This is an article I wrote for the (recently launched) project Creating Trustville. This project is a place for ideation of new social structures and the conceptualisation of the institutions of the future, started by Vandejong.

What is a museum?

Over the course of history museums have had to reinvent themselves a couple of times. Once they housed the private collections of kings and other leaders. Their audience: the owner’s friends and enemies whom he wished to impress. Then museums became centres of research, romanticised in the late 20th century in movies such as Indiana Jones. In the meantime museums had discovered their public role, often housing elaborate educational and visitor programmes.

In the early 21st century, with the Internet and the 2.0 revolution, museums all over the world flirted with yet another meaning for themselves. Visitors became actors. The recently launched YouTube Play project of the Guggenheim museum in New York exemplifies this change. Online video artists have a change to see their work displayed in one of the most renowned museums in the world. It is my strong believe that by the year 2020 this paradigm shift in thinking about museums and their role in society will have had a lasting impact on the sector.

So, what will a museum be in 2020?

I think we can distinguish three predominant changes in museums nowadays, that will shape the museum of 2020. The first is leaving the museum building and entering public space. The second is the changing relationship with the audience. The third, more awareness of the social responsibilities of an institution.

Play outside

In June 2010 the Netherlands Architecture Institute launched UAR, an Urban Augmented Reality app for the mobile phone. As they write on their website, “sometimes we feel that our four walls are a bit limiting.” The NAi has an amazing collection, but to live the full experience of architecture you need to go outside. UAR helps visitors to walk through the city and get additional information about what they see. It also allows visitors to see things that aren’t there anymore, or are not yet there.

For an architecture museum it might be an obvious choice to go outside of your museum and use the city as your exposition space. However, also other institutions have done the same. The Museum of London has the Street Museum, also an augmented reality app. The Museum of London is a history museum. Another example is the exposition Nieuwe Groeten Uit…, a cooperation between the Museum of National History, FOAM Photography Museum and the ANP Historical Archive, all from the Netherlands. Rather than choosing a traditional space in a museum for the final exposition of this crowd-sourced project, they used stores and advertisement space to display the art works.

In 2020 museums will have partly left their buildings and gone out to reach their audiences in other places. Museums will look for their audiences and be there, where they can best reach people. The building will become a hub for the museum’s activities indoors and elsewhere.

The participatory and community museum

Going outside the museum walls in search for the audience elsewhere redefines a museum’s relationship with its visitors. This change goes further, though. I’ve already mentioned Guggenheim’s YouTube Play and Nieuwe Groeten Uit…, both expositions in which the audience produces the exposition. In her book The Participatory Museum Nina Simon explores numerous ways in which museums can change their attitude to visitors, from passive consumers of expositions to active producers of experiences.

A traditional museum is a teacher and its audience the students. Often the relationship is one-directional. A modern museum looks for ways to engage its audience in ever surprising ways. The 2008 For the Love of God exposition by Damien Hirst in the Rijksmuseum is probably the best-documented example of this new approach in Holland. Visitors to the exposition became a part of the art by leaving their impressions on the work online.

The new relationship of museums to their audience goes beyond crowd-sourced and participatory expositions. More museums try to build active communities and organise un-museum-alike activities to reach new audiences. The Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam is open till 10pm every Friday with a full programme of music, DJs, video shows and drinks and by doing so becomes relevant to a whole new group of visitors: young locals looking for a cultural night out.

In 2020 we will see museums as community centres, where visitors both contribute and consume. They’re places where you can meet like-minded people and discuss arts, culture and history. Both seriously and relaxed, with a good coffee or cocktail and thrilling debates, dance nights and other social events.

Social responsibility

If the museum of 2020 is a community centre with influence within its walls as well as outside of them, it automatically takes on a function in society. I believe a museum has and should have a responsible position in culture, art and heritage and also in society in general.

MoMA’s Alzheimer Project Meet Me is part of the MoMA’s art and dementia programs. The outcomes of the project clearly indicate the project has a positive social and intellectual impact on people with dementia. The ‘Verhalentafel’ (Story table) developed by the Waag Society similarly helps elderly in reminiscence programmes. StoryCorps in the USA stimulates conversation between people and stores their sometimes-beautiful stories for generations to come.

All over the world museums experiment with projects that have a positive impact not only on culture, arts and heritage, but also on society as a whole. In 2020 museums will be one of the core institutions in society to close the gaps between people from different generations, backgrounds and social-economic status. Museums will be leading institutions in the public debate about difficult issues.

Once a museum was a place where the rich and powerful showed artefacts they had conquered, stolen or looted from other cultures. Or the museum was stuffed with difficult-to-understand art and objects that had lost their practical value. In 2020 a museum will be the beating heart of a living culture, easily accessible to all people and of true value to society.

At least, let’s hope so.

Today was the fifth edition of Mediamatic’s Kom Je Ook? conference.* Today’s topic was storytelling. Storytelling seems to be hot. As some of the speakers at today’s conference pointed out today, however, it’s nothing new. Virgil’s Aeneid and Homer’s Iliad used to be told as stories. That’s a long time ago. Storytelling once was the only real source of information sharing we had. The Moroccan storytellers who still tell the stories of A Thousand and One Nights are one of the many examples of this ancient tradition, still present today.

So, what we’re doing is trying to reinvent an old tradition. Fortunately, most of today speakers showed that we haven’t thrown away X million years of experience with storytelling. Actually, we might have made some small steps forward. Or regained some lost skills.

The most important lessons for museum trying to implement storytelling I’ve heard today:

1. Storytelling is as much about telling stories as about listening to stories of others.
   Renate Zentschnig of Soundtrackcity emphasized how much value there is in the stories of others and that listening to these might inspire you to tell stories of your own.
2. “Bring a bottle of wine, bring yourself and bring a story”
   Sara Barron of The Moth exchanged some of the basics of good storytelling.  When so much of our communication is done with our fingers, good storytelling might make people feel socially connected and comfortable.
3. Care about what people have to say
   As Sara Barron said, “Whatever it is you have to say, we care about it.” Stories can get rather personal. Care about these emotions and care about the reactions to these emotions. Which leads me to:
4. With stories, the emotion is unpredictable
   You never know if a story will be funny or sad. Nor will you know how every audience reacts on a story or how it is changed when you tell it. Be prepared to follow up on a wide variety of emotional outcomes.
5. Comparison is key to enticing stories
   Master storyteller Wijnand Stomp had everybody listening in awe. His trick, apart from using traditional metaphors to tell a good story: comparison. How does the audience relate to your story? How do they fit in? Include your audience and a story is told more enticingly.
6. Storytelling is a meeting of minds, not technology
   Pieter-Matthijs Gijsbers gave a compelling speech on storytelling in his museum. In his opinion, the most special moment was when an unexpected encounter in his museum led to an in-depth conversation and exchange of stories.
7. How the story is told is as important as the story itself
   Blaxtar, a Dutch hiphip artist, showed that the same lyrics can have a completely different feeling (and thus meaning) when told on a beat or with a piano playing. A tough rap text turned into an emotional song.

Today’s Kom Je Ook? was an inspirational meeting with explored many aspects of storytelling. I’m pretty sure that the people at Mediamatic will post most of the presentations online, so check out their website if you’ve got a chance.

* “Kom je ook?” translates into something like “will you be there too?” and although I spend the best part of my life in their office, I never thought about asking why they chose this name for a conference on new media and innovation for the cultural sector.

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!

Nieuwe groeten uit… (“New greetings from…”) is a crowd-sourced, crowd-curated exposition in the city of Arnhem in the east of the Netherlands. Last Thursday my museum opened the last part of the yearlong project. In many ways it’s a special exposition and project, I think, and worth sharing.

Somewhat over a year ago FOAM photography museum Amsterdam, the ANP Historical Archive and the Museum of National History of the Netherlands came together to find a replacement for the traditional postcards. Most postcards show an old-fashioned image of Holland: cheese, cows and wooden shoes. The Netherlands has changed significantly over the last years, and Nieuwe Groeten Uit… was a search for new postcards.

The general public played a mayor part in every phase of the project: gathering the photographs for the postcards, selecting the best post-cards and even putting them on display.

The process from idea to exposition in 10 steps

1. May 2009 we asked everybody in the Netherlands to send us photos that according to them gave an image of the Netherlands. They could upload their photos on a special website and put them in four categories. All photos were welcome, from those taken with mobile phones to professional shots.
2. In little over a month a wide range of people uploaded 8.000 photos. There was a 3-photo limit for everybody. A professional jury sorted through the thousands of photos to select the best ones for every region and category.
3. In the summer of 2009 a special inflatable exposition space travelled through the Netherlands, stopping at each of the 12 regional capitals. People were invited to vote for their favourite photo of their region, which they did.
4. In every city, special events were organised around the tour. I visited the exposition in four cities and every time it was something special. Hundreds of people cast their votes and photographers from all over the country came to defend their photo as a winner for the postcards.
5. The maker of the winning photo of each region could win a camera. All selected photos were printed as real postcards. This resulted in 48 unique postcards of contemporary Holland.
6. When the tour ended, the Museum of National History began to prepare for the final exposition. Being the first exposition of the museum, people who sent in photos were often proud to be able to become a part of this first exposition of the new museum.
7. Last Thursday we opened this exposition. Not in a building, but in the city of Arnhem. Photos are put on display in shops and many other places (see below). Hundreds of photos are spread out over Arnhem.
8. In a small venue, a multimedia installation allows people to print their own postcard for the Netherlands using the thousands of photos as a starting point. The installation records which photos are selected and will tell us the most popular ones when the exposition is finished. People can do the same process from their homes on a special website.
9. In addition to the exposition, two famous Dutch writers wrote a book with observations about the photos. Hans Aarsman and Anna Woltz selected the best photos for their book.
10. When the exposition ends this summer, all photos and other input collected through the exposition will serve as a document on how the Dutch see the Netherlands in the early 21st century.

The city as exposition space

The number of ways in which photos are and were put on display during the project especially struck me. Just a selection of the options used:

The inflatable exposition space and a photo on display in a church.

Photos on display in a music book store and in a hairdressers.

A photo in a shop and on an advertisement pole.

And finally: photos on a billboard and as table cloth in a restaurant.

What I think was especially nice about the project

Nieuwe Groeten Uit… was the first exposition I cooperated in for the Museum of National History. Although my role in the process was limited, especially in the beginning I’ve spent quite some time working on the project. Some things I learned and think were nice about the project:

• Touring the country with our inflatable exposition space offered great opportunities for community events. The exposition space served as a hub for other activities on more than one occasion. When we were in Arnhem, for example, people organised workshops in photography, tours around the city and many other things.
• The enormous red inflatable exposition space sparked conversation. When the thing was in Enschede on many occasions I saw strangers talk with each other after being “shocked” by the sudden presence of the exposition.
• The cooperation with the partners in the project, FOAM and ANP, left me with some nice contacts in other organisations. On a personal and even professional level we are still in contact to help each other with other projects and ideas.
• The presentation of photos in shops at the final exposition is a thing I truly like. As most of the participating shops are small independent shops, it’s a way for them to reach a larger audience. Some of the shops I visited when going through Arnhem to see the exposition are rare places that I’m happy to have discovered.

Over the past year Nieuwe Groeten Uit… gained quite some attention from different types of people. The audience always played a significant part in the project. The positive press coverage and – more importantly – the positive responses of ordinary people, have made this a very useful project to me.

Nieuwe Groeten Uit… is made possible with a contribution of the BankGiro Loterij.

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.

Photo by Thomas Hawk on Flickr

Last weekend I worked on a project idea involving the creative use of stairs in a museum. Stairs and escalators are often not more than a connection between two galleries. There is, however, so much more you can do with them. Stairs and escalators are an amazing place to use new media to connect with your audience.

Why? Stairs and especially escalators are (with toilets and ticket queues) the only place where your audience will stay a while. They’ll have to go up (or down) anyway, so why not give them something to do or look at in the meantime?

Stairs as a gallery in the Denver Art Museum

Photo by Throughnothing on Flickr.

In the Hamilton Building of the Denver Art Museum, a design by Daniel Libeskind, the wonderfully designed stairs are a gallery on their own. From every floor and everywhere in between they offer enticing new angles on the art on display and the building. The experience is difficult to grasp in photos, but a simple Flickr search gives a nice idea.

Stairs as an interactive playground in Sweden

I think the video says it all. Imagine how people will talk about this experience with friends and relatives. Imagine them wanting to experience the same thing. Imagine something like this in your museum. (I remember some amusement parks and lunar parks having similar constructions.)

Stairs to get you in the right mood in the Ruhrmuseum

The Ruhrmuseum in Zollverein I visited recently uses stairs and escalators to get visitors in the right mood. First, there’s a long escalator taking you up and into the building. During the long ride up, I completely relaxed and got in the quiet curious mood perfect for visiting a museum. The stairs (designed by Rem Koolhaas) that take you into the galleries are so overwhelming they completely disconnect you from reality. A great starting point to enjoy a museum.

Stairs as an unsettling experience in Norway

The escalator above is in the Tunnel of Light in the Nydalen subway station in Oslo, Norway. I’ve not seen this one in real life, but the videos on YouTube give a pretty good impression. It might be a bit unsettling for a museum, but it takes little imagination to see a similar concept work to convey a more cultural or historical concept. Of course, as a piece of art it has more than enough meaning already.

Stairs as an exhibition space in Seattle

Photo by goldlionpics on Flickr.

The escalator above is in the Seattle Public Library. There’re ballooning heads on display in the photo. It can be anything, though. Not long ago I had a brainstorm with a group of young museum professionals about how to better engage the audience. One of the unusual ideas was to force people past the exhibitions on an escalator, making sure they spend enough time with the works on display. Not an original thought, given the escalator above.

Stairs as a universal source of inspiration

(via)

As a child Escher’s drawings, and especially his impossible staircases, sparked my imagination. Researching this post I realised stairs and escalators can still be a source of inspiration. Some last links I don’t want to withhold you:

• Awesome staircase creative design
• 15 creative & unusual stairs and escalator ads
• 50 awesome creative stairs around the world

If I missed anything important, please let me know!

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.

Everybody’s talking about community building these days. Often we forget how easy it is (can be) and how frequently it happens. A volcano, some stranded Europeans and Denver. This is how you build a community:

1. Get a bunch of people together with more or less similar values.
   E.g. museum professionals working on participation.
2. Urge them to do something, change their status quo.
   E.g. by having a volcano erupt and cause huge ash clouds.
3. Make them understand that they’re involved in the new situation.
   E.g. by cancelling their flights home.
4. Have a community leader/manager take the lead in collaborative action.
   E.g. Jennifer Trant who starts a system to find those stranded lodging and something to do.
5. Find some early adopters and encourage them to participate and take group action.
   E.g. by setting the example yourself and offering your lodging.
6. Give the community the freedom to develop by offering tools, not rules.
   E.g. pen and paper, a common media channel and enthusiasm.
7. Put emphasis on the positive behaviour of individuals in the community.
   E.g. by talking to them or retweeting their initiatives.
8. Think beyond social media.
   E.g. by hosting unconference sessions, meetups and drinks. Or by putting up a pen and paper registration system (see photos).
9. Have an open attitude to newcomers.
   E.g. by stressing how everybody is in the same situation.
10. Ensure and celebrate tangible outcomes within the community.
    E.g. by blogging about their events and applauding the success of individuals reaching home.
11. Take action over time to reinforce the community.
    E.g. by hosting a little event at next year’s conference for those affected by the volcano.

Okay. Not all communities are built this fast. And not all of the above steps will be easy to take. However, as I’ve seen it happen at MW2010, I’ve seen it happen many a times. Step 1-3 are the most important. Step 4-10 are mostly important when you want the community to work towards your goals. Step 11 is merely cool.

Thanks to all stranded Europeans and helpful Americans after MW2010. Did I miss any steps? Please, add them!

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

A lot of great thing came out of Museum and the Web 2010. I’ll be blogging about some of them over the next week (as I’m stranded in Denver due to #ashtag). One of the best, without a doubt, was the Spinny Bars Historical Society, or SBHS.

I first came into contact with the SBHS when I accidentally joined one of their board meetings. Their extensive team, headed by revolving visionary Ryan, works on the promotion and conservation of spinny bars around the world. As they say on their website: “The Spinny Bar Historical Society is the world’s premiere historical society for any and everything related to the global phenomenon that is the Spinny Bar. These international delights are dissappearing from the Earth (which, we should point out, also spins).”

About the SBHS and their birth they gave a stunning presentation at MW2010. It’s a must see for everybody in the cultural sector, IMHO.

What’s so great about the Spinny Bars Historical Society?

Basically, in somewhat over 24 hours they put together an impressive new media initiative, incorporating almost everything museums are working with right now. And they’ve did it with sense.

What they’ve proven is that there’s only one way to do a new media project: Just do it. Most of the institutional, financial or even operational “buts” are merely fear to start going. The only limitation to being online and on-track with new media is the guts to really do so.

The Spinny Bars Historical Society spinning online

• Official homepage
• Facebook fan page
• Facebook friend page
• On Twitter
• Extra: A photo of me with the director (See how happy I am!)