Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 9, 2010

Recently, I was giving a presentation about participatory techniques at an art museum, when a staff member raised her hand and asked, "Did you have to look really hard to find examples from art museums? Aren't art museums less open to participation than other kinds of museums?" I was surprised by her question.

Museum 29

Museum Difference Participatory History 29

Museum 2.0

APRIL 18, 2012

Last Friday, I witnessed something beautiful at my museum. A group in their late teens/early 20s were wandering through the museumwide exhibition on love. They were in a playful mood, talking about the objects, playing the games, responding on the comment boards. Kyle had brought his baby with him.

Community 42

Community Teen Build Social 42

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 19, 2015

One of my favorite comments on the first post in this series came from Lyndall Linaker, an Australian museum worker, who asked: " Who decides what is relevant? Community First Program Design At the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History , we've gravitated towards a "community first" program planning model. My answer: neither.

Teen 20

Teen Museum Voice Arts 20

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

FEBRUARY 18, 2016

One of the best personal brands that I’ve seen on Instagram from a nonprofit leader is Thomas P Campbell the CEO of the Metropolitan Museum. This shot is a painting at a museum visited during a professional conference for museums. This shot is from a program for teens that the met sponsors, #metteens.

Personal 50

Personal Create Photography Museum 50

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JULY 1, 2009

Submitted by Nina Simon, publisher of Museum 2.0. I’ve had it with museums’ obsession with open-ended self-expression. And yet many museums are fixated on creators. Museums see open-ended self-expression as the be-all of participatory experiences. This is a problem for two reasons.

Participatory 50

Participatory Experiment Museum Teen 50

Museum 2.0

NOVEMBER 18, 2008

In many museums, comment cards are currently the most "participatory" part of the visitor experience. There are few, if any, ways to write back and continue the conversation with the visitor who commented. In other words, comment cards aren't effectively organized for use. Enter the internet.

Comment 20

Comment Tools Museum Conversation 20

Museum 2.0

APRIL 6, 2011

Let's say you spend a year working with a group of teens to co-create an exhibition, or you invite members and local artists to help redesign the lobby. The exhibition or program is of high quality, and from the visitor perspective, it may look like museum as usual. Community processes are both exciting and time-consuming.

Participatory 48

Participatory Process Museum Children 48

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.

Museum 35

Museum Participatory Reflection Conference 35

Museum 2.0

APRIL 18, 2008

Thanks to Bryan Kennedy from the Science Museum of Minnesota for providing this overview/reflection on the Museums and the Web conference that recently concluded in Montreal. Museums and the Web 2008 guest blogger Bryan Kennedy here. The Walker Art Center is turning its teen website over to the teens.

Museum 20

Museum Web Teen Flickr 20

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 2, 2008

This summer, I worked with the Chabot Space & Science Center on a design institute in which eleven teens from their Galaxy Explorers program designed media pieces for an upcoming Smithsonian exhibition on black holes. There was no initial design, no graphics, and no idea of where the teen' work would fit into an overall structure.

Teen 20

Teen Volunteer Create Design 20

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 3, 2008

I’ve received a few inquiries over the last year about museums and geocaching. to ask him all the dumb questions about geocaching and museums you can imagine… and a few more. Sounds like there might be some overlap with your museum audience? Both geocaching and museums are fundamentally about exploration and discovery.

Museum 20

Museum Teen Arts Project 20

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 16, 2013

It's not every day that a visitor buys pizza for everyone in the museum. Then again, Saturday was hardly normal at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History. The group was mostly young (teens to thirties) and nerd-diverse: a little bit punk, a little bit hacker, a little bit craft grrl. It was pretty freaking amazing.

Reflection 43

Reflection Community Museum Participatory 43

Museum 2.0

MARCH 16, 2009

I’ve had it with museums’ obsession with open-ended self-expression. And yet many museums are fixated on creators. Museums see open-ended self-expression as the be-all of participatory experiences. First, exhibits that invite self-expression appeal to a tiny percentage of museum audiences.

Participatory 44

Participatory Experiment Museum Teen 44

Museum 2.0

JULY 26, 2010

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. This list is by no means exhaustive: please add your favorites (especially non-American ones) in the comments. Machine Project (Los Angeles, CA).

Culture 49

Culture Alternative St. Louis Los Angeles 49

Museum 2.0

JUNE 3, 2015

Last month at the AAM conference, a speaker said, "we should all be using measures of quality of life to measure success at our museums." Many museums (mine included) are fairly new to collecting visitor data. Want to know how many kids ate fruits and vegetables, or how many teens graduated high school, or how many people are homeless?

Local 20

Local Data Learning Childhood 20

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 24, 2011

This post features an interview with Sarah Schultz, a museum staffer at one of the institutions Light profiled in the book (the Walker Art Center). It's easier to secure grants for community-based programming or exhibitions, but it's not easy to get funding for some of the core work that museums do.

Arts 46

Arts Interview Teen Artist 46

Museum 2.0

MARCH 3, 2007

But I’d been scribbling notes for an art museum label post for awhile, and then yesterday, the NY Times had a review of a new show at MOMA, Comic Abstraction. MOMA has standard art museum labels. When I asked an art museum educator about this (“How should I look at art?”) The review was harsh. Is this enough? I loved that.

Museum 30

Museum Arts Artist Audio 30

Museum 2.0

JUNE 12, 2012

Helene Moglen, professor of literature, UCSC After a year of tinkering, the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History is now showing an exhibition, All You Need is Love , that embodies our new direction as an institution. So many museum exhibitions relegate the participatory bits in at the end. The Love Lounge I LOVE. with sharpies.

Participatory 51

Participatory Museum Blackboard Game 51

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 12, 2012

In the spirit of a popular post written earlier this year , I want to share the behind the scenes on our current almost-museumwide exhibition at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History, Santa Cruz Collects. As always, I welcome your questions and comments. Pocket Museums in bathrooms. Digital Collections comment wall.

Participatory 44

Participatory Museum History International 44

Museum 2.0

APRIL 30, 2007

James Yasko is writing an article for an upcoming issue of Museum News on museums and Web 2.0. Here's the question: What advice do you have, as one who keeps up with technology as it relates to museums, to a group looking to incorporate Web 2.0 Has your tagging system increased overall google hits for the museum?

Museum 20

Museum Advice Interview Web 20

NTEN

JUNE 21, 2011

The speakers for this panel include: Tracy Fullerton - Electronics Arts Game Innovation Lab Ruth Cohen - American Museum of natural History Elaine Charnov - The NY Public Library Jason Eppink - Museum of the Moving Image Syed Salahuddin - Babycastles Elaine Cohen: The New York Public Library 100 Years of the flagship library in New York.

Game 52

Game Culture Change Museum 52

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

Museum 52

Museum Boston Participatory Job 52

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 25, 2009

Many institutions do this unintentionally--by providing post-its or comment books, pens or crayons. I encourage you to share your own rules and thoughts on this in the comments. Rabinowitz commented that "as a 40-year veteran of history museum interpretation, I can say that I never learned so much from and about visitors."

Design 31

Design Goal Difference Platform 31

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 14, 2009

Unsurprisingly, some of my favorite museums are small, funky places run by iconoclasts—but that’s not useful to most professionals who work for organizations in which they have little control over size or leadership matters. I worked on one project in which the client institution thought they wanted unfettered teen expression.

Project 22

Project Museum Teen North Carolina 22

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.

Museum 20

Museum Teen Second Life Discussion 20

Museum 2.0

APRIL 7, 2009

Which of these descriptions exemplifies participatory museum practice? Museum invites community members to participate in the development and creation of an exhibit. Museum staff create an exhibit by a traditional internal design process, but the exhibit, once open, invites visitors to contribute their own stories and participation.

Participatory 27

Participatory Design Difference Museum 27

Museum 2.0

MARCH 28, 2008

Museums (and libraries) are trusted sources of information. In February 2001, AAM commissioned a study about the trustworthiness of museums and found that "Almost 9 out of 10 Americans (87%) find museums to be one of the most trustworthy or a trustworthy source of information among a wide range of choices.

Participatory 20

Participatory Museum Teen Voice 20

Museum 2.0

MARCH 18, 2015

The people were of all ages--moms with babies strapped to their fronts, six year-olds using skillsaws, pre-teens building robots, teenagers doing homework. There are lots of great science museum resources, but not where these kids can walk after school. Any big museum has barriers and limitations to full community ownership.

Green 20

Green Interview Share Community 20

Museum 2.0

JUNE 15, 2010

You can join the conversation in the blog comments, or on the Museum 2.0 This space definitely looked like a third place this past Wednesday night when we hosted an overnight teen event designed to help teens see how they can make a difference in the world. note: I've written about innovation at COSI before here.)

Place 23

Place Discussion Columbus Italy 23

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 18, 2010

And while most of them aren't likely to jump at the opportunity to talk to strangers in the near future, several commented that they'd like to try more "social engineering" experiments in their lives. For me, the experience changed my perspective on what teens want from social environments and encounters.

Life 21

Life Teen Culture Attitude 21

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 19, 2008

Every museum has a number for its operating cost per visitor. Most museums don't strategically set this number--too many operating costs are fixed by building needs--but they can use it to assess how expensive each visitor interaction is and evaluate the efficacy of programs. So where do online initiatives fit in?

Virtual 20

Virtual Museum North Carolina Flickr 20

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

JULY 9, 2007

Last week, Elaine Gurian and I talked about radical change in museums. Former museum start-up queen, Jen is taking a small organization whose goal is to promote girls’ involvement in math and science through research and programming to new, innovative, exciting places. Braincake isn’t some fakey attempt to pander to teens.

Interview 20

Interview Museum Teen Myspace 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 5, 2009

I just returned from the American Association of Museums (AAM) annual meeting in Philadelphia. I led two sessions, one on visitor co-created museum experiences, and the other on design inspirations from outside museums. what is the value of the exhibition experience to non-participants, that is, regular museum visitors?

Slides 20

Slides Participatory Museum Children 20

Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 16, 2007

Last week, I wrote about the ways that dogs can be useful social objects --and you had lots of good comments and input. Sure, it's social, but people stick to their own "pods"--families, teens, adults--and don't diverge or merge. Ideas participatory museum Unusual Projects and Influences visitors. Tags: Core Museum 2.0

Museum 20

Museum Participatory Teen Game 20

Museum 2.0

OCTOBER 30, 2007

This week, we're looking at the first section, Talking Back and Talking Together , which features comment boards, talk-back walls, and discussion forums at a variety of museums. I invite you to do the same in the comments. of comments directly addressed questions posed by the curators, whereas 2.4% What were they about?

Voice 20

Voice Museum Pledge Lesson 20

Museum 2.0

APRIL 22, 2015

Or Santa Cruz County teens who want to make social change. If you are reading this via email and would like to share a comment or question, you can join the conversation here. These differences are useful when considering how and who to reach out to when trying to get involved with a new community. Or art-lovers of Brooklyn.

Community 20

Community Minnesota Teen Movie 20