Museum 2.0

SEPTEMBER 4, 2012

This morning, I checked in on the Pocket Museums on our museum's ground floor. This simple participatory project invites visitors to contribute their own small objects in little alcoves in our bathrooms. The Pocket Museum activity could be more appropriate for women, many of whom carry bags or purses.

Museum 47

Museum Difference Examples Participatory 47

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.

Museum 52

Museum Blogger Cleveland Missouri 52

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 14, 2013

One of the greatest gifts of my babymoon is the opportunity to share the Museum 2.0 First up is Beck Tench, a "simplifier, illustrator, story teller, and technologist" working at the Museum of Life & Science in Durham, NC. As a person who works for a science museum, I work in an environment that supports play.

Museum 51

Museum Roles Game Participatory 51

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

JULY 27, 2010

There were a number of online/offline participatory visitor experiences. At the Natural History Museum, we visited the David H. Koch Hall of Human Origins , an immersive, interactive journey through the origins of human beings and the dramatic stories of survival and extinction in the midst of earth’s history of climate change.

DC 91

DC Asia Offline Participatory 91

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 25, 2012

The events are informal, personal, and fun, but our feedback mechanism--onsite and post-event surveys--not so much. As we try to build a brand for "3rd Friday" as an ongoing museum series, I feel like these photos, more than any other collateral, will help people understand what the event is like and what they might get out of it.

Participatory 50

Participatory Activities Active Activism 50

Beth's Blog: How Nonprofits Can Use Social Media

MAY 7, 2010

Nina has written a fantastic book engagement called The Participatory Museum. A third argues that the project won’t be truly participatory unless users get to define what content is sought in the first place. Despite its long history, few researchers studied the use and impact of citizen science until the 1980s.

Model 98

Model Activities Active Activism 98

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.

Museum 20

Museum Audience Music Arts 20

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 24, 2010

There are many participatory kiosks that are functional black holes--visitors make videos or draw pictures or write stories, drop them in a slot, and. Museum professionals tend to think this is OK because they think of the contributory act as the important part of the participation. When I talk about Web 2.0 nothing happens.

Participatory 35

Participatory Museum YouTube Rate 35

Museum 2.0

MAY 9, 2012

Last week, I was in Minneapolis for the American Association of Museums annual meeting. Kathleen McLean led a terrific session called "Dangerous Ridiculous" about risk-taking in museums. Interestingly, at my museum, our team is naturally better at ridiculous than we are at dangerous. I found this idea really powerful.

Reflection 43

Reflection Columbus Museum Participatory 43

Museum 2.0

DECEMBER 26, 2012

Way better than that video at Museum X where the director drones on about the new initiatives of the year. It is attractive, smart, and packs rich information into a navigable format that makes you want to explore and learn more. That said, maybe you're bored or desperate for stimulation of the non-gastronomical variety.

Denver 33

Denver Museum Arts Participatory 33

Museum 2.0

AUGUST 18, 2008

I've long believed that museums have a special opportunity to support the community spirit of Web 2.0 This month brings three examples of museums hosting meetups for online communities: On 8.6.08, the Computer History Museum (Silicon Valley, CA) hosted a Yelp! Me: Have you ever been to this museum? several years.

Museum 22

Museum Hosting Model Community 22

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 signage in the exhibit is deliciously informal.

Denver 21

Denver Museum Arts Remix 21

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 20, 2013

It started as a handout for a session that Stacey and I are doing at the California Association of Museums, and then I realized it was so darn useful that it was worth sharing with all of you. The majority of our public programs at the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History are created and produced through community collaborations.

Collaboration 55

Collaboration Community Tools Museum 55

Museum 2.0

JULY 7, 2010

Most of my work contracts involve a conversation that goes something like this: "We want to find ways to make our institution more participatory and lively." It requires trading a certain history for an uncertain future--a nerve-wracking prospect no matter the situation. Fabulous!" "But This is incredibly scary.

Audience 40

Audience Museum Oakland Participatory 40

Museum 2.0

MARCH 18, 2015

I sat down with Emilyn Green, Executive Director of the Community Science Workshop Network , to learn more about their history, design, and engagement strategy. There are lots of great science museum resources, but not where these kids can walk after school. Where do Community Science Workshops fit in the informal science landscape?

Green 20

Green Interview Share Community 20

Museum 2.0

MAY 3, 2011

Lots of museums these days have video comment booths to invite visitors to tell their stories, but how many of those booths really deliver high-impact content? Last week, I talked with Tina Olsen, Director of Education and Public Programs at the Portland Art Museum, about their extraordinary Object Stories project.

Story 53

Story Interview Museum Audio 53

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. This post focuses on one aspect of the exhibition: its participatory and interactive elements.

Participatory 51

Participatory Museum Blackboard Game 51

Museum 2.0

JANUARY 15, 2008

The presumed answer is "yes" your museum needs a blog, a pony, or a set of comfy couches. Does your museum need a custom online social network? Many museums have been experimenting in these spaces by creating institutional profiles, museum affinity groups, and connecting with visitors and other museum professionals individually.

Social Network 20

Social Network Museum Case Study Discussion 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

JULY 2, 2009

How would you design a recommendation system for a museum? When it comes to museums, recommendation systems are a natural solution for the problem of the customized tour. When it comes to museums, recommendation systems are a natural solution for the problem of the customized tour.

System 22

System Design Movie Museum 22

Museum 2.0

FEBRUARY 4, 2010

What's the best way to share information about your experiments--what worked and what didn't? I want to share a few fabulous evaluation and research studies that have greatly informed my work (and specifically, the development of The Participatory Museum , which is going to the printer this weekend).

Participatory 20

Participatory Evaluation Project Report 20

Museum 2.0

MARCH 5, 2014

Consider three very different talkbacks in the Santa Cruz Museum of Art & History''s fall exhibition, Santa Cruz is in the Heart: cocktail napkins, rear view mirrors, and refrigerator certificates. This information surprised us. It just needs to provide information you can actually use to do better.

Test 43

Test Museum Participatory History 43

Museum 2.0

JULY 18, 2017

This month, we opened a new exhibition at the MAH, Lost Childhoods: Voices of Santa Cruz County Foster Youth and Foster Youth Museum (brief video clip from opening night here ). it uses art, history, artifacts, and storytelling to illuminate a big human story and an urgent social issue. You can take it and use it right away.

Action 44

Action Childhood Artist Info 44

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.

Slides 22

Slides Museum Los Angeles San Jose 22

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?" If the museum isn't in control, how can it thrive? Me: "Sort of." and my emphatic response is YES.

Authoring 42

Authoring Platform Museum YouTube 42

Museum 2.0

MAY 15, 2008

Radiolab does what I hope all great museum exhibitions can do--take a deep topic and make it compelling on many levels. We have a show coming up right now about synthetic biology, where engineers are building life forms that are new to existence, new to the history of life. Which brings me to museums and how we present content.

Conversation 20

Conversation Arts Museum Voice 20

Non Profit Quarterly

NOVEMBER 17, 2021

As a platform for such local activity, more participatory forms of engagement are already envisaged—an area “culture pass” for museums and arts institutions is one exciting example—to further stimulate local activity. One final advantage of the digital currency is richer data and insight that could inform such economic development.

Local 104

Local Digital Experiment Alternative 104

Museum 2.0

MAY 28, 2014

NISE-NET is probably the single largest investment that the National Science Foundation has made in informal learning, with the intention of spreading knowledge about nano science. I cut out from the meeting by myself to check out an exhibition called Open House, if These Walls Could Talk at the Minnesota History Center. It hasn''t.

Help 45

Help Museum eBook Project 45

Museum 2.0

JULY 24, 2012

When we talk about making museums or performing arts organizations more participatory and dynamic, those changes are often seen as threatening to the traditional arts experience. What if historic arts experiences were actually a lot more participatory? But what if the "traditional" arts experiences is a myth? I can't wait.

Greece 51

Greece Arts Industry Participatory 51

Museum 2.0

MARCH 6, 2019

While I originally wrote this post to advocate for more participatory practice (i.e. letting museum visitors contribute and collaborate in museums), I now see this as a crucial issue also for more democratic and inclusive practice (i.e. Other person: "But doesn't that erode museums' authority?" Me: "Sort of."

Authoring 44

Authoring Share Museum YouTube 44

Museum 2.0

JULY 17, 2008

Traditional exhibition design, in which the museum has a specific story or message to tell, doesn't easily accommodate visitor co-creation. This realization--that a single museum voice was not the best way to tell a particular story--formed the basis for MN150 , the exhibition explored in this post. How did you reach them?

Interview 21

Interview Minnesota Museum History 21