An automatiek type vending machine, or trekmuur – “pull wall” – as we call it in Dutch, is a traditional piece of robust technology used to sell deep-fried snacks. Many visitors to Holland might have seen it, especially late at night when they’re popular places to get something to eat.

Over the last years some machines started to sell other stuff than traditional Dutch snacks. There are ones that sell Chinese food and even sunglasses, but that’s about all the innovation the machines have seen. The Museum of National History and Mediamatic decided to take the vending machine to the next level. Yesterday we launched the pilot of this project.

The National Vending Machine

The National Vending Machine (Nationale Automatiek in Dutch) is place where visitors to a museum can buy historical objects. The objects are both historical and recognisable, like a light bulb or tulips. Each object tells a story about Dutch history, which visitors can read on an attached label, see as a video or discover on the project’s website.

The idea is to build a community of objects. Visitors can contribute to the exposition by telling their story about the object they bought or by suggesting new objects. The pilot of the National Vending Machine is in the Amsterdam Historical Museum, but after a few months the machine will start travelling around the country. Every time with other objects and improved interaction with the visitors.

Logically, the traditional vending machine did not suffice for all these new forms of interaction. The museum and Mediamatic had to reinvent the machine.

Reinventing the vending machine

From right to left: registration booth, vending machines and video booth in the National Vending Machine

A traditional vending machine is used by paying with coins directly in the machine. This unlocks one column in the machine and the user can open any of the compartments. There’s no way of knowing which of the compartments is opened, who the visitor is or why he or she chose a specific compartment. There’s no way to follow up on the visit.

We decided to make the flow more personal, and a bit more complex. Sensors for each compartment are used to determine which one is opened and visitors are identified with personal RFID cards. This is how it works:

• A visitor pays with coins for the object of her choice at a registration booth (far right in the photo above). The money becomes the visitor’s credit for the vending machine.
• After inserting the coins the visitor can give her name, take a photo and do a little “hot or not” quiz about historical images. We use this information to create an online profile at our website. After the pilot, this will be the starting point for users for a journey through history online.
• When the visitor completes the registration procedure, she gets a RFID card. This card in personal and can be used at other activities of the museum. It’s also a free entry ticket for the future museum.
• With the card, the visitor can unlock one of the 10 columns with historical objects (in the middle of the photo above). Each compartment uses magnetic sensors so we know which of the 8 compartments of a column the visitor opens.
• The chosen object is added to the profile of the visitor. The ID of the card is the unique identifier for the visitor.
• The visitor can take the chosen object home. A label gives the story behind the object.
• Finally, the visitor can use the card to play a movie about the object she bought at the National Vending Machine (in the far left of the photo above). These short movies add images and movie to the story on the label.
• If the visitor wishes to buy another object, she can add credit to her card and profile at the registration desk.

After the visit, the visitor can continue the experience with the National Vending Machine online. An email is sent after registration, which gives access to the personal profile of the visitor. On this profile the visitor can find additional information about the object and links to online sources.

Online each visitor can add personal memories, opinions, images, etc. to each of the objects in the National Vending Machine. This way we build files on each of the objects. Also, the visitor can suggest new objects to be put in the vending machine.

After the pilot…

Visitors of the National Vending Machine read the label of their object and watch a video

The current edition of the National Vending Machine is a pilot project for a series of vending machines at other locations in the country. The Museum of National History and Mediamatic will use the experiences from this pilot to improve the vending machine, the visitor flow and the online environment.

I’m curious what you think about this project. How could we improve future editions? Does this offer additional opportunities we have missed so far? Your input and the input from visitors and users will be used to strengthen the project and continue reinventing the vending machine. Of course, I will regularly write about the project on this website. Let me know what you think!

Photography by Fred Ernst, who’s an amazing photographer!

Photo from the Flickr Commons (Field Museum Library)

I’m relatively new to museums. Apart from a short intermezzo in an ecomuseum, the last year has been my only year within the walls of a museum. I do new media and technology. We do a lot of innovation. This is what I learned last year.

1. Work together
   There’s a lot of one man armies doing great work on new media and innovation in museums. Innovation isn’t a one man show, though. It’s a team effort. I’ve had the good fortune to be part of a team led by visionary people. However, even if you’re the only one paid to do new media and technology, try to work together with others as much as possible. To do so:
2. Do internal advocacy
   Odds are most of your coworkers know little about new media. That doesn’t mean they don’t like to know. Talk about what you’re doing, make them enthusiastic. I didn’t always do it, last year, and that was among my biggest mistakes. I learned the lesson and now I do workshops, regular mailings and I spent quite some face time explaining people what I’m doing. All the energy I put into internal advocacy comes back to me in – at least – twofold.
3. Curatorial staff is not conservative, per se
   Especially the last months I’ve closely worked together with our curatorial staff. I asked their input and tried to talk with them as much as possible. Listen to their needs and use their expertise. The result: almost daily they contact me with relevant information they find online, great ideas for projects and pilots and useful questions. And they’re about semantic web and augmented reality, not “how do I make text bold”.
4. Innovation is done by people, not by technology
   Whatever relevant project or installation I can think of can be made. Technologically. In everything I’ve been working on (and this includes all my prior experiences) the only scarce resource have been enthusiastic people. Enthusiastic, not skilled. Skills can be taught quickly. I treasure the many endlessly enthusiastic people around me.
5. For-profit is not a dirty word, at least not always
   I’ve discovered that, more than in most other sectors I’ve worked in, there’s a group of really good entrepreneurs in the cultural sector. They’re out to make profit, but don’t mind to share their knowledge and networks without asking anything in return. I don’t want to play favourites and will thank them in person. The lesson: don’t run away from businessmen immediately.
6. Work together (2)
   Without the many (young,) enthusiastic people from other institutions I’ve met and spent quality time with, I wouldn’t have learnt what I did. Our new networks have been of incredible value to me. Think outside of your institution’s walls and work together with people in similar positions elsewhere. Build the networks yourself, if there aren’t any.
7. Host activities
   As most of us working on new media, technology and innovation are struggling with the same challenges, why not host useful activities yourself? I’ve done workshops and unconference sessions to discover the answers to difficult questions. There’s no better way to move forward. And the best thing is: others learn from it as well. Don’t wait for a conference session or other institution to deal with your challenge: take the initiative yourself!
8. Use conferences to talk, not to listen
   Which brings me to conferences. I’ve had the opportunity to visit quite some of them. MuseumNext in Newcastle, DISH in Rotterdam, MW2010 in Denver and some 3 KJOs in Amsterdam. They had one thing in common: the plenary presentations were little useful. Most inspiration and ideas came from the conversations with people at the conference. A conference brings great people together, but it’s up to you to talk with these people and organise dinners or sessions with them to really learn a thing or two.
9. Talk about challenges, not best-practice
   Presentations are often not that useful, as they tend to give best-practices. They are about specific challenges solved by specific institutions in a very specific situation. Inspirational, but there are so many more challenges. When I talk with people, I’ve learnt to stay away from best-practices and address real challenges I face. Sharing a challenge makes it easier to solve it.
10. Take some time off
    On an average I’ve worked 67 hours a week. Add 10-15 hours of travel and 20+ hours of reading blogs, books and papers and at times there was little more I did than new media and technology. I love it and will continue doing so, but I realise that the enormous challenges we face might be better dealt with when the mind is empty and clear, the body full of energy.

This last lesson might be one to focus on next year. Because I’ll be continuing. Of course. I think to work on new media and technology in museums might be one of the most interesting places to work right now.

How can we use mobile media to engage people in cultural and historical heritage? Last week I co-hosted a hands-on expert meeting dealing with this subject. Our objective: to find one or two pilot solutions that we can develop already.

The meeting followed on the post-MW2010 unconference about mobile games for museums I wrote about two weeks ago. Experts of DEN (Dutch Digital Heritage), the Dutch museum association (NMV), the Stedelijk Museum of Amsterdam and Beeld en Geluid together with host the Museum of National History, came up with a set of guidelines for pilot projects. We used user profiling and a tour through The Hague to develop these guidelines and a handful of ideas.

Our findings below represent what we think a mobile platform for cultural and historical heritage should look like, using contemporary technology.

Guidelines for mobile and heritage

1. Develop for highly mobile savvy people, or highly culturally engaged people.
   Mobile and culture is not a logical match. Mobile savvy people can be drawn to heritage, but on their terms. Cultural people might use mobile likewise.
2. An external trigger (mobile to heritage or the other way around) is key
   Changing people’s range of vision from a beautiful heritage site to a mobile screen and vice versa doesn’t come naturally
3. Existing platforms suffice (most of the time)
   Especially the mobile savvy people will turn to known and proven platforms (Google, Wikipedia, etc.) after they’re triggered.
4. Go from fun facts to in-depth information
   Users might be triggered to use a mobile platform by a fun fact about the heritage site, but will turn away when the information is limited or outdated.
5. Don’t make downloadable websites
   Flexible apps that give access to (different) sources of information rather than one app full of predetermined information are more satisfactory for users.
6. Context is the added value of mobile
   Make sure that what you add in information to the heritage site is useful onsite. Go beyond the information people can look up beforehand or afterwards on their home computers.
7. Make sure your information is up-to-date
   Nothing is worse than offering outdated information, especially as people will be able to check the accuracy of your information immediately.

Please note that our findings apply to the now. In the (near) future mobile probably will evolve significantly, bringing new opportunities.

Two possible contemporary solutions for mobile and heritage

With the guidelines above and some ideas from the expert meeting, two possible directions for mobile and heritage are:

1. For the mobile savvy user, build a trigger in existing locative games to explore heritage using a variety of existing platforms. Use the “must see” attitude towards heritage as a game element.
2. For the culturally engaged user, offer a very good app in your museum or archive that takes the indoor experience outside. Some of your contents might be much more interesting when visited mobile.

In the coming months, together with the team, I will develop pilot projects around these findings. On this blog, I will report back on them. To make these pilots better, please let me know your thoughts about the possibilities and opportunities of mobile for heritage. Thanks in advance!

Photo by Daniel Y. Go on Flickr.

Although the most popular location based mobile games, Foursquare and Gowalla, still have limited user bases, their potential is huge. At the moment, Facebook has over 100 million mobile users, a number that is growing with the second.

As a part of the official post-MW2010 programme, Paul Stork and I hosted an unconference session about mobile games and museums. These are my notes, please add your thoughts and opinions through the comments. I’ll add them to the post to create a full document on mobile games and museums.

What is mobile gaming?

Both Foursquare and Gowalla work alike. Based on your location you can check in to a venue, be it a bar, a museum, or whatever. By doing so you let your friends know your location, but you also enter a competition. You can earn badges, become the mayor of a place, score points, etc.

In addition to that, people can leave “tips” at a venue. Other visitors can see these tips. For instance, to eat a certain burger or to see a certain painting. Limited marketing options are also available.

For both Foursquare and Gowalla you need a smartphone and an internet connection. Mobile apps are available for all major platforms. Your location is determined with GPS or similar services.

Meaningful service and engaging gameplay

When it comes to mobile games, the old dispute between education and entertainment fires up again. However, there’s consensus on what is most important.

“You have to start with a great gaming experience.”

People first have to like to play the game. If you then can add some useful content or learning objectives to the game, that’s a great plus. It all starts with the gameplay, though. Take, for instance, the Science Museum’s Launchball, which – as one of the participants put it – simply a great game to play.

“Do something people do every day and connect them to your institution through that.”

“Mobile gaming is gaming on their (the gamer’s) terms.”

You can use existing platforms or build new mobile games, as long as they do not interfere with people’s normal usage of mobile games. Checking in, collecting badges and leaving tips are enough tools to design great gaming experiences.

Don’t go fancy on your game design either. All great gaming concepts have been discovered and there are only a few that actually work.

Competition and rewards

Competition is an important element of mobile games. With Foursquare and Gowalla, rewards are purely digital, however as one participant mentioned:

“The physical reward is underrated.”

People enjoy physical rewards. Both Museum Boerhaave and Beeld en Geluid have had good experiences with rewarding online participation with small physical rewards.

Altruism can be a reason for people to participate in games. This means you can have volunteers put things on platforms like Foursquare. For instance: historical locations or cultural heritage.

To make this successful, it is suggested that,

“Mobile gaming should be part of a (marketing) strategy.”

This strategy should involve various platforms and consistent ways of rewarding. This strategy could even be inter-institutional. Different museums in one city could work together. If a user has visited all museums, they get a reward.

Most participants agreed that it doesn’t hurt if people just run around town to check in to all venues to win the award. Throughout the competition they might pick up a thing or two.

Connecting with your collection

Beeld en Geluid, the audio and video archive of the Netherlands, explained a project in which they added material from their archive to physical objects in the country. People who visit one of these objects get access to the related archival material.

Locations could be tagged with objects from a collection. Imagine an “add this to Foursquare” button in your online collection, which allows users to position it at the exact physical location of the object. When people check in to this location, they get the object plus a link to its online location as a tip.

Foursquare’s API (probably) allows these kinds of actions. The “add this to Foursquare” button might then even be added to Europeana, to make all European cultural heritage available on location.

Objects can be games

Objects can be games themselves. Hide and seek, treasure hunts, trails, etc. are based around objects and their (contemporary) location. Gowalla even uses digital objects to encourage participation. These objects can be “found” by checking into specific places and can be added to a personal inventory.

At the moment these are objects like “a cheesecake”, but what if we add 100,000 of the world’s best cultural heritage in Gowalla. All of a sudden people might be collecting pre-Columbian art or Picassos.

It really gets interesting when people start competing for objects, like in flag capture.

Encourage discovery

Foursquare and Gowalla allow you to check in where you already go. As someone put it:

“Foursquare encourages you to be boring. Location based games should encourage discovery.”

Because mobile games have the surprise effect of “tips” and location based suggestions, they are great tools for discovery. Maybe they don’t have you discover new places, but they can give users more information about the location they’re at.

Paid or free games

Simply put, you can charge people for great gameplay, not for information.

Existing platforms such as Foursquare can be used to develop mobile games cheaply. It’s a pre to use an existing or web based platform so people don’t have to download a separate app for your mobile game.

However, organisation specific apps can be used to better cater the information needs of the people who are already in your audience. You can help them experience your museum better with up-to-date tools.

A combination of platforms helps to make a full mobile gaming strategy.

Useful links

• Mobile games on Wikipedia
• Location-based games on Wikipedia
• Mobile games blog

Last Friday I met Maarten Lens-Fitzgerald from SPRXMobile. He gave me a demonstration of a new application they built, named Layar. Layar is, according to their website, a free application for your mobile phone which shows what is around you by displaying real time digital information on top of reality though the camera of the mobile phone.

Currently it’s only available on Android phones. In the near future, however, it might become available for the iPhone as well.

Layar is a browser. On top of the image of the camera in a mobile phone, this browser displays an information layer. For instance, the location of all ATMs around you. A small dot shows you the direction and the distance of an ATM. Once you select one ATM, you can get additional information about this ATM. Also, you can call a map to see how to get to this ATM from your current position.

I was impressed by the demonstration, although not everything went fluently. The potential of such an application for the Museum of National History (and doubtlessly other museums) is enormous.

A museum with a collection that cannot be (entirely) within the walls of the actual building can turn a country into its backyard with Layar. Historical sites, special architecture and even elements of another museum’s collection can be made available to visitors, always and everywhere.

The only prerequisite is a database with the information of all objects. This can be a challenge, but in today’s socially organised digital world users can help to build this database.

I see in Layar a great opportunity for our museum. The opportunities seem endless. There are some challenges to overcome, but without a doubt an application like Layar can become the core of many of the future’s museums.