Museum 2.0

JUNE 6, 2011

This is the casual attendance data from my first full month as the Executive Director of The Museum of Art & History in Santa Cruz. This graph is making me change the way I think about what our museum is for and how we should market it. The audience is diverse and attentive; the experience is content-rich and on-mission.

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Museum Arts History Audience 55

Museum 2.0

MARCH 6, 2013

I write this piece in good faith about the organizations I know best: museums. The vast majority of American museums are institutions of white privilege. The popular reference point for what a museum is--a temple for contemplation--is based on a Euro-centric set of myths and implies a white set of behaviors.

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Museum St. Louis Arts Artist 55

Museum 2.0

JUNE 27, 2012

A year ago, I wrote a post speculating about whether events (institutionally-produced programs) might be a primary driver for people to attend museums, with exhibitions being secondary. Many museums, big and small, thrive on events. At our museum, about 68% of casual visitors (non-school tours) attended through events this year.

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Museum Arts History Audience 53

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

SEPTEMBER 7, 2010

The concept of before, during, and after is an important way to plot out your instruction, getting a good understanding of the audience, and modeling. Before the session, I spent some time reviewing Museum Facebook Pages – luckily the MIDEA project has them organized into this handy list. I struck out.

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Facebook Network Nonprofit Museum 113

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 11, 2012

For years, I'd give talks about community participation in museums and cultural institutions, and I'd always get the inevitable question: "but what value does this really have when it comes to dollars and cents?" We just started to try to live up to that vision, partnership by partnership, activity by activity.

Audience 47

Audience Museum Participatory History 47

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 23, 2013

If you asked me a month ago what the biggest barrier was to American arts organizations adopting practices that support active engagement in the arts by diverse participants, I would have said two: money and legitimacy. I asked how their new Exploring Engagement Fund (of which my museum was an early grant recipient) was going.

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Arts Audience Activism Active 48

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

MAY 23, 2008

Lynda Kelley I'm here in Sydney, Australia and just finished an informal workshop and discussion with Powerhouse Museum staff and other museums. Will post reflections shortly) I met Dr. Lynda Kelly, a blogger and the Head of Audience Research for the Australia Museum. The site is called Museum 3.0.

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Museum Interview Ning Australia 50

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 20, 2011

Last Friday night, my museum hosted a fabulous (in my biased opinion) event called Race Through Time. Race Through Time was designed specifically for this audience of 30 and 40-somethings looking for fun social events with a Santa Cruz bent. I've written before about the " parallel vs. pipeline " approach to new audience development.

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Audience Develop Museum History 52

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 Community 55

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JULY 9, 2010

They’re masters at meeting their audience where they’re at and bringing them further along the ladder of engagement. The benefits of hosting a Tweetup include deeper relationships, lead generation, or more exposure. It can be a good way to meet your Twitter followers or identify who in your existing audience is using Twitter.

Offline 96

Offline Online Houston Museum 96

Tech Soup

APRIL 12, 2012

In order to sustain this type of impact tech savvy art museums, zoos, historical sites, botanical gardens and many other types of arts and cultural nonprofits understand that technology is key to sustaining their growth. As part of understanding the need for technology , the more than 17 thousand museums in the U.S. YouTube - [link].

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San Diego Social Media Museum Media 66

Forum One

MAY 28, 2024

The site’s design emphasizes three primary avenues for discovering content: watching the series, exploring additional materials like interviews and lesson plans, and engaging in real-world activities, such as building a native plant garden. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Award 100

Award Museum Oregon Websites 100

Museum 2.0

APRIL 26, 2018

The Washington Post covered the MAH's transformation as part of an article about museums engaging new audiences. The whole second half of the article was dedicated to our work: Smaller museums can be especially scrappy in finding ways to connect with the community. It’s something that any museum, of any size, can work toward.

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Audience Washington Museum Intergenerational 49

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

MAY 24, 2006

The Art Museum Social Tagging Project is a group of art museums is looking at integrating folksonomies into the museum Web by developing a working prototype for tagging and term collection, and outlining directions for future development and research that could benefit the entire museum community. A tag is a user???s

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Museum Tag Arts Folksonomy 50

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 26, 2012

Writing my masters thesis for Gothenburg University’s International Museum Studies program while also working four days a week as the Director of Community Programs at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History this spring was certainly a challenge but also an incredible opportunity.

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Museum Program Community Participatory 49

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

MAY 7, 2010

Recently, James wrote about some interesting ways museums are using Twitter for offline/online engagement. The San Francisco Bay Area has seen some extraordinary museum openings over the past several years. This provides a new level of transparency for the museum worker, and a higher degree of exposure.

Trend 91

Trend Oakland San Francisco Museum 91

Museum 2.0

MARCH 3, 2011

Thirteen students produced three projects that layered participatory activities onto an exhibition of artwork from the permanent collection of the Henry Art Gallery. These nontraditional audience engagement techniques helped make complex goals and visions explicit and understandable to visitors. This year, we took a different approach.

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Participatory Arts Audience Museum 51

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

SEPTEMBER 30, 2008

I first met Amy Fox when she de-lurked on the Museum Computer Network listserv. " Indeed, her first post summarized some observations from her research on how museums were using Twitter for her masters thesis. I'm fascinated by social networking and am interested in finding ways for museums to appeal to all types of people.

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Museum Practice San Francisco Twitter 50

Museum 2.0

JULY 23, 2014

But not enough people care about it anymore, and the museum is fading into disrepair. The Silk Mill is part of the Derby Museums , a public institution of art, history, and natural history. Many people would look at the world''s oldest mechanized silk mill and say that the core content of the museum is silk. What do you do?

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Museum Community Participatory Product 53

sgEngage

OCTOBER 14, 2022

Why does your museum open its doors each day? By pinpointing your organization’s purpose, you can unlock a powerful marketing tool that will enable audiences to connect deeper with your messaging. To put it simply, it means communicating with your audiences in a curated and meaningful way. Let’s dive in. Where are they located?

Communication 97

Communication email Marketing Audience 97

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 15, 2014

Gretchen Jennings convened a group of bloggers and colleagues online to develop a statement about museums'' responsibilities and opportunities in response to the events in Ferguson, Cleveland and Staten Island. Museums are a part of this educational and cultural network. Where do museums fit in? Here is our statement.

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Museum Blogger Cleveland Culture 52

Museum 2.0

JUNE 14, 2011

Should museums play music - in public spaces and or in galleries? So I thought I'd open it up to the Museum 2.0 Pros for music: Music helps designers frame the atmosphere for the intended experience at the museum. Most museums are trying to please everyone. Most museums are trying to please everyone.

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Museum Music Open Sound 47

Forum One

MAY 27, 2021

The digital storytelling approach powerfully illustrates all that NRDC has accomplished—from landmark legislation to practical changes that benefit the environment and local communities every day—to inspire audiences to support its work into the future and continue to grow its impact. The Frist Art Museum. The Vilcek Foundation.

Award 88

Award Communication Colorado Museum 88

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 13, 2011

Rather than just doing an activity, visitors should be able to contribute in a way that provides a valuable outcome for the institution and the wider museum audience. This week, I saw a great example at the Jane Addams Hull-House Museum that blew me away with its power and simplicity. Yes, this activity is political.

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Participatory Museum Action Experiment 44

Forum One

MARCH 16, 2023

Speakers: Christina Crawley , Managing Director, Marketing, Forum One Aaron Miller , Account Manager, Forum One [Sessions] Conducting Inclusive Audience Research Wednesday, April 5, 2023: 2:30 – 3:30 pm Many cultural institutions understand the value of speaking directly to their audiences. Find out more here.

Arlington 88

Arlington Charlotte Museum Audience 88

M+R

MARCH 14, 2024

Unfortunately, not all of our donors are themselves professional fundraisers — so creating a special, attention-grabbing Giving Day that gets your audiences excited and engaged can be a big boost during an otherwise quiet time of year. Pi Day, celebrating math and science, is the Museum’s signature day of giving.

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Giving Museum Campaign Donor 105

Forum One

DECEMBER 8, 2021

GOLD – Activism for Websites. The digital storytelling approach powerfully illustrates all that NRDC has accomplished—from landmark legislation to practical changes that benefit the environment and local communities every day—to inspire audiences to support its work into the future and continue to grow its impact.

Award 88

Award Arkansas Museum Colorado 88

Connection Cafe

MAY 7, 2020

Monday, May 18th is International Museum Day , the mission of which is to raise awareness of the fact that, “museums are an important means of cultural exchange, enrichment of cultures and development of mutual understanding, cooperation and peace among peoples.”. 2019 saw more than 55,000 museums across 150 countries participate.

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Museum International Tips Support 39

Museum 2.0

APRIL 11, 2019

This guest post is written by Martin Brandt Djupdræt , Head of research and presentation and a member of the management at the Danish open-air museum Den Gamle By (The Old Town). At Den Gamle By we have set ourselves a goal to broaden the perspective of those in responsibility and to ensure the management will take our audience seriously.

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Audience Research Museum Interview 40

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

OCTOBER 1, 2014

Recently, we''ve been talking at our museum about techniques for capturing compelling audio/video content with visitors. It made me dig up this 2011 interview with Tina Olsen (then at the Portland Art Museum) about their extraordinary Object Stories project. We ended up with a gallery in the museum instead. That is more curated.

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Museum Story Project People 43

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 6, 2012

I'm thrilled to share this brilliant guest post by Marilyn Russell, Curator of Education at the Carnegie Museum of Art. This is a perfect example of a museum using participation as a design solution. This coincides with the identification of 20- and 30-year-olds as an audience targeted for growth in attendance.

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Museum Arts Problem Design 45

Forum One

SEPTEMBER 17, 2021

The digital storytelling approach powerfully illustrates all that NRDC has accomplished—from landmark legislation to practical changes that benefit the environment and local communities every day—to inspire audiences to support its work into the future and continue to grow its impact. The Frist Art Museum. Outstanding Website.

Colorado 87

Colorado Museum Award Nashville 87

Museum 2.0

APRIL 26, 2010

When a technologist calls me to talk about their brilliant idea for a museum-related business, it's always a mobile application. There are lots of wonderful (and probably not very high margin) experiments going on in museums with mobile devices. Most visitors to museums attend in social groups.

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Museum Group Mobile Social 40

Museum 2.0

APRIL 20, 2009

I just got home from the Museums and the Web conference in Indianapolis. I’d never attended before and was impressed by many very smart, international people doing radical projects to make museum collections and experiences accessible and participatory online. Instead, I found a standard art museum. Impersonal guards.

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Participatory Museum Web Indianapolis 35

Forum One

JANUARY 3, 2023

Artificial Intelligence is no longer a hypothetical on organizations’ radars, but something they are now actively exploring how to implement. The power of collaboration across and within sectors can reach new audiences in a way that a single entity cannot, especially as it relates to investments in data transparency and impact.

Trend 88

Trend Museum Digital Impact 88

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