In January 2019, our Affiliate Chester Zoo hosted a session for the Happy Museum (HM) Community of Practice  exploring the subject of Co-Production for Social Change. The workshop was an experiment for the HM community – offering the host, Chester Zoo, the opportunity to explore a question of interest to its team, with input from […]

Read More →

Charlotte Smith moved from the museums and galleries sector to Chester Zoo. Here she reflects on Happy Museum thinking and the different models of community engagement the zoo uses in its conservation campaigns. My Happy Museum experience at Imperial War Museum North (read about it here) played a role in awakening my inner activist. I […]

Read More →

Happy Museum is pleased to be working with new Affiliate, Culture24 and Battersea Arts Centre on a new action research project looking at the social value of digital technologies for museums. As part of Culture 24’s successful digital change programme, Let’s Get Real, this project will explore how publicly funded cultural spaces such as museums […]

Read More →

This case study is about how encouraging a culture of ‘active citizenship’ – in staff, volunteers and others – and seeking mutually beneficial relationships can lead to change, increased wellbeing and build resilience in individuals and organisations.

Read More →

Much has been written about the Referendum and the cultural sector – including this by Happy Museum founder Tony Butler .  In it he identified a role for museums in ‘bridging the cultural gap’ and concludes that museums (and other cultural organisations) ‘offer people a reflective opportunity to consider their own place in the world.’ How we might frame […]

Read More →

This case study looks at how a partnership between a research institute and a museum led to the development of a software app that allows visitors to ‘tag’ objects and artworks with their own commentary. The app was tested to see if it increased audience engagement.

Read More →

Transformation Cycle Sophisticated, workshop approach to planning and reviewing organisational change. This approach is for organisations that are used to thinking about how they improve. It is a more sophisticated framework for planning and reviewing change, to the point of transforming the organisation by really embedding new practice. It also recognises the importance in Happy Museum work of the […]

Read More →

Tipping point Simple, workshop approach to planning and reviewing organisational change. When planning your project, identify what you think will make the biggest difference in the organisation; what could create a ‘tipping point’ in organisational change according to the culture and practices of the organisation (as opposed to with your audiences). This is best achieved through engaging a diagonal […]

Read More →

BAM card sort (Behaviour Attitude Matrix) A workshop approach to planning and reviewing group priorities. This tool can inform the prioritisation of different project elements, such as the Happy Museum principles, using input from participants based on a 2×2 matrix. Done before and after it gives feedback on how these change after the project. Participants consider each element […]

Read More →

Story of Change The Story of Change is a workshop approach to planning and reviewing the difference your group wants to make and how. Using a Story of Change to plan and review is at the heart of measuring what matters. It’s a logical approach which reverse-plans from the difference we are hoping to make […]

Read More →