This document discusses how mobile technologies are transforming museums into distributed social networks. It argues that museums must integrate mobile into their overall strategies to remain relevant. The Smithsonian is embracing this approach by developing mobile apps and websites to engage wider audiences and turn visitors into collaborators who help spread knowledge. The goal is to use mobile to recruit the world and make the Smithsonian's collections more accessible and meaningful to people everywhere.

1. From Headphones to Microphones
Mobile as Radical Social Media
In the Museum of the 21st Century
Nancy Proctor, Smithsonian Institution
28 Oct 2011

2. Are museums a fad?
Nancy Proctor, ProctorN@si.edu 2

3. What is the Museum
in this Web 2.0 world of information on demand?
3

4. The Museum
Nancy Proctor, ProctorN@si.edu 4

5. The Museum is a Social Network

6. The Museum is transforming from
Acropolis…
10/28/2011
Nancy Proctor, ProctorN@si.edu Nancy Proctor, proctorn@si.edu
6 6
http://www.trekearth.com/gallery/Europe/Greece/Attica/Attiki/Athens/photo442345.htm

7. … into Agora

8. What is mobile?

9. Mobile includes both:
 Pocketable & Portable
(phones, iPods, gaming devices) (tablets and eReaders)
 Smartphones & ‘Dumb’ phones
(apps and mobile web) (voice calls and txting)
 Podcasts & other downloadable
(video and audio) content (PDFs, eBooks)
 BYOD & mobile devices provided
(bring your own device)
on-site by SI museums
& Large-screen websites
 Mobile web sites
on mobile devices

10. In the Museum as
Distributed Network…
10

11. …at least half of the Museum’s platforms
are already mobile.
11

12. So if we want to
meet our audiences where they are
And take them some place new…

13. Mobile is a great vehicle
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ILQrUrEWe8
13

14. Mobile Metrics
New Categories:
Creating
Working
Learning
http://mashable.com/2011/03/23/mobile-by-the-numbers-
infogrpahic/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+Mashable+%28

15. Mobile is a unique mix:
of the personal
and the social

16. Mobile is Disruptive
Both
A new set of tools and
platforms for
communications, learning and
developing and distributing
content
Photo CC licensed:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jdlasica/13892
7384/

17. Mobile is Disruptive
And also:
A fundamentally
new way of
connecting, collab
orating and
learning
http://www.queerty.com/smithsonian-not-pleased-with-patrons-
bringing-aids-jesus-back-into-the-museum-on-an-ipad-20101206/

18. How does mobile
transform the museum?

19. The Multiplatform Museum
Museum

20. The Multiplatform Museum
Museum

21. More than multiplatform…

22. The Museum is a Distributed Network
Edward Hoover, 2010, from Flickr.

23. from Disruptive
to Transformative
= Strategic

24. “You don’t need a
mobile strategy;
you need mobile to be
part of the strategy.”

25. SI Mobile’s Strategy
1. Integrate mobile into everything we do to
create a whole greater than the sum of its
parts;
2. Transform the way the Institution works in
order to achieve its strategic goals and
vision for the 21st century.
Metrics of success:
Accessibility, Quality, Relevance, Sustainability
and Accountability

26. SI Mobile’s Vision
Recruit the world
to increase and diffuse knowledge
by using mobile platforms to enlist
collaborators globally in undertaking the real
and important work of the Institution.
Put the Smithsonian not just in
the people’s pockets,
but in their hands.

27. The People’s Institution
Louise Rochon Hoover, James Smithson:
"Secretary Henry Posts Daily “for the increase
Weather Map in Smithsonian and diffusion of
Building, 1858.” knowledge”
The Megatherium Club, a
group of young naturalists
who collected for the
Smithsonian in the 19th C.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki
/Megatherium_Club

28. How do we Recruit the World?

29. It’s NOT about the Technology
Fraunhofer Institute, Kunstmuseum Bonn: ‘Beat Zoderer’ exhibition (Listen project) 2003

30. Falling on deaf ears?
Nancy Proctor, ProctorN@si.edu http://picasaweb.google.com/anup.rao/HaifaAkkoIsrael#4954285426665324562
Handheld Conference 3 June 30
2009

31. Thinking outside the audiotour box
“From we do the talking to
From Headphonesyou Microphones
we help to do the talking.”
– Chris Anderson, Wired, Smithsonian 2.0 Conference, 24 Jan 2009
http://smithsonian20.si.edu/schedule_webcast2.html
10/28/2011 Nancy Proctor, proctorn@si.edu 31

32. NMNH Leafsnap
10/28/2011 Nancy Proctor, proctorn@si.edu 32

33. “6 years old & they already see the opportunities here.
Thank you for opening the door to the future!”

34. Smithsonian Mobile
10/28/2011 Nancy Proctor, proctorn@si.edu 34

35. Mobile Social Media as Art
Halsey Burgund’s Scapes
deCordova Sculpture Park & Museum
Lincoln, MA – until Nov 14
http://wiki.museummobile.info/archives/16082

37. Stories from Main Street
http://storiesfrommainstreet.org/
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38. Stories from Main Street
http://storiesfrommainstreet.org/
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39. More about Mobile
• http://si.edu/mobile
• http://smithsonian-
webstrategy.wikispaces.com/Mobile
• http://wiki.museummobile.info/
• http://tatehandheldconference.pbworks.com
#mtogo
#SImobile
• @NancyProctor, proctorn@si.edu