MuseumNext is an international conference series which challenges the sector to think about the future of museums. This year our Senior Executive Deborah Hair was in Geneva to find out what the speakers and delegates from around the world had to say.

Throughout the three day conference, key themes and challenges emerged through a range of talks, events, workshops and open stage discussions.

One key question that ran throughout the whole conference was: how can museums be social and sociable within their own environment? Discussion focused not just on visitor interaction with the objects on display but also on promoting dialogue between audiences. Case studies demonstrated how institutions can harness digital tools that foster conversation. Cooper Hewitt’s Pen was a particularly innovative piece of technology. Given at admission, the Pen enables visitors to add a digital record of objects to their personal museum collection and create their own designs on interactive tables. At the end of a visit the Pen is returned but all the objects collected or designed by the visitor are accessible online. Seb Chan (Director of Digital & Emerging Media at Cooper Hewitt) noted how the museum: “isn’t there to show off the best stuff, it’s to inspire and excite people to create their own things”. The Pen achieves this by encouraging visitors to become active participants in the museum.

Harnessing the power of storytelling was another recurring topic. The conference highlighted how important it is for museums to create and tell stories in order to develop meaningful experiences for their visitors. Many of the talks illustrated how digital technologies can be used to tell museums’ stories in an engaging way. Royal Museums Greenwich, for example, has created The Great Map as a way of involving visitors in their story. This interactive world map located at the centre of the museum allows visitors to delve deeper into collections and engage more fully with events. By using storytelling in this way museums can deliver an emotive experience.

If museums are to remain relevant for their 21st century audiences they need to be able to adapt. Much of the conversation at MuseumNext focused on best practice around this constant change, and technology was frequently at the heart of the discussion. Shelley Bernstein from the Brooklyn Museum spoke about their visitor experience initiative. The team are developing ASK, a mobile app which enables visitors to ask questions about exhibitions and get personal answers from museum employees in real time. The initiative means that staff deliver relevant and informative experiences to their audiences in a welcoming way. Not only does this app meet the needs of the Brooklyn Museum’s modern audiences but the conversational data collected can then also be used to inform future change.

Deborah’s top three takeaways from MuseumNext:
1. Storytelling can take many formats but remember it’s all about ensuring you tell the right story, at the right time, to the right audience.
2. Always keep the user at the centre of any project in order to create an effective and engaging user experience.
3. Focus on the future, in terms of sourcing funding and creating and improving the social impact in museums.