Delegates at our events are often experts in their own right, and their questions are often a great chance to learn even more from our world-class speakers. To get your creative juices flowing, we asked our Museums+Tech 2016 speakers for a sneak peek at what you’ll learn from their presentation at October’s conference. We hope you enjoy their answers!
From Culture24’s Rosie Clarke:
You’ll learn tips on reorganising and simplifying complicated email lists; how to integrate a JustGiving appeal into your website and communications; and the benefits and challenges of rolling out live chat on your website.
From Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums’ Sarah Younas:
Attendees will gain an insight into practical initiatives undertaken by Tyne & Wear Archives & Museums to positively influence organisational practice in order to create new, authentic experiences for our audiences. The presentation will share best practice and will open up a debate with attendees on ways to embed non-traditional thinking and practices into everyday activity.
From Robert Cawston of National Museums Scotland:
Using a specific project as a case study, the paper will touch on a range of topics involved in the creation of an innovative digital experience. These include: the importance of audience research, how to create open and creative tender documents, and the benefits of working with agile methodology in a museum environment.
From the Wellcome Collections’ Russell Dornan:
I hope people are inspired to ask audiences for their own stories relating to a topic in order to inform/support it. I also hope people are moved to explore new and interesting ways that those stories can be manifested and shared whilst understanding the challenges that can involve.
From National Museums Scotland’s Elaine Macintyre, Hugh Wallace and Rob Cawston:
Attendees will learn how to use audience research and external trends to help build an internal case for change, and how to make decisions that balance user experience with implementation of technology.
From Jason Evans, Wikimedian in Residence at the National Library of Wales:
Attendees will learn about the advantages of combining open data with open images (and of being ‘open’ in general) and how the marriage of data and images can tell stories which have waited hundreds of years to be told.
From Wellcome Collections’ Chloe Roberts:
An idea of how to set up and start A/B testing (using Optimizely), while understanding that it’s absolutely crucial to have identified a weakness, and a specific measurable goal for improving it. Delegates will be shown our A/B testing structure and learn from anecdotes of tests we’ve performed. From our case studies they will also get an idea of how to identify weak points along a user journey and how to come up with proactive solutions to test, evaluate, iterate and improve.
From Anna Lowe, founder of SMARTIFY:
Sharing Economy’ ‘Platform Society’ ‘Crowdsourcing Content’ are terms we hear a lot in reference to the changing role of the museum in a digital age. SMARTIFY was founded in December 2015 to enhance ‘in-museum’ art viewing experience by allowing everyone – curators, critics, visitors, artists themselves to uncover and share stories about art.
From Sarah Cole, Creative Entrepreneur-in-Residence, British Library:
Attendees will see that you don’t need lots of resources to make a successful app, that context is key, and learn how collaboration was essential to the project.
From Kate Noble, The University of Cambridge Museums:
Questions we will ask include: how can we re-imagine collections based narratives within a classroom context? How are digital technologies being used in classrooms and how does this differ as pupils move through primary and into secondary school? What barriers do teachers face using and accessing collections based resources in the classroom and how might these be overcome?
From Martin Fell, York Museums Trust:
Attendees will learn what it takes institutionally to make working with Wikipedia meaningful and sustainable, both from a digital perspective and a curatorial perspective.
From Imperial War Museums’ Katharine Alston:
We’re going agile… But what is this like for the team who have to adapt and support the change? Hear how IWM digital learning group implemented service design, and used Google Analytics to develop their online offer. Furthermore learn how embedding these skills and methodology actually works when you put them into practice.
From Lucy Moore of Leeds Museums and Galleries:
How to make under-used collections more accessible and engaging to new audiences. Tips for developing an online interactive.
From Deeson’s Andrew Larking:
How Artificial intelligence (AI) should be seen as the most powerful tool in the curator’s arsenal. And how it’s already here, for free.
From Rhiannon Looseley and Josh Blair from the Museum of London:
We will discuss the management of two large scale digital projects which employ identical and related material for different audiences and how we approached this. We’ll speak to the shifting landscape of relationships with digital partners and companies, which may sometimes challenge typical museum working practice.
From Vahur Puik of the Estonian Photographic Heritage Society:
Crowdsourcing is great in principle but in reality it’s hard work to keep a crowdsourcing initiative going.
From the Ure Museum of Greek Archaeology’s James Lloyd:
The results of a student-led project into the possibilities of 3D modelling for education and outreach. A jargon-free introduction to creating 3D models via photogrammetry on a minimal budget.
Audience Q&A at MCG’s Spring 2016 conference
