Museums & Mobile

Confirmed speakers include:

Conference Opening and Concluding Session

Loïc Tallon is Director of Pocket-Proof, an independent design agency specialised in mobile experiences for museums internationally, and is co-editor of one of the leading books in the mobile tools for museums, Digital Technologies and the Museum Experience: Handheld Guides and Other Media (Alta Mira Press, 2008). Loïc has worked on leading museum mobile projects for museums in UK, France, Abu Dhabi, Qatar and India.  And his research activities include the annual Museums & Mobile international survey that explores the objectives, challenges and future of mobile projects across the museum community.

Jonathan Finkelstein is the founder and executive producer of LearningTimes, where he produces and moderates an array of online professional development programs.  He can be heard often as the host of webinars, conference and podcasts produced in close association with organizations like the American Association of Museums (AAM), Association for State and Local History (AASLH), Center for the Future of Museums (CFM), and the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS). Jonathan authored the chapter on live online outreach in the The Digital Museum: A Think Guide, published by AAM Press. His book, Learning in Real Time (Wiley/Jossey-Bass), translates over a dozen years of experience facilitating real-time online learning into a practical resource guide for anyone doing outreach online. He has produced tens of thousands of hours of live webcasts, online conferences and 3D virtual world events, including vast numbers of programs for museum professionals. The son of two New York City public school teachers, Jonathan is a Certified Synchronous Training Professional (CSTP) and received his AB degree with honors from Harvard University.

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Project Planning & Strategy

Peter Samis is Associate Curator of Interpretative Media at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). In the early 1990s, he served as art historian/content expert for the first CD-ROM on modern art, and then spearheaded development of multimedia programs for SFMOMA’s new building. Since then, SFMOMA’s Interactive Educational Technologies (IET) programs have received awards from sources as diverse as the American Association of Museums, the National Educational Media Network, and I.D. Magazine.

Hugh Wallace is Head of Digital Media at National Museums Scotland where he has overall responsibility for their digital strategy and online presence. He has fifteen years experience of working with the Internet and new media spanning a variety of sectors, including four years with a commercial web agency. From 2003 Hugh worked for Oxfam, becoming their Head of Interactive Media in 2005, where he championed innovative approaches to online campaigning, fundraising and volunteering. He joined National Museums Scotland in 2009 and has been working on a number of initiatives including a complete website refresh, integrated social media plans and their evolving mobile strategy.

Louise Downe is a Digital Service Designer, focused on the shape of the web to come and new mobile concepts that thrive in it . She currently works for Tate where she thinks writes and practices user centred design, accessibility and all the hard fun stuff in between.

Emily Black is the Assistant Educator for Digital Media at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Missouri. There she designs resources that fulfill the digital needs and interpretative strategies for featured exhibitions and permanent collections. She led the research and development of the Nelson’s mobile interpretive strategy and Mobile Guide web-based application tour. Emily has a passion for providing unique online learning experiences that connect diverse audiences to art. She is interested in the questions and connections formed when media-rich content and art are presented to visitors both onsite and online.

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Developing Mobile Experiences & Content

Sandy Goldberg is an independent museum media writer/producer based in Cambridge, MA, USA.  She’s been producing museum and historic site mobile content for the most forward-looking museums and cultural institutions for over 15 years.  Previously Sandy was Head Writer for Antenna Audio.  She creates content across many platforms, from audio for the Metropolitan Museum of Art, to the app for the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.  She’s a collaborator with the MFA Boston as well as SFMOMA, and many other institutions in the US, UK, and Europe.  Sandy wrote the earliest temporary exhibition multimedia scripts for Tate Modern, the first of which won a MUSE award.  While she was based in the UK, she developed many of the early standards and best practices which are broadly used in mobile multimedia content training.  She was also instrumental in the early development of Antenna’s iPhone app for museum clients.  Sandy is known for helping museums create experiences in many different platforms which are surprising, rich in emotional learning, and often use a conversation-based, informal tone to encourage ‘big picture’ cross disciplinary thinking as a way into complex themes and ideas.
See www.sgscripts.net for recent projects and shout-outs.

Tom Grinsted has worked in the heritage, education and commercial sectors as a digital designer, developer and creative manager for the past 10 years. As Interactive Design Manager for the Guardian (www.guardian.co.uk) and through his own business, he has worked on numerous projects specialising in digital engagement for a varied set of clients including The London Olympic and Paralymic Games, EDF Energy, DCSF, COI, HMRC, The Carbon Trust, The Wellcome Trust and Kew Gardens. He is now Multimedia Manager for the Imperial War Museum. He is responsible for in-gallery digital media and online interactives across all the IWM’s five branches (London, H.M.S Belfast, Churchill War Rooms, IWM Duxford and IWM North). He is also responsible for the IWM’s e-publishing and apps programmes.

Daniel Davis is an AAM award-winning producer who has has worked as a media producer for the National Museum of the American Indian (NMAI) since 1997. He is the producer and creative director for the Infinity of Nations app for the iPhone, the first bilingual exhibition app produced for the Smithsonian Institution.

Chris Alexander is the Program Director for Toura where he is responsible for client relations, product development and business development. Prior to his work with Toura he was the Manager of Interactive Technology at the San Jose Museum of Art where he was instrumental in producing interpretive audio and video content and deploying it to multiple platforms including mobile devices. In 2008, he developed and deployed a first of its kind iPod Touch tour which utilized the museum’s WiFi network to deliver a multimedia tour to museum visitors. Chris is a regular speaker at conferences including Museums and the Web, American Association of Museums and the Tate Modern’s handheld conference Audiotours to iPhones. He has an MFA degree from San Jose State University and is certified in web design through UC Santa Cruz.

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Case Studies and Coffee Break

Nancy Proctor heads up mobile strategy and initiatives for the Smithsonian Institution. With a PhD in American art history and a background in filmmaking, curation and art criticism, Nancy Proctor published her first online exhibition in 1995. She co-founded TheGalleryChannel.com in 1998 with Titus Bicknell to present virtual tours of innovative exhibitions alongside comprehensive global museum and gallery listings. TheGalleryChannel was later acquired by Antenna Audio, where Nancy headed up New Product Development from 2000-2008, introducing the company’s multimedia, sign language, downloadable, podcast and cellphone tours. She also led Antenna’s sales in France from 2006-2007, and worked with the Travel Channel’s product development team. From 2008-2010 she was Head of New Media at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Nancy is program chair for the Museums Computer Network (MCN) conference and co-organizes the Tate Handheld conference and the regular DC Mobile Meet-ups for local area cultural professionals. She also manages MuseumMobile.info, its wiki and podcast series, and is Digital Editor of Curator: The Museum Journal.

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Delivering and Sustaining the Experience: The Technology & Other Issues

Steve Gemmel is the Digital Media Specialist in Collection Information & Access at the J. Paul Getty Museum. Steve manages and extends access to the Museum’s digital media content, on-site at the Getty Center and Getty Villa, online, and on mobile devices. Steve explores, evaluates, and advises on new technologies, digital initiatives, and multimedia projects. Steve plays an integral role in advancing how the Museum uses digital technology to capture, present, archive, and distribute media. In 2010, Steve led the launch of a mobile multimedia tour for the Getty Villa, developed in-house and deployed on iPods (http://bit.ly/iPodDemo). Steve came to the Getty in 2002 by way of New York City where he was a consultant for Headstrong, a global business and technology services firm.

Chris McLaren is the founder and CEO of Tristan, a leading developer of mobile multimedia solutions for museums. Chris has more than 20 years experience in software engineering, with over 10 in mobile. Previous to Tristan, Chris was the Vice President of Engineering at Magmic Games, a leading developer and publisher of mobile entertainment software. In addition to founding two other successful startup companies, Chris has held senior technical and management roles at IBM and Corel.

Agnes Stauber is currently the Media Producer at the Fowler Museum at UCLA. In this position, she is responsible for the development and production of audiovisual interpretive materials for the museum’s exhibitions and permanent collections and manages the digitization and publication of online collections. Recently, she redesigned the museum’s website using the open source content management system Drupal. Prior to the Fowler Museum, Agnes Stauber was at the J. Paul Getty Museum, held producer positions at exhibition design companies in Berlin, Germany, and served as a post-production producer for commercials and music videos. During her studies at the University of the Arts in Berlin, Germany, she researched digital storytelling and developed game-based learning experiences with the Fraunhofer Institute in Bonn, Germany.

Charlie Moad leads the application development team towards providing open-source and reusable solutions for the IMA and the cultural community as a whole. His diverse programming background has helped the IMA provide internal solutions and bypass the communications barrier often experienced with museum consultants. He has been deeply involved in the integration of the museum’s collection and digital asset management systems with other frameworks, including the IMA’s main website. Before coming to the IMA, Charlie was an Associate Developer for the Scientific Data Analysis Lab, a Pervasive Technology Lab of Indiana University. There he worked on visualization and web service applications in the bioinformatics and life sciences realm. Charlie holds a M.S in Computer Science from Indiana University.