There seems to be a contradiction in some of the arguments here. First there is a discussion that museums should go beyond the audio tour and be creative and do more with mobile devices, specifically use it to expand the social experience. but then there seems to be the argument inferring that smartphones – specifically the iPhone, is a minor part of a larger mobile market and we need to design for even-access to technology and make sure dumbphones, which make up the largest part of the mobile market, are included.

A museum can attempt a “one size fits all approach but I suspect it will severely tie it’s hands when it comes to solutions for the user and social experience. Taking a scavenger hunt and moving it from paper to mobile without adapting it to use the power of the technology is not much better than using mobile for audio tours. You might as well just keep the scavenger hunt on paper and the audio tours on tape recorders.

One interesting thing is that iPhones account for 50% of all mobile browser traffic for U.S. based smartphones, and 33% of global smartphone site visits. That number is being challenged by Android but still both Android and the iPhone ofter a rich user experience with an intuitive interface not to mention the legions of developers working on apps, something not available for most mobile devices.

Not only can a museum can have iTouch/iPad (or Android equivalent) devices to loan or rent out with the app preinstalled, but users with their own devices can download the app or maybe even a lite version of the app and they can play out the game by themselves or join others.

By interacting with objects and people in the exhibit through 2-D barcodes or through RFID tags you can not only find and harvest objects you could trade them with others, cash them in for points or use them to build a spaceship/train/boat at a common interactive terminal and move on to a higher goal.

The important point here is game development, particularly if you want your mobile to “go social”. I suspect that exhibit developers are great at telling stories but telling stories is a much different skill set than writing/creating games. To create a game you have to understand about game parameters such as scalability, complexity and setting as well as game archetypes such as treasure hunts, survival games and economy games. I suspect the lack of the social mobile experience at museums could reflect a lack of game development experience itself.

My sister, who also happened to be the director for the National Eagle Center, commented that you can’t buy that kind of public relations and an employee like that is the best PR and organization can have. She herself had a similar situation when in the early days of the National Eagle Center when she gave an impromptu tour to someone that showed up just as she was locking up for the day. This person was so impressed that they became not only a great volunteer for the center but also a very generous donor as well.

This brings up an issue that I have noticed with several museums. Yes, the front desk people whose jobs may be dependent on being polite and helpful are cheery but what about the rest of the staff? What about your director, your curator, your exhibit designer, your web designer and yes your maintenance staff? Chances are if it is not their job, they are not. While they may not be rude and dismissive (sadly some are) are they proactively looking to help visitors or going out of their way to be polite? Are non-customer service staff

Museums have small marketing budgets (at least most). One of the greatest marketing tools they rely on and one of the most effective is word of mouth.  One of the cheapest PR tools out there and the most effective, is good employee interactions with customers. Some of the extra good deeds I have spied at the Minnesota History Center during my time here have been an employee on their way home offering to return a borrowed wheelchair to the front desk from the parking lot; walking a visitor in the rain out to their car with an umbrella; helping carry a visitor’s tray from the cafeteria to their table; talking time to help visitors get to where they need to go; numerous people opening doors for visitors; etc…

I worked in a hospital which placed great emphasis on employee etiquette and courteousness. Good etiquette and courteousness didn’t happen there by chance, the hospital did quite a bit of employee training on the subject, if nothing else employee got it that this was considered both important by the organization and meant to be practiced by all.

So what does all this have to do with online marketing and PR? Well, in my next post I will talk about the overlooked PR potential of employee helpfulness, etiquette and courteousness in the online environment.

Not only that, but the work claiming, correctly placing and deleting duplicate or irrelivant listings in Google Maps has begun to pay off. When searching for the Minnesota History Center or the Minnesota Historical Society you are not set around the Metro area on a wild goose chase. However, as the graphic will a testify to, while owned by the Minensota Historical Society, the Forest History Center is no where near the Minnesota History Center.  Work still needs to be done on claiming and getting the listings correct for MHS’ other historic sites and museums.

Debra Askanase of the blog, Community Organizer 2.0 wrote an article on the innovative ways three arts organizations are using Flickr creatively, engaging and empowering stakeholders and doing a good job of pulling Flickr users to their organizations.

1. The Houston Ballet uses Flickr to give users a look behind the scenes in their warehouse and the creation of props. Behind the scene tours are appealing to just about anyone but they are particularly appealing to museums hardest sell, teens which are interested in knowing how things work under-the-hood.

2. The Mass Museum of Contemporary Art (MassMOCA) and The Luce Foundation Center for American Art both used crowdsourcing to engage and pull in viewers. The Mass Museum of Contemporary Art asks viewers to upload photos specific to an assigned topic. The topics usually relate to one of the exhibits happening at the time.

3. The Luce Foundation Center for American Art pulls off both crowdsourcing and is able to introduce users to it’s collection by engaging them as citizen curators to find appropriate works of art of size to fill-in-the-gaps in their display units  while matching the other artworks in theme.

MHS on Flickr

Where I work, the Minnesota Historical Society does a lot of content “push” on Flickr, adding items from its collection, event photos, historic site photos nothing (as of yet) as clever or engaging on Flickr as the previous three mentioned. It’s pull is limited to the basic making sure photos are marked up properly with titles, captions and tags.
One thing discovered while adding photos on Flickr of the historic sites we manage  was just how few good contemporary photos we actually had of the sites but not only that our customers seemed to be taking much better and more numerous photos than we could or were. Flickr seemed the perfect place to do a little simple crowdsourcing-light of our own by asking others on Flickr to add their photos they have taken of our sites to the site’s equivalent group on Flickr. With that we were able to pull in the photos to our site using a widget to give viewers a better idea of what the site looks like.

While this is a good step it is inspiring and nice to see other museums using Flickr to engage and pull viewers back to their collections and museums in creative ways.

What’s wrong with this picture?

Minnesota History Center identified as Miller Hospital on Google Maps

This is a fairly current image of the Minnesota History Center. Curious thing is that the History Center is identified as the Miller Hospital. The site was occupied by the Miller Hospital but the hospital was razed OVER 20 YEARS AGO!

Wait! It gets worse…

Minnesota History Center default location on Google Maps is way wrong!

Not only is the site identified wrong, but a search for “Minnesota History Center” in Google Maps puts the marker not even near the building let alone the location of entrance to the Minnesota History Center. In fact, the marker points to an isolated stairway leading to no where that is often used more as a public urinal. How quaint!

To be fair, the site being identified as “Miller Hospital” is less Google Maps fault than Tele Atlas which is responsible for producing the digital map. However, the location of the marker is another matter. That layer is entirely Googlemaps. It is more than likely based on where 345 W. Kellogg Blvd. would normally be. However, to quote our esteemed former Governor Jesse Ventura, Saint Paul’s streets were designed by a “bunch of drunken Irishmen” (my Grandfather being one of them). Our address, 345 W. Kellogg Blvd. doesn’t even come close to our entrance.

But wait! Web 2.0!

Googlemaps User interface showing Minnesota History Center adjustments

Fortunately you can claim your business listing (assuming it is listed in Google Maps). The Minnesota History Center did just that. In doing so not only are you able to move the marker to a more appropriate spot for your museum but you are also able add photos and videos of your organization as well as it’s hours. On top of that you can also categorize your listing and get access to stats on how often that listing is viewed. One problem is that claim is only for the search “Minnesota History Center”, do a search for “Minnesota Historical Society” and you still get sent to the stairway. However, changing just an address, example: “345 Kellogg Blvd W, St Paul, MN” is rather painless, Google Maps now does allow you to move a marker of a street address.

By claiming a business listing, you actually validate your listing by either A. having a an automated Google bot call the number on the listing and give you a pin number or B. have them mail a postcard to the address on the listing with a pin number. In both cases you then enter the pin number to claim your listing.

Still there is the small issue of being identified as “Miller Hospital”, that is a more of a problem. Unlike Google Maps, Tele Altas has no admin tool for the user which would allow us to change or remove the incorrect information. Tele Atlas can only be contacted via form and hope that they will look favorablely upon a request (they have not to this date for the Miller Hospital change) and will make the correction. Sigh…