To Build or to Buy In-gallery Interactives

Demonstration
Samantha Diamond, CultureConnect, USA, Heather Marie Wells, Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, USA

As museums grow their digital interpretation offering in-gallery and look for flexibility and return on investment, the question looms larger whether your museum should build solutions in-house or with outside resources – either off-the-shelf products or custom solutions.

Heather-Marie Wells, Digital Media Project Manager at the Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art and Samantha Diamond, CEO of CultureConnect will debate the trade-offs, lessons learned and best practices. They will present both a framework for analyzing these trade-offs that attendees can use in their own decision making as well as example projects to illustrate.

Heather-Marie has not only managed ‘buy’ projects with outside vendors, but also helped lead Crystal Bridges’ in-house development of tablet interactives. Providing the outside resource perspective, Samantha Diamond has worked with museums of all sizes and at different stages in their digital strategy on implementing in-gallery interactives. In addition to the software and project management of such projects, CultureConnect has conducted many audience research and user testing studies on in-gallery digital experiences.  

Join us for insights on funding, device management, content creation, programming, and evaluation. This session is perfect for museums looking to grow their digital interpretation program in the gallery and considering the trade-offs and return on investment for either approach.