Photo 50

Museum 2.0

JULY 28, 2010

Diane is both visionary and no-nonsense about deconstructing the barriers that many low-income and non-white teenagers and families face when entering a museum. Most large American museums are reflections of white culture. Most of the walls are clear, so the space feels open, welcoming, and safely overseen.

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St. Louis Audience Teen Museum 53

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 18, 2010

Are museum visitors "customers?" I attended a workshop by Bob Gibbs, an urban planner who designs malls and shopping districts around the US. An open door generates 35% more business than a closed door. How many museum and library entrances are hard to find, dark, and require opening a heavy door? Some swear by it.

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Design People Museum Library 54

Bloomerang

MAY 7, 2021

Join fundraising master trainer, Chad Barger, CFRE, for a workshop focused on finding potential supporters for your nonprofit organization. I don’t know about you, but I pulled this slide deck open to update it. Half of them don’t already have those funds allocated and may be open to supporting your organization as well.

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Causes Chad Support Donor 117

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 13, 2014

While MuseumCamp is an unusual event, I''ve learned a lot from it about designing workshops, charrettes, and meetings--pretty much any gathering where you want to encourage playful, creative, risky thinking in groups. Tag Team the Facilitation. Here are five key lessons I''ve learned about making this kind of event work.

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Facilitation Professional Learning Participatory 36

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 28, 2007

Welcome to the second in the four-part series on comfort (and its boundaries) in museums, a day late but just as tasty. We went on opening weekend and elected to watch a couple of short films related to humor, including one by Mira Nair on the laughing clubs of India. The Spy Museum puts on extraordinary educational programs.

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Program People Museum Lecture 20