Blog 3 - Disrupting the Museum Experience

This week’s readings about anticipating technology shifts and the consequences of failing to stay ahead during market changes are increasingly relevant in the museum field. Museums are progressively adopting cutting-edge technology to enhance the visitor experience, but museums’ multi-generational audiences have been slow to express exactly what they want/expect from museums. Meanwhile, the emerging market for museum technology and AR/VR experiences is gradually disrupting the traditional museum experience (Lines, Sydney). These technologies are disruptive, because they make existing (or sustaining) museum technology, like audio guides, look outdated, and they create the new value proposition that museums can be entertainment spaces (Christensen, Clayton M.).

A major disrupting force is the emergence of comprehensive, high-resolution online collections databases. Google’s Cultural Institute, which was created from its 2011 Art Project, is leading this movement. Their goal is to change the museum experience by giving the public free, online access to the world’s greatest museum collections. Google is also developing 360 views of museum galleries to create a more immersive, realistic experience (Lines, Sydney). It has yet to be seen how disruptive the Cultural Institute will be, because an equal competitor doesn’t exist and it’s unclear if the typical museum goer wants this service.

The fear is that online collections would decrease many individual’s need or desire to visit the art in person. Online collections are attractive, because they remove barriers to entry (e.g. admission costs, travel time, accessibility) and are an alternative for people who don’t feel comfortable visiting a museum. These projects also benefit museums by increasing the visibility and accessibility of their collections. However, museums need visitors at their physical spaces in order to serve their intended purpose of a place to experience art.  

Museums are reacting the disruption of online engagement by offering interactive experiences in the galleries. The Cleveland Museum of Art’s (CMA) Art Lens space is a leader in integrating technology into the visitor experience (“ARTLENS Gallery”). The CMA staff viewed technology as an opportunity instead of a threat. They developed Art Lens right at the start of the museum technology trend as a “spin-in” project that proceeded without full board buy-in (Chambers, John). The risk paid off, and now many museums look to Art Lens as a guide for what is possible. The challenge is that they usually don’t have the budgets or staff to recreate these experiences or develop their own. In that regard, Art Lens is also a disruptor, because it set a standard that is too high for most museums to reach and is hard to analyze without comparable competitors (Christensen, Clayton M.).

If museums want to stay ahead of technology changes, then they need to communicate more with their visitors about what they expect on-site versus online and the ease at which visitors can adopt and afford new technology (Chambers, John). Museums depend on visitors, and museum funding depends on the impact that they have on their visitors. This dependency requires museums to anticipate how their audiences are changing and invest resources to develop the future visitor experience now.

Sources:

“ARTLENS Gallery.” Cleveland Museum of Art, 5 Feb. 2019, www.clevelandart.org/artlens-gallery.

Chambers, John. "Cisco's CEO on Staying Ahead of Technology Shifts." Harvard Business Review. May 2015. Accessed April 13, 2019. https://hbr.org/2015/05/ciscos-ceo-on-staying-ahead-of-technology-shifts?autocomplete=true.

Christensen, Clayton M. "Introduction: Why Good Companies Fail to Thrive in Fast-Moving Industries." In The Innovator’s Dilemma: When New Technologies Cause Great Firms to Fail, 1-18. Boston, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 2006.

Lines, Sydney. “Google's Cultural Institute and the Disruption of the Museum Experience.” Medium, Medium, 13 Apr. 2017, medium.com/@sydney.lines/googles-cultural-institute-and-the-disruption-of-the-museum-experience-a17cdcb2e594.