You’ve probably heard for some time now that you need a digital strategy, but what does that mean? There can be many facets to developing a strategy. Really though, you only need to grasp a few key ideas to establish your mindset and focus first on the aspects that are most important to you and your audience. For this post, I asked some trusted friends in the field to share their top tips for framing a digital heritage strategy.
Don’t Confuse Needs and Wants
“Many times we come into the creative process with a really strong idea of what we want—or rather, what we THINK we want. More often than not we’ve been charmed by something we saw somewhere. Maybe it’s a new piece of hardware. Or a shiny interactive. Or a really generous check (with or without strings). We are lured by the siren song of a design idea that may or may not actually meet the needs of the place, heritage, or collection we are trusted to interpret. Getting clear about your goals, actual needs, and nice to haves up front will help minimize the pain of mismatched expectations as you move ahead in your development process.”
“For Mount Vernon, our key was investing in visual mediums that translate really well from our mission. Our Virtual Tour was one of the first investments and it has paid off tremendously. One of the second best investments was in video, particularly hiring for a few years someone to regularly create short form video on our YouTube channel. At one point were were up to posting 95 videos per year and because the history and storytelling rarely changes those are all still paying dividends on views and driving subscribers. One thing cultural institutions like ours overlook is YouTube is the second largest search engine. Treat videos like SEO for your website and it will be a great strategy.”
“Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is a tool. A repository of the organization’s collective knowledge about its guests, members, and donors. Successful CRM implementations start with two things: concrete problems/needs data can help solve and… good guest data. An example of a concrete problem might be “After two years of Covid-19 closures, we need to retain members now more than ever. How do make ensure first-year members renew?” The data to drive this would come from an integration with the ticketing system to link ongoing membership sales, card scans, and renewals. You can then start chipping away at the problem by creating dashboards to monitor first-year member renewals and implementing email marketing automation programs to ensure members visit and use their benefits over a year, and build a sense of relationship with the organization.”
“Many stories, objects and resources need to be strategically curated to tell history. Not only are there many different kinds of assets in digital storytelling, but the relationships between these elements weave a complex web. That’s why we focus so much on building flexible platforms that enable these stories to come to life. Where it’s the entire platform, a log form story page, or mini-site. the palette of content storytelling tools needs to be robust enough to express all aspects of these stories.”
“In any digital installation project, it can be easy to become so enchanted by the technology that we forget what visitors really connect with: storytelling, content. Creating original content takes a ton of time and resources and needs to be planned into the project from the outset, whatever the intended technological solutions might be. Content has to come first. When it doesn’t, you’ll find yourself too late in the process and with too much of your budget spent and not enough time or resources left to create the story — the part that’s really going to capture your visitors’ hearts and minds.”
“I think when you hear the term “digital strategy” or “digital transformation”, you automatically jump to the technical aspects: what’s the technology and platforms that will be used. But digital strategy should start with people. It must have utility for those who’ll be using the technology and following specific processes. The first place to start is understanding the ecosystem of users and what their needs, pain points, and goals are. Often times, we think of “users” as the end user or customers. But we need to take a much broader view to include users as both customers and internal staff and stakeholders. Digital strategy within an organization needs to be considered from an internal and external perspective. Lastly, as ideas and solutions start to take shape, it’s important to take a “design with” approach to prototype, test, and refine ideas with users to ensure that their needs and pain points are addressed, and value is being delivered.”
Traci Thomas, Platinion Lead Strategic Designer (BCG Group)
You don’t have to start with an answer
And finally, a tip from me, which echoes the ideas above. There’s a fine line between prescribing something you want for your audiences and only creating experiences that are built up based purely on what they say then want. It’s alright to start out with an educated guess based on your visitor interactions and then TEST TEST TEST to chart a course to the final project. Set up a testing protocol, using paper prototypes if you need to. Have some type of spreadsheet or database to put testing results into and then use that to inform how the product develops. Make sure your development vendor is on board with this process, and committed to interpreting and iterating the results.
Hope these tips help move your strategy forward. I’ll continue adding to this post. In the meantime, if you have any tips of your own, please share them in the comments.
Sometimes creating in the digital heritage space can feel lonely, if not thankless. It has always been challenging but it has been especially true in the COVID era. Virtual meetings have been a coping mechanism, but there’s nothing like being in the same room together while the ideas flow. As we seek to find a way to connect with one another again, I thought I’d share some tips and models you can use to bring like-minded digital folks together where you are, whether it be virtual or in person.
Active Meetups
I’ll start with a few models that are currently out there, and then go into the idea surrounding a model that I specifically developed.
Wiki Salon: Folks in the Wiki space are holding Wiki Salons. As of this writing they are mostly virtually through Zoom. These usually present a theme for creating or editing articles in Wikipedia and The Commons. Here’s an event listing from a New York group and a Philadelphia group. Here are general instructions on holding a Wiki meetup.
THATCamp: The Humanities and Technology Camp. This was inspired by the old BarCamp concept. Sadly, the organization behind THATCamp has died. However, the concept behind still exists on the old site.
CodeforAmerica is back and holding hybrid virtual/in-person meetings. This is the big one, that seeks out ways to make government work better through meaningful presentations of data and development of useful digital tools. They have a summit scheduled in May 2022. There are also regional groups in cities across the U.S., though most seem to be on hiatus.
Also in Philly, there’s a Maker’s Meetup that is about 3D printing+++ .
When I was volunteering for the Philly Digital Humanities group, I proposed the idea of the GLAM Café as a monthly coffeehouse-style event that would extend the organization’s good work and good will during the once-a-year THATCamp throughout the year. Its purpose more broadly was to afford digital heritage enthusiasts and professionals in the Philadelphia region a regular opportunity to connect, collaborate and learn from one another. We held it from 5-8 p.m. on the second Tuesday of each month. The museum conference center I worked for provided the space, and snacks were sponsored. Though I moved to Miami in 2014, the GLAM Café continued for several years after.
Checklists
Below you can find the checklists and considerations that I used to plan the GLAM Café. And you can check this Google Drive link to find logo and signage templates, as well as images from the events we coordinated in Philly.
Buzz-Builders
Door Prizes & Swag: Stickers, pens, overstock from institution gift shops and publications.
Podcasts & Blog Posts featuring participant projects
DH “Angel”: A help desk at the meetup for helping to orient newcomers, or provide perspective to help people become unstuck with their projects.
“Theme Nights” For Archives, Archaeology, Historic Preservation, Etc., with a specialist guest from the field.
One Hour Before Event Start Setup Digital Help Desk on non-GLAM Cafe Tuesdays. Send broadcast announcement
@Meetup Group Page
Use forum function for virtual white papers (and discussions)
Active Projects
Featured “Follow Tuesday” GLAMCafe’r: Profile on projector with project working on.
Materials to Order/Create
Branded paper coffee cups
Flyers: Promote/debut at museum events
Promo business & postcards, e.g. http://us.moo.com/ distributed @THATCamps
Name tags
Promo contest (win a travel mug by collecting 10 cards)
“Connecting” Resources
Literature stand for digital humanities white papers (invite people to contribute their own)
Large screen with Wikipedia Project Page displayed
iPad with Meetup.com group set up (for folks to register, or add their project ideas)
iPad showing video on loop of GLAM topics
Name tags (with color code interest “tagging”?
Streaming chats/hangouts that talk about a case study
Power strips!
Loyalty card with an attached service prize
Ambiance
Locate “set dressing”
Directional signs
Promotional material
Projection of logo on whiteboard
Create “nooks” with furniture and lighting
Soft music
Live tweet stream projected
Projects board
Coffee smell
Barista with espresso
iPad co-working stations
Outcomes and Outputs
Poster/booklet/screen display of online projects people can “adopt.” Unassigned
Build audience advocates for digital and social media
Build a brain trust of digital leaders to strengthen digital initiatives Unassigned
Offer digital learning opportunities for staff
Logisitics
Confirm coffee and food with conference center
Confirm SPACE with the conference center
Set up coffee cart
Set up brainstorming tools around the space: whiteboards, easels with paper and markers
Audiences/Partners/Advocates Primarily local, and select regional groups. These are folks with an interest in consistently using digital tools to communicate.
Area Museums
Wikipedia Groups
Area historical societies
Core Collaborators
DH community GLAM Institutions Area Wikipedians
Example of Reporting and Metrics
(Sample report from Philly GLAM Café)
At least 36 people attended, about half of whom were involved in PhillyDH. People interested in Wikipedia started arriving around 4.30, and mostly left by 7.00 or 7.30. PhillyDH people arrived between 5.00 and 6.30 and stayed until 8.00. PhillyDH held a breakout meeting from 6.00 to 8.00. There is overlap between the two groups, so having rolling times may work well.
The large round tables in the GLAM room worked well; we should have 4 or 5 of them next time instead of 3. The lounge-style seating was used somewhat in the beginning, but not once the groups broke apart. We may want to have some available. People rearranged the tables in the breakout room into a rough circle so that they could all see each other during their meeting. They may break into smaller working groups next time. The small rectangular tables are good there because they are easy to rearrange. The lighting was good.
Having a mix of sweet and protein in the snacks is important. The Greek yogurt was popular. Bagels with cream cheese would be a good choice as well. Cookies, danishes or biscotti are all good complements. All three drink options (coffee, tea, water) were used.
We should plan to accommodate those who come early. For the next GLAM Cafe, the PhillyDH breakout group plans to meet from 6.30 to 8.00, giving people time to attend the GLAM Cafe beforehand. There was a sense that the first meeting was largely a meet-and-greet, and that people would like the next meeting to be more work-oriented (focused on getting things done more than on talking).
Email Notification Format and language
Hi folks,
Beginning Nov. 12 we’ll have a regular opportunity to connect, share and collaborate with digital heritage enthusiasts and professionals alike when the “GLAM Café” debuts at [PLACE]. The GLAM Café is a coffeehouse-style event brought to you in partnership with [GROUP]. Come by any time between 5-8 p.m. to join in. If you enjoy it, mark your calendar for future meetups on the second Tuesday of each month.
Why Should I Come?
Sometimes it’s easy to become so focused on our own institution and its immediate needs that we forget we’re all part of a larger community of Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums (often referred to as GLAM institutions). Those working in this community are facing many of the same issues we do as a cultural heritage institution in the digital age. We all have unique experiences and perspectives that, when shared, can collectively lighten the load and make the path to digital success clearer.
What should I bring?
Bring your curiosity: You’ll have access to expertise ranging from social media to web exhibits to Linked Open Data and beyond.
Bring your ideas: You can also find a project to participate in or potentially even a collaborator for your ideas.
Bring yourself!: The point of this meetup is to provide a time, space and support for making progress on GLAM-related digital projects that don’t seem to fit into your schedule otherwise. Feel free to just claim some sofa territory and work solo on that Wikipedia entry you always wanted to correct, or grab a white paper and read up on what others are working on.
Whether you want to socialize, study, or mercilessly hack some poor unsuspecting data set, please come enjoy coffee and snacks in a relaxed atmosphere.
How can I participate?
If you’re looking to be part of a discussion group, you’ll have two breakaway opportunities at this event:
A digital humanities discussion.
An interest meeting for a planned Hack-a-thon that helps GLAM institutions open up their data for more impact.
To learn more about the folks you might meet at this event and to receive regular reminders of these events, visit the meetup group at the following link: [Insert Link Here]
And please share this announcement with anyone you think may be interested!
Many Hands Make Light Work
Hosting this event was one the most fulfilling things I did during my time in Philly. It made my day job easier by having creative people to bounce ideas and challenges off of. And it’s just so much easier to face those challenges with a community of like-minded people. This concept is very scalable, so I hope you’ll use these tools as a foundation and start your own!
If you know of any other active meetups that I missed, feel free to post them in the comments here.
I like the symbolism of timelapses–snapshots of moments captured and contextualized. It kind of reflects how we view history. The understanding of little moments; piecing them together.
They’re effective for storytelling and relatively simple to produce too! If you’re ready to dip your toe into timelapse, here are some content ideas, as well as equipment to consider if you decide to try it out. A lot of the prime examples seem to be older, so please do comment if you’re aware of any other great use cases out there!
1. Growth of Plants
Living collections undergo changes during their lifecycle that people can’t stand around and perceive as happening. The range of sizes and displays can vary widely, and here is one of the most grandiose examples of this is the Corpse Flower, which only blooms every 7-10 years, from the Chicago Botanic Garden.
2. Conservation & Preservation Projects
The timelapse shows the restoration of the Great Hall at Chicago Union Station, including the 219-foot-long skylight that is at the center of the train station as well as the construction of a new high-performance skylight above the historic, 2,052-pane original.
3. Building & Construction Projects
Forget the Corpse Flower–if you’re looking for true scale, building projects are immense and can span a very great deal of time. Timelapse is the best option for capturing that journey. Here’s an example of the Gay Head Lighthouse being moved BY RAIL to protect it.
4. Participatory Art
Art&Seek and Art Conspiracy invited the public to create the event’s first “Graffiti Wall.” Attendees were invited to make their mark on a chalkboard mural. This is a great concept for potentially showing the demographic range of your audiences. The event page also has some useful tips on how the timelapse was created.
5. Illustrating Science
Illustrating cause-and-effect is one area where timelapse photography excels. Rather than explaining the science or process in detail, sometimes the simplest and most engaging approach is to show it first. This video by the Canadian Conservation Institute shows silver tarnishing at an accelerated rate using an egg. See many more of their interesting timelapses at their YouTube Channel.
6. Decorating a Space
In one of the more captivating examples of timelapse I’ve seen, The Royal Pavilion Museums and Trust shows the decoration of multiple spaces, from start to show. If you’ve got to decorate for a holiday or special occasion anyway, why not share the effort? You might inspire someone.
7. Documenting Environmental Effects
In 2017, I had just started my new position at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens when Hurricane Irma paid Miami a visit. We’d just gotten a new Brinno timelapse camera and one of the security guards suggested we tether it to a balcony overlooking Biscayne Bay to see what happens. That was an inspired thought! Though Irma was not a direct hit on us, the storm surge produced enough fury to knock down pieces of the “Barge,” a breakwater/sculpture just outside the museum’s Main House. The Barge largely did its work to protect the Main House, but sustained some battle scars. Fortunately, we had just 3D documented it. This timelapse shows the fateful event that September day:
8. Exhibit Installations
You can create a timelapse effect using video as well. The example below was a first attempt at this concept, using snippets of video to show the phases of exhibit installation at a museum I worked at in Philadelphia.
9. Contemporary Art Projects
Going back to Vizcaya, here is a timelapse I took of a contemporary art project in which coverings are being sewn for the furniture akin to what would have been done by house staff members ahead of the summer months back when the house was built 100 years ago. The public was able to watch the work being done during the museum’s regular hours. The timelapse was used in an iPad kiosk at this location after the project was concluded.
Tools & Cameras
Capturing a timelapse is fairly simple if you have a sturdy camera and trip, and adequate light. Since audio is not an issue, it reduces a lot of complexity.
Brinno: This is a workhorse brand that I’ve used for years, and was used (along with a weatherproof housing) to document the hurricane event above. Keep in mind, if the the preview screen is on the back of your camera (as is the case with some of these models), it’s going to be awkward to see if you tether the camera to a post or building. But some use AA batteries, which can last for three months, so you’re really only limited by the size of the SD memory card you put in it.
GoPro: The GoPro’s ruggedness and small size make it ideal for this task. It has a built-in timelapse feature and captures super hi-res imagery. On the downside, the battery drains fast, and your ability to capture may be just hours rather than weeks.
DSLR: If you want really good quality with endless flexibility for settings, a DSLR camera is a viable option. You choose the battery size, the memory size and the resolution. Here’s a guide to using a camera you may already have.
Smart Phones: Most everyone has a smart phone these days, which has the timelapse feature built into the camera. Here are a couple of tutorials that provide detail on the functionality. Check here for iPhone and here for Android.
To button this up, here’s a video comparing the above methods.
Archival documents play a critical role in shaping the human story of a cultural site. In many ways they are the closest we can get to understanding the intent behind the creation of such places. Yet very few visitors are able to access them, or know where to start when those archives are available online as part of a collections management system. Over the course of 2020-2021, I managed development of a project that leveraged human-centered design principles to contextualize archival correspondence and humanize the founder of Vizcaya Museum and Gardens while illustrating some of the thinking that went into teh Estate’s construction.
“Yours Truly, James Deering” (virtualvizcaya.com) helps visitors to Vizcaya as well as online audiences get an answer to their most-asked question: who founded the Estate and why? Despite his great wealth, James Deering was a private person who did not marry or have children. What we know of him comes from the letters and telegrams he wrote during the construction of Vizcaya in the 1910s, which to this point have been inaccessible to the public. This project fashions his correspondence into an online storytelling experience that gives the user choices regarding what aspects of Deering’s personality they want to explore and guides them into a process of crafting their own narrative about who he was.
On-site visitors are able to activate the mobile experience through QR codes placed in the museum and gardens. Aside from the digitized letters, the experience also extends the narrative with additional multimedia content (e.g., 3D scans, 360 maps, etc.). Collectively, Yours Truly offers visitors context, discovery and surprise in Vizcaya’s storytelling approach.
Human-Centered Design
In 2019 the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation asked Vizcaya to participate in a cohort aimed at instilling the values of human-centered design in museums. That involvement resulted in the Yours Truly concept.
The project’s goals and outcomes include the following:
Established a digitization plan for archival materials
Procured modern digitization equipment and digitized more than 3,000 pieces of correspondence
Development of a responsive content management system based on WordPress that forms the basis of all future interactive experiences on the Estate and online
Human-centered design process that is now applied for all audience-facing projects
Installation of site-wide wireless access for visitors to the Estate
Experimentation with expanded forms of multimedia storytelling
Development of a user/visitor tracking system “Personamatic” based on Google Sheets/Forms/Data Studio for user studies
CLICK THE IMAGE TO SEE A PDF CASE STUDY OF THE PROJECT
User Expectations
Team members worked to avoid prescribed interpretations of James Deering’s correspondence, wanting Vizcaya’s visitors/users to gain an appreciation of them based on their interpretation of his words. In the age of smartphones and tablets and times of pandemic, expectations for interactive technologies have changed significantly. The initial intent was to heavily use kiosks stationed throughout the museum that would be updated via a newly established wireless access mesh. With the COVID-19 pandemic’s onset, the development team shifted to using a bring-your-own-device model to access the experience triggered by QR codes on signage throughout the Estate.
Visitors can often be seen in museums using pinch-and-zoom gestures, swiping, and scrolling through content. In much the same way, expectations have also changed regarding how museums and heritage institutions tell these stories effectively. The goal is to create enough novelty and intrigue—use just enough narrative to evoke emotion, inspire memories from the experience—to leave the user with a thirst to know James Deering in the museum and beyond. Vizcaya worked to achieve these objectives with an approach that will inform its future interactive endeavors.
Experience goals based on user testing and capabilities of the technology/online platform
Establishes “hooks” (highlighting letter excerpts) to provide focus considering the depth and complexity presented in the content.
Refine narratives and navigation keys to improve satisfaction for onsite or remote users in reading and using the interactive experience.
Foster user curiosity and encourage deeper exploration of collections with interest-based drop-down options for digital media within the platform.
Host a creative platform to reimagine James Deering’s personal life and business trades by combining digitized archives and other digital media.
Enhancing onsite and virtual visitor engagement by creating feedback mechanisms for sentiment, reflections and feature requests. Explore-by-Map interface in which users can find context-driven content using the floor plan of the Main House.
Digital Strategy Components Advanced during this project
Interactive Experiences CMS Yours Truly establishes a scalable content management system that serves as a repository for Vizcaya’s archival and object collections, and platform that allows contextual ties that engage users.
Personamatic Audience Studies Platform Yours Truly is the first project to leverage this unique mix of Google Forms, Sheets and Data Studio to record and visualize audience testing feedback. As data from additional projects is added, the more refined and powerful our audience analysis will become.
Beyond Vizcaya Storytelling Platform Beyond Vizcaya (also funded by Knight) is an emerging multimedia storytelling platform wherein content has the potential to be co-created by audiences. The lessons learned from Yours Truly development directly informed the structure and technologies behind this platform. With both, Vizcaya is learning how to tell stories in the digital space.
Sitewide Wireless Vizcaya underwent a total replacement of its IT infrastructure as Yours Truly was beginning. As part of the process of making Yours Truly available to on-site visitors in a bring-your-own-device scenario, Vizcaya was able to offer wireless access to the public for the first time, covering most of the Main House and some of the gardens.
Digitization Infrastructure Also as part of Yours Truly, Vizcaya developed its first plan for archives digitization and was able to procure modern equipment, as well as the needed help, to make part of the correspondence collection accessible for the first time. Additionally, Vizcaya was able to add four terabytes of storage to its servers to store the digitized collections and their derivatives.
In 2017, I was faced with an interesting choice: the cultural site I had been serving as a digital strategy consultant was willing to make my contracted position a full-time one. The catch is that I would have to manage the IT function too. My specialty and focus has historically been audience engagement and not the nuts and bolts of what makes everything tick. Additionally, I would have to supervise the institution’s migration from a County managed services model to a total new, internally managed IT infrastructure.
I loved the site and thought it had great potential, but didn’t want to drift off course of a career I both enjoy and have mindfully charted for the past 20 years. It was during this time of internal struggle a chance meeting with a guy named Matt Tarr at a Museum Computer Network conference cleared my mind on the issue. In response to the dilemma, he told me “if you control IT, you’re set with the rest of what you want to do.”
My mind knew what he meant. Struggles with IT departments past really took the wind out of my sails when it came to interactive development. Still, it took a while for my heart to catch up. A while meaning two years of getting the right people and partnerships in place, and then going through the mindboggling process of establishing and then actually migrating every conceivable communications system — radio, telephone, network, internet, etc., while with no service downtimes.
A year past that harrowing event, I can tell you Matt was absolutely right. Having systems that we can control and scale have made a recent grant project funded by the Knight Foundation much easier than it would have been otherwise. Having wireless access for visitors for the first time has made developing bring-your-own device experiences that we all pretty much now have to offer much easier. We also have servers we can scale and policies we can tailor to our needs. Thanks to that process, remote work platforms were already in place before the pandemic hit.
Sure there are pain points. Cybersecurity issues loom large in an era when even Microsoft and Solarwinds are getting hacked. I worry about it everyday. But that’s a fair trade off for gaining a greater knowledge of what makes tech tick, and the boundless creative possibilities that then present themselves.
For me, enjoying a museum visit has always required a leap of imagination. After all, a glass case or a room barrier inherently separates you from objects. Interpretive animations as short-form video are one way to get a visitor into a state where they can better understand the context is which a space, object or event “lived” its historical purpose due to its interaction with humans.
I experimented with this concept as part of a partnership with University of the Arts in Philadelphia and my colleague, Michal Meyer. Abstracting the object or story with animation really helped focus on imaginative storytelling and more effective interpretation.
Here is a playlist of animations produced as part of this partnership.
Some are definitely better than others, but they increased in quality as we refined the process. One challenge related to this experience (where we were working with a class) is that there is much work in getting the students up to speed on the meaning of the content and desired outcomes for audiences. These were also semester-long projects for an animation class, so they are several months in production. Some animations were never quite finished.
Overall, I think they turned out wonderfully. My personal favorite is an animation of an old alchemical painting the organization had, which explained what was going on through the eyes of a creature featured in it. Here’s a preview to the high-resolution source image for that from Wikimedia Commons (click for original):
Interior of a Laboratory with an Alchemist by David Teniers II, 17th Century
I saw that painting almost every workday for three years. It captured my imagination all on its own, and was a no-brainer for this project. To give these project some extra attention, we “premiered” these as part of a live webcast that featured a graphic novelist and a comic book historian.
There are many examples of museums using animations as pre-visit prep (manners in the museum) as seen below, but few featuring sophisticated storytelling and animation.
There are also examples of animations being used in museum interactives, such as these at the Benjamin Franklin Museum.
I looked for examples of interpretive animations produced by other cultural institutions, and they are hard to find. If you know of something out there, please link to it in the comments. Of course, there are many examples of object-inspired animated GIFs being used throughout social media, but that’s another post.
When you’re identifying what digital interpretive tactics work for your organization, eventually you will find one (or a combination of a few) that achieves a number of needs. This is called a strategic linchpin.
Linchpins are the result of beginning the strategic process, engaging experimentally, and giving your plans some time to percolate. The ability to focus more effort on fewer linchpin technologies is a sign that your tactical planning has truly become strategic.
The following are three examples of strategic linchpins specific to points-in-time and cultural organizations from my work in digital initiatives.
Strategic Linchpin 1: NCPTT Podcast
In 2007, the National Center for Preservation Technology and Training faced the difficulty of being a National Park Service agency with a mandate to serve a national audience, despite a decade of flat budgets and a relatively remote location in northwest Louisiana. The organization needed a way to show its impact, including the influence of innovative grant projects it funded to support the use of technology for historic preservation purposes. At the time, many of its audiences were cautiously curious about social and online media technologies. Part of this was that there were not really any topically relevant media to compel their participation.
I started the Preservation Technology Podcast as a way to empower staff to showcase their successes, and for audiences to connect to a wider world of like-minded preservation geeks. For all, it was a first step into modern online media, short of the engagement platforms like Facebook and Twitter, which were still viewed as invasive at the time. The podcast’s objectives included the following:
Give the staff a voice
Showcase grant products
Promote peer research
Connect with a national audience on no budget
Encourage adoption of digital media among audiences
Show digital media leadership within NPS
Almost ten years later, the podcast is the longest-running historic preservation podcast being produced. Moreover, NCPTT is noted for its role in championing digital outreach technologies, especially within the National Park Service.
Strategic Linchpin 2: Chemical Heritage Foundation GLAM-Wiki Program
In 2013, the Chemical Heritage Foundation was looking for ways to publicly share its comprehensive collections and research related to the history of chemistry. It used a lower-end collections management system and did not have a public search function enabled. It had narrative histories on its website, but they were difficult to find. At the same time, many staff members expressed frustration about the lack of quality information related to these topics on Wikipedia.
CHF chose to participate in the GLAM-Wiki initiative that helps cultural institutions share their resources with the world through collaborative projects with experienced Wikipedia editors. A Philadelphia-area Wikipedia editor was hired as a Wikipedian-in-Residence. This resulted in staff training on Wikipedia, and a systematic upload of high-quality collections images to WikiMedia Commons, and the creation of a monthly onsite cybercafe that included Wikipedia edit-a-thons.
The Wikipedian-in-Residence position was subsequently funded for a four-year term through a grant with the Beckman Foundation, and the Wikipedia content continues to be a major driver of web traffic to CHF web properties.
Strategic Linchpin 3: Vizcaya Museum and Gardens 3D Documentation
In March 2016, I had recently been contracted by Vizcaya Museum and Gardens in Miami, Fl., to give strategic shape to their digital initiatives. I reached out to David Morgan, a former colleague to brainstorm the evolution of a concept with which we had some common experience: 3D documentation. We both worked together several years at the National Park Service National Center for Preservation Technology and Training–an organization at the forefront of innovating technologies for heritage preservation. David has since moved on to become director of the NPS Southeast Archaeological Center in Tallahassee, Fl., and made several introductions to people who performed 3D documentation in Florida.
Vizcaya Museum and Gardens is a historic house museum and formal gardens located on Biscayne Bay in Miami. Its heritage resources are continually threatened from the climate (including sea-level rise) and inclement weather. It is also an extremely popular tourist attraction. Dual-purposing preservation documentation technology with visitor-facing interpretive technologies was an attractive idea for the institution.
Only a few people at the organization were aware of preservation documentation technologies. I wrote an explanatory document in summer 2016 that describes how the tech worked, what the advantages were and what partners could help achieve success (here’s a more general explainer based on that research). Among the benefits outlined were:
Preserve endangered heritage resources
Make resources accessible & tell their stories to visitors
Bridge preservation and interpretive technologies
Nurture academic/tech partnerships
Vizcaya formed a partnership with the University of Florida to prioritize laser scanning and photogrammetry documentation on resources that were of intense interest, but not accessible to the public. In January of 2017, UF completed scanning of the resources for preservation purposes.
In May 2017, the Knight Foundation awarded Vizcaya a grant for $100,000 to fulfill its vision to create visitor-facing virtual experiences based on 3D documentation of these resources. 3D documentation technology has come a long way in the past five years, and really, only now would we be attempting to make this visitor-facing element happen. This was made evident when I attended NCPTT’s 3D Documentation Summit in April. Many of the speakers there mentioned virtual experiences as the “next phase” of this technology. We’d already submitted our grant idea by then, but it was gratifying to know the leaders in this field were thinking the same way.
It’s been an incredibly rewarding experience seeing the idea take root at Vizcaya, knowing that the resources are being cared for, and the visitor experience as well. The values of Vizcaya’s leadership and staff, and the nature of Vizcaya itself, are what made 3D documentation its first strategic linchpin technology.
This past week, I had the privilege of co-leading a interpretation workshop focused on technology with Stacey Kutish, digital interpretive strategist at Morris Arboretum in Philadelphia. There were about 30 attendees from gardens and related cultural sites. I’m sharing the slide deck with speaker notes, which includes the following topics we covered:
Audience Research
Setting Strategy
Tools and Techniques
What Makes Good Digital Content
Thanks to everyone who came out to this introductory workshop. Related material:
Increasingly, museums are seeking to move beyond the one-way communication common for most of their existence. The tool being used for this purpose are app or mobile-optimized websites that allow visitors to create their own experiences while gaining deeper knowledge of collections-based subject matter. Museums increasingly seek to evolve their interpretation into multimedia experiences that engage visitors more deeply, and provide them with a “keepsake” of the experience which they may continue to explore after their visit. Additionally, these apps provide the organization with useful information about the visitor experience. But will these experience provide a deeper level of understanding sufficient to offset the additional complications of technology support and content production required? What the options for service providers, and what is the cost involved? This post details the features, costs and considerations regarding some of the major content delivery systems.
Cuseum is a platform that works using a CMS from which a mobile-optimized website and downloadable native app can be created. Its visitor-facing experience is cleaner and more sophisticated than many of its peers in this field. Typically, it features a unique interaction bar at the bottom of the screen that allows users to like, comment on and share content. Additionally, it allows users to view a map that shows them where points of interest are near them, and can recommend options for exploration based on their actions.
National Park Service: Saratoga National Historic Park
Henry Morrison Flagler Museum
Denver Botanic Gardens
Analysis:
Oncell recently acquired Toursphere to create one of the largest providers of guided tour experiences in this format. The basic subscription includes a dedicated template website with a limited number of color schemes. It is functional and well supported. Tours are built using a collection of widgets (i.e. buttons, text, audio and video) that can be dragged and dropped into the desired location on a page. Custom apps can be created from the tour content, though the price goes up considerably to build such an experience and the result looks very close to the web-based templates offered by Oncell/Toursphere.
Wayfinding with beacons and indoor positioning technologies
Analytics (with heatmapping)
Social media sharing
Clients:
Hearst Castle*
de Young Museum
Analysis:
Guidekick provides a custom-built option that includes three-dimensional models of the museum and gardens. Of the platforms examined, Guidekick functioned most smoothly and exhibited the most “wow” factor with its 3D aerial interface. Other than the 3D map, Guidekick’s unique selling point is that it offers a custom-built experience around its CMS, which allows the institution to achieve a product that reflects its needs for connecting to audiences. The costs are higher than those of other apps mentioned here, but they are drastically reduced from the typical costs of custom-built apps.
GuideOne is an established mobile app developer based in Brooklyn. It develops custom applications much like Guidekick. The Holocaust Memorial Miami Beach organization launched an app with GuideOne in September 2015. Key points about the experience were related by the organization’s executive director, Sharon Horowitz:
The purpose of an app is to provide more depth about the memorial, and the history it represents, to visitors. Visitors often left with many of their questions unanswered because there are no interpretive staff on site. Representatives of the Jewish Federation went to the Museums and the Web conference in Boston and interviewed several tour app vendors. GuideOne stood out because they had produced several successful products with historical organizations.
Memorial staff contracted GuideOne for approximately $200,000 to work on development of an app and an accompanying micro website. They dedicated another $200,000 to content development, working with subject matter experts in Los Angeles. Three people from the Jewish Federation also assisted. GuideOne helped locate experts to translate the tour into multiple languages. The process took about one year of dedicated effort to launch. The site was prepared with increased Wi-Fi capability and beacon technology to trigger points of interest on devices. The Memorial’s visitor center has information about the tour, and has iOS devices available for users to borrow. They are currently finding that people prefer to use their own devices. Staff strongly encourage visitors to download the app, and will help them do so. Visitors are often reluctant to wait for a download of the app as they are anxious to get to the Memorial site, but they report that the app greatly enhances their experiences afterward.
A primary market for the Memorial is school groups. The app and microsite are offered to classes that are planning visits and sometimes staff will make presentations on the content and its online availability beforehand. The site even includes lesson plans to prepare these groups to make the most of their visits.
Since launching in September 2015, the app has been downloaded about 2,000 times. The microsite has experience a great deal of traffic from school groups and others who are researching Holocaust subject matter.
Variable. They work with the highest profile clients of the firms documented here, indicating a higher price point.
Clients:
9/11 Memorial
The Art Gallery of Ontario
National Gallery of Art
Musée du Louvre
Guggenheim
Kimbell Art Museum
The Barnes Foundation
Smithsonian Institution
Analysis: Acoustiguide is a Canadian company that traditionally has produced audio guides for museums. It is a prolific developer, with dozens of tour apps available on the iOS app store. Most of these are moderately sized cultural institutions whose tours are based on the same template. Higher-profile clients like the Guggenheim and the 9/11 Memorial have custom swipeable interfaces. The 9/11 memorial has an element in which users can post a tribute. They can also pinch and zoom a field of circles to view tributes by others. There is also an interactive 3D map (simplified) where points of interest can be selected and then maximized and scrolled through gestures like pinch, zoom and swipe. The costs for using Acoustiguide are highly variable depending on whether the organization opts for the templated approach or the more customized experience.
This platform seems to be used more for walking city tours than museums. The Ringling Museum is the most prominent museum-specific app by TourBuddy that is currently active. Its interface is primarily text and images, with embedded maps for points of interest. One interesting feature of this app in particular is its robust settings menu, which allows the visitor to configure GPS trigger settings and media play settings. Otherwise it is an unremarkable platform based on available app experiences.
TAP is a collection of free and open-source tools (developed through an IMLS grant) that support the creation and delivery of mobile tours. The tools also serve as examples of producing and consuming tour content using the TourML specification. Currently TAP consists of authoring tools built on top of the content management system Drupal, a native iOS mobile application, and a web-based mobile application built upon the jQuery Mobile library.
A number of museums adopted TAP at one time or another, though considerably fewer still have active applications that can be reviewed. The interface for those that can accessed tends to be less refined than other tour experiences. The institution retains full freedom to customize and retain control of all aspects of content development and delivery.
Publishing the resulting product requires an iOS developer account to publish on the app store. The code is sporadically updated, which means it may not be fully compatible with the latest operating system versions.
Analysis: The TourMate platform offers similar capabilities to other systems reviewed here, but has a higher price point. Its customer service is extremely responsive and its costs for development are high, but realistic. However, based on currently available applications, its user-facing interface is dated and mostly skewed to the Android platform. It does offer numerous products on which to play tours without requiring a web connection, though its focus seems to be heavily on audio tours.
Analysis: This platform has the option to publish an app free for organizations who are members of the Google Cultural Institute and have content there. It has a clean and easy-to-navigate interface, with options for multimedia integration, and easy sharing of content. However, it is for the Android platform, using only Google tools such as YouTube and Google Street View. It is not available for download on iOS devices, which is the platform many organizations have invested in to this point.
Considerations for adoption
Location Positioning Technology
The most challenging aspect of any mobile tour will be making the application aware of a visitor’s position in relation to points of interest (POIs). Wi-Fi signals can help triangulate position, but this depends on Wi-Fi signals that are strong and varied. Even in defined galleries, it is very difficult to maintain a consistent Wi-Fi signal across a large area. All museums struggle with this issue–even those housed in newer, compact facilities with fewer thick walls. Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) beacons are more accurate and have a high industry uptake. Of the museum app developers offering location-aware products, BLE is the default technology due to its relatively low cost and more refined positioning capability.
The vendor chosen to facilitate a mobile app will have to work closely with the institution regarding beacon placement. While beacons respond to proximity, they can’t necessarily extrapolate which direction they are coming from, which could cause some confusion in wayfinding. An interactive map can mitigate this confusion.
3-Dimensional scans and artwork
The Guidekick 3-D animation of the museum and ground is a desirable model interface for a tour system. It also factors greatly into the additional cost of that platform. The Guidekick-produced 3D map would draw upon references such as CAD data, floor plans, GIS data, and a detailed maps of the grounds / gardens. From here, software tools process the references and 3D-artists work on details such as props, embellishments, texturing, and lighting.
Content Allowance
The applications considered in this document are very focused in the amount and type of information they provide. This is primarily to prevent “app bloat” in which the app becomes too large to accommodate a reasonable download time. Apps downloaded in reasonable time initially. Upon launch, however, most required a content update of 100MB-plus before the app could be accessed at all. These updates took between 1-5 minutes to download on standard Wi-Fi. It is often desirable for a mobile-optimized website be developed concurrently with the app so that visitors can point their phones to a web link if they wish to begin the tour immediately using their cell connection without downloading content. For devices that an institution would loan out, the pre-loaded native app will provide a better quality experience, but options for sharing the content on social are limited since users cannot log into their accounts on those devices.
Content Development License
For the purposes of search, and for content ownership, the institution should procure its own developer accounts for the iOS and Android app stores. This will cost $25 (one time) for the Android license and $99/year for the Apple license. Both the iOS App Store and the Google Play Store take 30 percent of revenues from any paid app.
I managed development of a museum interactive for an exhibit called The Alchemical Quest, which featured rare books. The books originated during the golden age of alchemy, from the 16th and 17th centuries and were drawn from the collections of the Othmer Library of Chemical History. The report below documents the project team’s efforts to make these texts accessible and alive to visitors via a touch projection technology museum interactive.
Project Goals:
Reinforce the depth and complexity presented in the exhibition content
Implicitly reiterate the exhibition narratives while allowing for visitors to enjoy the imagery of the books through the interactive experience
Provide visitors with alternate means of experiencing the books in the exhibition
Foster curiosity and encourage deeper exploration of images and text
Demonstrate an example of an alchemical process in its entirety
Reflect the fantastical and practical balance found within the books
