Mobile media for cultural and historical heritage, guidelines and pilot projects

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.

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Building a community in 11 steps – Stranded Europeans

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.

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Mobile games and museums, wrap up of post-MW2010 unconference session

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.

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