This document discusses emerging technologies that are relevant for museums over the next 5 years. It describes a process used by the New Media Consortium to identify 6 key technologies through literature reviews and stakeholder voting. These include Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), crowdsourcing, electronic publishing, location-based services, natural user interfaces, and preservation/conservation technologies. Each technology is briefly described, highlighting opportunities they provide museums and implications for their use.

1. What Technology is on Your
Museum’s Horizon?
HEATHER MARIE WELLS

2. Inspiration
"The best way to predict the future is to create it."
-- uncertain

3. Agenda
The process
The technologies
Implication activity

4. http://
www.nmc.org/
publications/
2013-horizon-report-
museum

5. Process
Literature review
Systematically & boardly answer research questions:
Which of the key technologies will be most important to museum
education in the next 5 years?
What key technologies are missing from the list?
What are key challenges related to education that museums will face
during the next 5 years?
What trends will have a significant impact on the ways museums use
technologies in mission-mandated goals related to education?
Multi-vote ranking system takes place to establish 12 technologies (4
per adoption time frame)
Further research and expansion of topics to conducted
Another voting takes place to narrow down to 6 technologies.

6. The Technologies
0 - 1 years 2 - 3 years 4 - 5 years
BYOD Electronic
Publishing
Natural User
Interfaces
Crowdsourcing Location
Based-Services
Preservation and
Conservation
Technologies

7. BYOD - 0-1 Year
Staff and visitors
Wayfinding
Sharing
Learning

8. Crowdsourcing - 0-1 Year
Promote community engagement
Fundraising (Kickstarter or Patreon)
Generating information
Volunteer workforce

9. E-Publishing - 2-3 Years
50% of Americans access news online
Repurpose existing content, inexpensive,
various distribution outlets
Next phases: link platforms together,
responsive design

10. Location-based Services - 2-3 Years
Content customized to user's location
Extend physical reach, connect people, advertising/marketing
Next phase: indoor geolocation (iBeacon and Google indoor maps)

11. Natural User Interfaces -
4-5 Years
Touch, voice, and gestures
Simulated interaction with
objects
Users become a part of the
experience

12. Preservation and Conservation
Technologies - 4-5 Years
How do we keep this
digital media for the future
Digital curation, migration
strategies, and new
techniques
Training new types of
conservators
Supplies of parts

13. Inspiration
“Use your intelligence guided by experience"
—Rex Stout

14. Activity
Implication Wheel

15. Inspiration
"The future is not laid out on a track. It is something
that we can decide, and to the extent that we do
not violate any known laws of the universe, we can
probably make it work the way that we want to."
--Alan Kay

16. Take Aways
Advancement benefits from technology, but doesn’t
necessarily require it
It’s easier to keep-up then to catch-up
Look for connections between things
Look for convergences

17. Inspiration
“Everything has to be done by someone for the first
time; it might as well be you.”
-- Ryan Wells

18. Thank You for Coming!
HEATHER MARIE WELLS
HEATHERMARIE.WELLS@CRYSTALBRIDGES.ORG
WWW.LINKEDIN.COM/IN/HEATHERMARIEWELLS/
@HMWELLS

19. Image Credits
Johnson, L., Adams Becker, S., Freeman, A., (2013). The NMC Horizon Report:
2013 Museum Edition. Austin, Texas: The New Media Consortium. Cover
photograph by Visit El Paso: “El Paso Exploreum Museum.” Creative Commons
Attribution License.
Augmented Reality at Museu de Mataro by Kippelboy, April 2012
Crowdsourcing by adesigna http://www.flickr.com/photos/adesigna/
4983863106/
By Mariordo (Mario Roberto Durán Ortiz) (Own work) [CC-BY-SA-3.0 (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
By choko (you are here) [Public domain or CC-BY-2.0 (http://
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0)], via Wikimedia Commons
"John Underkoffler points to the future of UI," TEDTalk, February 2010. Full talk
available at TED.com
"Corporate interior: Violet Mirrored Illusion” by Phil Manker