I've just got back from the Future Trends: Innovative and Interactive Museums conference held by Heritage365 at the Wellcome Collection yesterday. Colin, Joe and I had a great day, full of insightful talks and a great selection of interesting and interested delegates.

Due to a last-minute change, I was asked to give a presentation and then participate in the end of conference panel, along with Ailsa Barry from the Natural History Museum, Dave Patten from The Science Museum and Robert Simpson from Electrosonic. You can find a copy of my presentation here: Making the most of it - pdf file (1MB).

I think a few themes emerged from the talks and panel session and I'll try and summarise them here.

Technology enables visitors

Well, duh. But after a talk from Jane Burton at Tate Media a delegate asked whether providing a PDA with built in drawing tools was fundamentally any better than visitors bringing their own paper and pen. The response from another delegate was intriguing: she would never think to take paper and pen to a gallery but when presented with them in electronic form she was delighted to start drawing what she saw. In other words, the technology provided her with a new way to interact with exhibits that she would never have considered, an experience she would otherwise never have had. And that must be a very good thing indeed.

The more of these tools we can develop for users, the wider the range of experiences we can provide. After all, The Big Experience is surely a key element of the museum visit. Visitors might not use all of these tools - they might not use any of them in a lot of cases - but if the tools are there, the potential is too.

Content is still King

Again, this sounds like a no-brainer but it's easy to get blinded by the headlights of new technology (lovely image, that) and try to build exhibits around cool gadgets. Multi-touch is a classic example of this; everyone seems to want it but no-one has yet figured out what to do with it. As the screenwriter William Goldman once said, 'the script's the thing.' Start with the idea, build from the content - then add the technology.

Our industry is full of great stories and storytellers; museums, galleries and agencies must remember to make the most of them.

Thanks to Ben Gammon for hosting the panel session - and many thanks to the lovely Dave Patten for bigging up this here blog in his fascinating presentation. Cheers!