A new paradigm has been developing over the past few years as museums are leveraging digital technologies. The digital involvement has woven itself into the very fabric of the museum experience. Brendan Ciecko, founder and CEO of Cuseum, is investigating the possibilities offered by digital tools to reveal new narratives in museum space. He shared his insights on how technologies can help museums to understand and engage with their visitors and members.      

Here are the five key takeaways from the talk:

1. Understanding total visitor experience and engagement: Recently, there has been an emphasis on total visitor experience and engagement in museum spaces. The Cuseum is attempting to comprehend all facets of visitors' journeys, including what occurs prior to, during, and after visits. They are attempting to learn more about how technology can actively contribute to adequately safeguarding these points. As the Cuseum website aptly puts it, "an engaged visitor is a happy visitor, and a happy visitor is a returning one".

2. Measurable aspects of loyalty in museum membership: Membership in museums is a very prevalent concept in America, and it is increasingly spreading to Europe and other parts of the world. They are crucial to both visitor engagement and revenue generation at museums. Whether a visitor is physically active, digitally active, or passive in both, physical and digital spaces, can be used to gauge how engaged they are with museums. The museum's digital activity can track how visitors engage with its social media pages, newsletter, and email marketing tool. Time spent by visitors in museums or at the location of the exhibition can be used to gauge their level of physical interaction in the space. Accordingly, each museum member can be rewarded individually and one can determine how to motivate them if they are acting as passive participants. 

3. Role of Augmented Reality (AR): Cuseum's Hacking the Heist, 2018 project used augmented reality to fill the stolen empty frames. By using AR, the museums were able to receive their collection digitally as if the crime had never occurred. In recent times, we have realised the role of AR in experiencing art, culture and heritage but at the same, it can also play a role in facilitating conversations about the works that are looted, stolen, decolonized, repatriated and restituted. 

4. The first step in the adoption of AR by museums: The uses for AR in a museum setting are virtually endless. The stage we are in calls for a sizable sum of capital, as well as time to embrace it. Researching the issue that the museums are trying to address and determining whether augmented reality is the best tool for the job is the largest hurdle at hand—not the technology. The first thing that museums need to do is identify the appropriate resources for the piece of art and culture that they are attempting to bring to life and tell stories about.

5. Mobile technology in museums: Today’s world has been using mobile technology to socialise, communicate and see the world. It has escalated since the pandemic, and even the elderly have grown acclimated to mobile technology. In the museum setting, the mobile phone has developed into a potent immersive device. They can help us navigate in a museum without putting much effort. It is interesting to remark on how this makes the museum space accessible and inclusive by enabling us to overlay the real world with varied layers of knowledge from across the globe.

In the field of museums, we are still at an early stage of our digital discovery journey. There is absolutely no doubt that rapidly evolving digital technologies have integrated into the presence of museums today and crafted new experiences for the audience, making content more accessible, and starting new conversations about archival, education and so on. In the coming years, it will lead to advances that will shape the future of the museum sector.