Alex Benay, President and CEO Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation MuseumNext NYC 2016

1. ALEX BENAY Canada Science and Technology Museums Corporation

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

5. WHAT HAPPENED
Museum of Science and Technology closes due to mould

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

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

15. WITHOUT A BOX
— YOU DON’T THINK OUTSIDE OF ONE
You survive in a world drastically different
than what you once knew

17. DIGITAL IMPACTS

18. DIGITAL DISRUPTIONS

19. Pace of change impossible to keep up with
— we have lost that battle

20. TODAY’S VISITORS ARE
DIGITAL CITIZENS

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

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

26. Magic
Carpet
(2014)
by
ar4st
Candy
Coated.
Photo
Constance
Mensh
©
2014
for
the
Associa4on
for
Public
Art.

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

28. RESULTS

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

30. VIRTUAL REALITY

32. DOCUMENTARIES Persistence of Science — 3rd party produced

33. NEW RESEARCH
Ottoman collection
Open by Default — world’s first graduate
level course at Ottawa U

34. NEW PARTNERSHIPS

35. NEW PARTNERSHIPS

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

38. CONCLUSION
WE ARE OUT OF THE BOX — NO ONE
WILL EVER PUT US BACK IN!

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

40. Alex Benay
President and CEO
abenay@techno-science.ca
techno-science.ca
THANK YOU