2. CONTENTS
About us
What happened
New beginning
What if you could redesign a museum from scratch?
Digital impacts — Designing a museum for today
What we are doing — Digital citizenship
Results
Lessons learned
3. WHO WE WERE
Inward focused
Locally engaged
Nationally forgotten
Globally absent
WHO WE WERE
8. “Canada’s national science museum infested with mould”
– CTV NEWS
“Emma Godmere: For imagination’s sake,
save the Science and Tech Museum”
– OTTAWA CITIZEN
“Documents reveal extent of crisis at Science and Technology Museum”
– Ontario Building Officials Association
“Government Acts to Restore Canada Science
and Technology Museum”
– Ontario Building Officials Association
9.
10.
11.
12.
13. NEW BEGINNING
People ralliedPeople changed and started thinking differently
“To anyone else, I was just another suburban Ottawa kid ambling around a museum on a quiet,
admission-free evening. But what no one else could see was that I — along with hundreds, even
thousands of unsuspecting students before and after me — was discovering a whole new dimension.”
– Emma Godmere — writer, radio producer and host
14.
15. WITHOUT A BOX
— YOU DON’T THINK OUTSIDE OF ONE
You survive in a world drastically different
than what you once knew
21. Many born digital demand participation
End of didactic environments
New norm — co-creation not only of content but of strategy
22. People want the “real thing” and much, much more
Traditional “Unassailable Voice” challenged — we are no longer the source
of truth — too much content out in the world
23.
24. Release of data
Release of archives and content
Our physical walls came down
WE ARE MOVING TOWARDS
A FULL OPEN HERITAGE MODEL
• Why not lower our digital ones as well?
• Redefine what it means to be a museum in the 21st century
Release of all information — first open by default public institution
27. APPLY INDUSTRY INNOVATION MODELS
TO CULTURE
Good things happen
It is about the ecosystem now, not about bums in the seat
— The broader the ecosystem the more bums
Citizen input into strategic decisions
Redefine success — move away from linear research and
development to ecosystem and co-development
Internal and external use of knowledge — expert and
non-expert input into heritage development
29. DID WHAT YOU
WOULD EXPECT
OF US
Collection online
Mobile games (Ace Academy Black Flight)
Global reach (170+ countries)
3rd party applications
Increased travelling exhibitions
36. REACH Broke all-time attendance records in the process
From 4M to 13M to 22M — this FY (30M — eventual goal 70M per year)
37. LESSONS LEARNED
Redefine what makes a museum successful in this day and age — don’t wait for mould like we did!
Engagement, participatory heritage, co-creation, whatever term you use — in a digital world a must
for institutional survival
Don’t be linear or didactic — work in parallels, grow partners in the digital world, let others lead
Don’t be perfect — imperfection is key for co-development of culture
Think global first — local second — you will always be local
Merge into multimedia, not just exhibitions
39. NEXT STEPS
Linked networks of knowledge — my museum is not in Ottawa
Launch of our new infrastructure — as a global hub for digital culture,
not as a physical entity
New games — new partnerships (Ace Academy III)
Introduction of AI into workplace — Open Heritage and historical data