Museum Next

Colleen Dilenschneider

Chief Market Engagement Officer/IMPACTS Research & Development

Colleen Dilenschneider is the Chief Market Engagement Officer for IMPACTS, a global leader in the development of predictive intelligence and related technologies. Widely regarded as a next generation museum thought leader, Colleen is an authority on the evolution of innovative engagement practices with a unique expertise in digital marketing and Millennial audiences. Utilizing data to identify emerging market opportunities, Colleen helps “future-proof” visitor-serving organizations by building affinity with their onsite and virtual audiences.

Colleen publishes the popular website “Know Your Own Bone” (www.colleendilen.com), a resource for creative engagement for cultural organizations that is required reading for numerous museum studies programs and professional conferences. In addition, Colleen has authored numerous articles in both the museum and general market media, and is a frequent contributor to prominent webinars and conferences.

Colleen is a graduate of The University of Chicago where she was awarded the Jeff Metcalf Fellowship, and earned her master’s degree from University of Southern California.

Twitter: @cdilly

Jessica Taylor

Global Head of Digital Media/Antenna International

Jessica Taylor runs the Digital Media department at Antenna International, setting overall creative direction for Antenna and managing the team responsible for creating innovative mobile experiences for all of Antenna’s clients globally. Jessica joined Antenna in 2011, leading creative work for clients in the UK, such as the National Gallery, Tate, English Heritage, Historic Scotland and the National Trust before moving to a central role later that year.

Jessica has recently launched Antenna Lab, described as ‘Antenna International’s digital think tank: a hub for exchanging ideas and trend spotting in the cultural sector’. Drawing on original research and embracing rapid prototyping, digital innovation and emerging platforms, the Lab delivers consultancy and training products as well as showcasing leading-edge pilot projects and the latest digital innovations.

Prior to joining Antenna, Jessica led major digital projects for clients in the public sector, including the Department for Education, Department of Health and the BBC. Jessica has also enjoyed an extremely successful career as a Television Producer/Director, making films about the arts, history and science for international broadcasters such as the BBC, Discovery Networks, History Channel, Channel 4 and PBS. Jessica holds a MA(Hons) degree in Classics and Philosophy from Oxford University and is based in London.

Dana Mitroff Silvers

Digital Strategy Consultant and Design Thinking Facilitator/Design Thinking for Museums

Marco Mason

Design Researcher/Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Leicester

Marco specialises in design research for digital media. Since 2003, he has carried on different design research and teaching activities in the field of digital media design for heritage.

With a PhD in Design, Marco is a Marie Curie fellow (EC-FP7) carrying on research that aims to investigate design theory and practices of digital media for museums. The objective is to investigate the phenomenon of digital media design in the museum context by analyzing and interpreting existing design practices. The three-year design research project is conjunctly conducted with the programme in Science, Technology and Society at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the School of Museum Studies at the University of Leicester UK.

Marco obtained his Masters degree in Architecture at Iuav University of Venice, Italy. At the Faculty of Architecture he conducted research and teaching activities before moving to the Faculty of Design and Arts where he obtained his doctoral degree in Design Sciences in 2012. His doctoral research investigated User Experience and Interaction Design for mobile digital media for heritage. As a member of the Museology of Design research unit he was involved in the organisation and design of exhibitions such as MADE IN IUAV 2001/08, Biennale pavilion at 11^th International Architecture Exhibition.

Twitter: @marcomason

Koven J. Smith

Principal/Kinetic Museums

Koven J. Smith is principal at Kinetic Museums, which provides consulting services for the museum sector. Koven has over a decade of experience fostering innovation in museums in various roles at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Denver Art Museum, and the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Koven is also the founder of Drinking About Museums, an international community of museum meetups, now with over 40 chapters worldwide. When not doing the museum thing, Koven writes music for dance companies and documentary films.

Sam Billington

Global Interactive Design Manager/Antenna International

Sam is Global Interactive Design Manager at Antenna International and is responsible for the company’s global digital Interactive/Sound Design output. He’s worked on content based and technical projects for a diverse range of cultural client’s from Tate to the Louvre and more commercial entities such as NASA. Sam is part of the Antenna Lab Team and also works on R&D projects including a recent Nesta funded project launching this year, showcasing different digital story telling and mobile delivery technologies . Prior to his roles at Antenna Sam worked for more main stream media outlets and was also co-founder of an independent record label.

Gretchen Scott

Building Project Digital Marketing Manager/Museum of Modern Art

Gretchen Scott has over a decade of traditional and digital marketing experience, primarily in the art sector. In her current role at the Museum of Modern Art, Gretchen manages digital marketing for the museum’s building expansion project and contributes to overall social strategy.

Prior to joining MoMA, Gretchen was Marketing Manager at the Whitney Museum of American Art, launching the institution’s social accounts and growing them to a combined audience of over half a million followers. Most recently as Director of Exhibition A, Gretchen ran the operations of a luxury art print company, from marketing strategy to product development.

Her best-performing social media post is a photo of a pizza shaped like a cat, which has received over 11,000 notes on her personal Tumblr.

Twitter: @gretchen_scott

Jason Minyo

Group Creative Director/POSSIBLE

Jason Minyo is a creative director, designer and entrepreneur working in the arts, culture, and advertising industries for the past 15 years. His creative industry experience includes advertising and communications firms in London, Milan, and New York, as well as serving as founder for Country Club, an art gallery and collaboration space in Chicago, and I Heart Thorsday, a social(izing) network for creatives in New York and Chicago. He has worked on a broad spectrum of brands including: Nike, Chipotle, TOMS, Kellogg’s, Starbucks, Hugo Boss, Bombardier, Nintendo, Bacardi, Ford and Panasonic.

Andrew Nugée

Founder & Chief Executive/imagineear

Andrew takes lead responsibility for the overall direction of imagineear. Until 2007 he successfully led a major international audio tour company, working with a very diverse range of cultural sector clients, from NY’s Metropolitan Museum to the National Palace Museum in Taipei.

Prior to this, Andrew had leadership roles for many years in media, including at the Economist, the Financial Times and United News and Media. He has an MA from Oxford University and an MBA from Insead in France.

Irene Haan

Head of Digital Presentation/EYE Filmmuseum

Irene Haan works at EYE Filmmuseum in Amsterdam as Head of Digital Presentation. She is working daily on showcasing digital film collections, both onsite and online. She is project manager of the permanent interactive exhibition in EYE, presenting the film collection and various installations centered around film technique and film history. Recently she launched a new video tour for children, containing famous film clips from EYE’s collection.

Carlotta Margarone

Web Content Manager/Palazzo Madama

Carlotta Margarone is the web content manager at Palazzo Madama, the most important civic art museum in Turin.
She is passionate about all the museum activities with a particular focus on all the online and offline digital strategy: she is in fact the head of the web and social media department, responsible for the official website, www.palazzomadamatorino.it , and all social media activities.

She is also involved into the catalogue digitalization project.

After achieving her Art History Master degree, she immediately began at Palazzo Madama: in over 12 years of experience there, she touched many aspects of Museum Life: the collection management as assistant curator, the exhibition issues as co-curator, the digitalization project for the museum catalogue and all aspects related to educational department since 2006.

She dedicates herself to lifelong learning projects and community building strategies, audience development and visitor studies. More recently she was in the team who completed a successful crowdfunding process, that was able to bring a new valuable piece to the Museum Collection.

Her new challenge is to create an OpenData platform for the museum.

Twitter: @Carlotta_Ma

Anna Mikhailova

Social Media Consultant & PhD Student/State Historical Museum (Moscow) & University of Leicester

Anna Mikhailova is a social media consultant at the State Historical Museum in Moscow which owns collections dedicated to Russian history. She joined the team in April 2013 and since then has been key in developing a number of social media projects.

With an MA in Digital Heritage, Anna is interested in Twitter projects within the Russian museum sector. She enjoys networking and collaboration, organising events such as the #drinkingaboutmuseums events in her native Russia. She is also very interested in the history of museum computing.

Anna is currently working on a PhD thesis at the School of Museum Studies, Leicester University, and her research topic is the evolution of museum space and architecture in Russia in the XXth century. She also runs the project ‘Ideas for Museums: a Biography of Museum Computing’.

William Trossell

Founder & Director/ScanLAB Projects

Rui Guerra

Co-Founder/INTK

Rui Guerra is the co-founder of INTK, a creative studio specialised in developing online strategies for cultural organisations.

An online strategy may encompass the definition of clear goals and target audiences, a content strategy, a social media strategy and periodic evaluation reports. Taking into account the goals of each organisation, INTK develops websites, mobile applications, online archives, web-shops and other online services based on open source software.

INTK is responsible for developing and maintaining www.museum-analytics.org, an online platform that delivers free social media reports for more than 3,000 museums worldwide. INTK collaborates on a regular basis with several cultural organisations including Naturalis Biodiversty Center (NL), Arnolfini, Centre for Contemporary Arts (UK) and Museo Nacional Del Prado (Spain).

INTK has been nominated and won several awards including ‘People’s Choice’ and ‘Museum Professional’ award at the conference Museums and the Web (2012), Best website of Asturias (2011), first prize Art 2.0: the art of exhibiting art online (2010) and a nomination for the Transmediale Award (2010).

Rui presents regularly at international conferences, most recently at Culture 2.0 (Warsaw, Poland), ARCO Fair (Madrid, Spain), Museums and the Web (San Diego, USA), Digital Strategies for Cultural Heritage (Rotterdam, the Netherlands), Public Interfaces (Aarhus. Denmark) and the Association of Art Museum Curators’s conference (New York, USA).

 

Twitter: @RuiBeep

Sunhyuck Kim

Co-Founder & Managing Director/URBANPLAY

Sunhyuck Kim is the managing director of URBANPLAY. URBANPLAY positions itself as a story experience company in Korea working on several projects such as museum media installation and a community museum archive. Its projects range widely from research projects to design & development projects.

“See the Untold Stories in our Society” is URBANPLAY’s mission statement. Stories do not just lie in museum artefact, but also within people’s memories in the community and surrounding urban areas.

Sunhyuck Kim has a BBA from Korea University and an MS from KAIST (Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology), majoring in culture & museum. He now studies Social Entrepreneurship at KAIST Business School. He believes that museums should act as a catalyst for innovation in our community and society, and that the stories in our memories are one of the most important tools.

 

Mikolai Napieralski

Head of Marketing and Public Relations/Orientalist Museum, Doha (Qatar Museums Authority)

Mikolai Napieralski is the head of marketing and public relations for the Orientalist Museum (Qatar Museums Authority).

Originally from Australia, he has been based in the Gulf for the past two years, working on a variety of local and international projects including exhibitions on Damien Hirst and Takashi Murakami.

He has over a decade of experience in events, media, and marketing, has edited several national magazines, founded a publishing company, and has had his work appear in magazines from Rolling Stone to Vice.

Ana Luisa Basso

Founder/Unique Visitors

With a degree in Communication and Cultural Management, Ana Luisa Basso is responsible for Mamoulian: digital solutions for cultural initiatives where she participates in projects such as Super 8 Complex, a Super 8 open database and social network, and Apropa Cultura, the social programme of theatres, concert halls and festivals in Catalonia, Spain.

Ana is the cofounder of Unique Visitors, a digital tool that promotes social participation while engaging visitors to create and share content for visiting museums. She is passionate about new media initiatives that enable empowerment through social participation: crowdsourcing, crowdfunding, prosumers and social consumerism.

 

Twitter: @AnaLuCB

Samir Bhowmik

Museum Researcher & Sustainable Design Architect /Media Lab Helsinki, Aalto University

Samir Bhowmik is a Museum Researcher & Sustainable Design Architect at the Media Lab (Systems of Representation) of the Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture in Helsinki. He works with museums, local communities and emerging technology to co-design participatory projects.

Samir is currently involved in building an Open Access digital archive for the Gallen-Kallela Museum in Finland. This is community-participated and incorporates a collaborative project with Project Gado / Johns Hopkins University for developing an open source autonomous scanning robot for digitizing cultural heritage. This project also extends to monitoring and developing energy-efficient practices for small local museums with limited staff and budget.

Samir has a Master of Architecture from the University of Maryland and is a NCARB licensed architect. He has worked previously at various architectural and planning studios in Washington DC and New York. His Doctor of Arts studies at Aalto University looks at building a sustainable framework for museums and their communities.

Holly Hasted

Founder & Director/Collective Experiences

Holly Hasted is the founding director of Collective Experiences, an organisation aimed at helping cultural attractions achieve exceptional visitor experiences by emphasising our need for human connection.

Holly is passionate about developing tools that enable cultural enterprises to build organisational capacity, communicate clearly and engage diverse audiences in a meaningful, authentic way.

Prior to founding Collective Experiences, Holly served as international projects & evaluation coordinator at FRida & freD Children’s Museum, Graz, where highlights included managing travelling exhibitions to Slovenia, Czech Republic, Romania and South Africa. Holly has written the business plan for the renovation and re-positioning of a leading family attraction in Graz, served as museum consultant for the City of Spielberg and worked in New Media at the National Gallery, London.

Holly holds an MBA from the Vienna University of Economics and Business, a masters in museum studies from the University of Leicester, and a bachelor in international relations from the University of Toronto.

Holly is currently based in Tromsø, Norway making Collective Experiences the most northern cultural consultancy in the world!

 

Twitter: @HollyAHasted

 

Ferry Piekart

Independent Consultant/Twnkls

Ferry Piekart (1974) studied Journalism and Cultural Anthropology, and then went on to become an expert in storytelling. Ferry has been working for museums, television companies and (educational) publishers. At the Netherlands Architecture Institute, he developed the app ‘UAR’ (Urban Augmented Reality). In 2010, UAR was the first mobile application to use 3D models on a large scale, within the Layar engine. The app showed a collection of non-existing buildings from the past and the future, within the city, on the exact place they were designed for. Ferry initiated the project, and was focussed on ways to integrate AR in storytelling, in order to make the technology relevant for users.

In 2012, Ferry was a keynote speaker at MuseumNext in Barcelona, speaking about ways to make AR a relevant technology instead of a trendy gimmick. Currently, Ferry works with the AR company Twnkls on several augmented reality projects, ‘Museum op de Markt’ being one of them. He is also working on a new type of audio tours for Dutch modern art museums like De Kunsthal and Van Abbe Museum.

Cybelle Jones

Principal & Studio Director/Gallagher & Associates

Muna Faisal Algurg

Project Specialist /Dubai Culture & Arts Authority

Muna Faisal Al Gurg (1987) studied Visual Arts at Zayed University, Dubai. She went on to receive a M.A. in History of Art and Museum Studies from the Paris-Sorbonne University in Abu Dhabi. Muna joined the Dubai Culture & Arts Authority in 2012, where she manages the private Art collection of H.H. Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al Maktoum, UAE Vice President, Prime Minister and Ruler of Dubai. She also leads the Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Patrons of the Arts Awards.

Being part of the team that is currently working on developing and building the Al Maktoum Hospital Museum, Muna has worked closely in crowdsourcing the museums content. Coming from a society rich in oral history, she truly believes in the significance of preserving and portraying the local population’s memories and related stories of the development of the United Arab Emirates.

 

Mike Ellis

Director/Thirty8 Digital

Mike has been working with and around museums for roughly 15 years. He is now co-director of Thirty8 Digital, a consultancy which focuses on delivering innovative yet robust digital solutions and strategies to museums, galleries, HE and others.

From 2007-2011, Mike was Digital Strategist within the Research and Innovation Group at Eduserv where he advised on innovative technologies for non-profits.

Prior to this (from 2000-2007), Mike was Head of Web at NMSI. During this time he managed a huge range of large-scale online projects including makingthemodernworld.org.uk, ingenious.org.uk, danacentre.org.uk and three re-developments of sciencemuseum.org.uk. He also grew the digital team from 1 to 10 people, and increased the presence and digital budget tenfold.

Mike has delivered many talks and workshops to groups as diverse as MuseumNext, MCG, Kom Je Ook, Online Information, DISH, MCG and Museums and the Web. His online talks [http://www.slideshare.net/dmje/presentations] have received in excess of 125,000 views.

Mike was on the committee of the Museums Computer Group from 2009-2011, is Associate Tutor on the Digital Heritage MA course at University of Leicester and is author of the widely-acclaimed “Managing and Growing a Cultural Heritage Web Presence”, a guide to strategic growth for those working in the digital heritage sector.

Adam Clarke

Freelance/The Common People

Adam is a freelance artist with over 20 years experience of engaging people in creative practice. His approach incorporates traditional techniques alongside digital technologies, including games based learning. A forefront creator within the online Minecraft community, he has instigated numerous groundbreaking Minecraft projects and is widely involved in the use of Minecraft within cultural, heritage and educational settings. In 2012, he was amongst the winners of the Geovation Award“GeoCraft” for an ambitious environmental project using Minecraft, and worked with archeologists and curators on the Tullie House Museums At Night project, to create an interactive event based around his online Minecraft map of Hadrian’s Wall. His popular Game School YouTube Channel programme “101 Ideas for Minecraft Learners” is featured on the CodeCampus KS3 Computing Resource website. He enjoys the process of creative collaboration and encourages the international exchange of ideas and expertise to realise innovative projects.

He works widely across the UK and co-runs The Invisible Orchard, a family based arts studio and digital atelier in rural Cumbria, offering events and courses including Minecraft and coding. The focus of the studio, and of Adam’s work in general, is to engage people of all ages in creative collaboration, where ideas and art arise from playing, creating and discovering together.

Jolein van Kregten

Curator of Education/Van Gogh Museum

Being Curator of Education for the Van Gogh Museum means Jolein van Kregten serves a public numbering millions, on site (in the museum) and online (worldwide). She is always on the look-out for new ways to tell stories about art and inspire her audience. In her opinion the best modes of communicating and explaining art are tailor made. Often the combination of the ‘analogue’ and digital media provides the best way to explain what we know about art. This goes especially for the results of complex materials research on Van Gogh’s paintings. Jolein made the blog Bedroom Secrets about the restauration of Van Gogh’s masterpiece, and the app for tablet Touch Van Gogh which was published in the app stores in October 2013. She has a degree in Art History from Utrecht University.

Kevin Bacon

Digital Development Officer/Royal Pavilion and Museums

Kevin Bacon is Digital Development Officer for the Royal Pavilion and Museums in Brighton & Hove. Kevin has worked for the museum since 2003, and held a variety of roles, including that of its first Curator of Photographs. In this capacity, he produced several exhibitions, including the permanent India Hospital gallery in the Royal Pavilion.

Since 2011, Kevin has been responsible for the strategic development of the Royal Pavilion and Museums’ digital presence, ranging from its social media use to its online collections. Much of this work has been focused on how to bring community voices into the museums’ digital activity.

Kevin holds Master’s degrees in Political Philosophy and Digital Media. He still often writes and speaks about the history of Brighton. He also occasionally posts his thoughts on museums and digital activity on his personal blog: fauxtoegrafik.wordpress.com.

Twitter: @fauxtoegrafik

Luca Melchionna

Web Manager & Social Media Manager/MART

Luca is a journalist and has been working at the press office of the Mart, the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art of Trento and Rovereto, in northern Italy since 2003. Luca is the webmaster (www.mart.tn.it) and social media manager of the Mart. In the last couple of years he has built a team of colleagues from all departments of the museum that develops and manages web-based projects. They are trying to engage visitors, art professionals, local enterprises and communities, and they are trying to improve the museum overall ability to listen to audiences and to respond to their enthusiasm and desires. The Mart web team has adopted a low-tech high-inclusiveness approach which focuses on individual responsibility and sustainability, and adopts old and new technologies to make content accessible and useful.

Luca enjoys the pleasure of finding things out by means of contrasts, and for this reason is trying to bring to the museum all sorts of people who are normally found outside of it – at least in Italy. His latest project are a volunteer-led series of kids’ coder labs (www.mart.tn.it/coderdojo) and a residency for Wikipedian nerds. Luca’s motto is “If I can’t draw monsters during meetings I don’t want to be part of this project”.

Mar Dixon

Social Media and Audience Development Consultant/mardixon.com

Mar Dixon is a social media and audience development consultant in the cultural and creative fields.

She is the founder of @CultureThemes, @TeensinMuseums, @MuseomixUK and co-founder of @MuseumCamp. You can usually find her on Twitter or a Train.

Hannah Fox

Project Manager/Derby's Silk Mill

Hannah Fox is the project manager for Derby’s Silk Mill – site of the world’s first factory. For the past 10 years Hannah has worked in the creative industries building a reputation for running creative projects from brand development, design, education projects, and large scale community engagement initiatives. Prior to this Hannah worked as a designer for an advertising agency, working as a team member on award-winning national campaigns.

Hannah has led the development of the co-production approach for Derby Museums, with the ‘Re:Make the Museum’ programme enabling citizen makers and curators to get hands-on in actually designing and manufacturing the fit-out for the ground floor of the Silk Mill.

This creative and experimental project is helping shape the way forwards for Derby Museums, while gaining interest from other UK and international museums. Hannah is passionate about the proposition that ‘with the right story, the right environment and the right skills – there is the potential to unlock the maker in us all’. Using traditional and cutting-edge technologies - the overriding principle of the Re:Make project is to see how this approach can reconnect us with the mindset that ‘anything is possible’, encouraging a sense of learning and wellbeing as communities – particularly young people – work together on something so significant.

Hannah has also had several photography residencies and is a fellow of the RSA.

Tijana Tasich

Digital Production Lead/Tate

Tijana Tasich works as Digital Production Lead at Tate, UK, where she strategically oversees and manages the production and design development and delivery of Tate’s digital content across a variety of digital platforms.

Most recently, Tijana has been playing a pivotal role in the digital transformation project at Tate where she is currently designing and implementing new digital production processes and procedures at Tate.

In her previous role as the Senior Digital Producer at Tate, she successfully led and managed the Tate’s website relaunch in 2012, acting as the principal information architect for the website and the project lead. In her role as the senior digital producer, she also pioneered a more mature management and usage of digital analytics in decision making at Tate and her efforts resulted in the creation of the first digital analyst’s post at Tate. She has presented at many international conferences, including Museums and the Web, MuseumNext, CultureGeek and the MCN.

Twitter: @teengily

Martin Gebhardt

History Communication Manager /adidas AG

Martin Gebhardt is responsible for all internal and external communication for the History Management Team at adidas’ headquarters in Herzogenaurach, Germany. This involves curating and communicating the internal brand exhibition Walk of Fame and the online adidasArchive. His responsibilities lie in communicating the department’s various tools and projects in presentations, guided tours, workshops and network meetings and in facilitating how historical content can be used for varied purposes. Martin has been developing the team’s communication strategy and has been leading on content research, object acquisition and internal marketing since 2012.

A qualified teacher, Martin did his PHD on museums in the 21^st century in 2011, focusing on events, learning and communication. In a practical part he analyzed British and German museum websites and their corresponding Facebook pages, understanding how museums communicate with their audiences. Since the early 2000s, he has been actively involved in museum learning, new media usage and museum as public places, having worked in several museums, museum associations and museum projects.

Hugh Wallace

Head of Digital Media/National Museums Scotland

Hugh Wallace is Head of Digital Media for National Museums Scotland and has overall responsibility for their digital strategy, online presence, social media activity and mobile development.

With over fifteen years’ experience of working with the Internet and new media his work spans a number of sectors, including four years with a commercial web agency.

From 2003 Hugh worked for Oxfam as their Head of Interactive Media, developing their online strategy and championing innovative approaches to online campaigning, fundraising and volunteering through community-building, blogging and use of social networks.

Beck Tench

Director for Innovation and Digital Engagement/Museum of Life and Science

Beck Tench is a simplifier, illustrator, story teller and technologist. She was formally trained as a designer and journalist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s School of Journalism and Mass Communication and has spent her career since helping people in organizations of all types to embrace risk-taking, creativity, and change. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, National Public Radio, Scientific American, Quantified Self, Independent Weekly and several books and blogs. She is the creator of Experimonth, a change-making platform that encourages participants to try something new and be honest with each other about what happens.

Chris How

Head of User Experience/Cogapp

Chris works on designing, developing and implementing user-centred navigational approaches and information architecture. He conducts detailed information architecture work such as content auditing and development of metadata frameworks. In support of this work he also runs user research and usability evaluations. He has recently worked on projects for The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Social Care Institute for Excellence (SCIE) implementing user research, usability testing, wire framing and information architecture.

Having graduated from Bournemouth University with a degree in Communication and Media Production Chris started his career as a filmmaker. As a producer and director he won awards at the US International Film Festival for multimedia projects for British Gymnastics and Battersea Dogs’ Home, and has produced promotional films for the Guardian and BBC Worldwide.

Chris is a certified PRINCE2 project manager and a member of the Information Architecture Institute, the UPXA (The User Experience Professionals’ Association) and IA London. He was an invited speaker at the 2011 Usability Professionals’ Association International Conference in Atlanta on ‘Getting more effective answers from user research‘.

Linda Spurdle

Digital Development Manager/Birmingham Museums

Linda Spurdle leads on digital strategy and public-facing digital developments at Birmingham Museums Trust, including web, social media and mobile. She has worked in digital roles for museums since 1997, leading on digitisation projects at East Riding of Yorkshire Museums and Tyne & Wear Museums. She is the co-founder of @museumcamp with Mar Dixon.

Twitter: @lspurdle

Sébastien Cursan

Head of Digital Solutions/Cap Sciences

Sebastien Cursan is from a scientific background and is in charge of digital solutions at Cap Sciences. He worked on the implementation of digital interfaces for the museum’s exhibitions and manages the relationship between the centre and its visitors with both a continuous web and physical presence. He is also responsible for the training of facilitators and the definition of animation scenarios.

Marty Hayes

Digital Director/Venture Stream

Marty Hayes heads up all things digital at, Newcastle-based e-commerce and digital marketing consultancy, Venture Stream. Venture Stream provides a full spectrum of ecommerce and digital marketing and management services; with a focus on achieving significant growth and ROI for its clients.

With expertise in search engine optimisation, strategy, conversion rate optimisation, copywriting and analytics, gained via experience with retailers, brands and agencies, Marty helps to ensure that Venture Stream stays at the cutting edge of emerging digital marketing trends and practices and is responsible for increasing clients’ visibility via digital marketing, resulting in increased traffic, leads, conversions and brand awareness. He is passionate about the opportunity that holistic, effective and strategic search marketing has to offer organisations. Marty is less passionate about talking about himself in the third person.

Twitter: @MartyHayes

Kathy Fredrickson

Director of Exhibition Research and Publishing/Peabody Essex Museum

Kathy Fredrickson is director of exhibition research and publishing at the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem, Massachusetts. She leads a team of exhibition research curators in support of exhibitions and oversees the museum’s publishing program. Fredrickson’s primary responsibility is to develop and sustain new models for idea generation and design thinking in support of the museum’s mission to create transformative experiences.

Formerly a partner at Studio Blue, a Chicago-based design firm, Fredrickson led strategic planning, research, creative direction, and design for publications, interactive media, and brand identity. Clients included the Winterthur Museum, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the National Gallery of Art, and the Art Institute of Chicago. She lectured at schools including Yale University, the University of Kansas, and The School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Fredrickson holds a BA in English from Middlebury College and an MA in arts administration from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

Carolyn Royston

Head of Digital Transformation/Historic Royal Palaces

Carolyn Royston has very recently joined Historic Royal Palaces in a new role as Head of Digital Transformation. My responsibilities include giving visible, credible leadership to an ambitious and wide-ranging 5 year programme of digital change; be the key decision-maker and accountable person for the delivery of the Digital Programme; transform customer, partner, staff and stakeholder experience of HRP through a platform of digital technology.

Previously, she was Head of Digital Media at Imperial War Museums, responsible for the strategic development of digital media across the museum and the management and delivery of all public facing digital outputs across the organisation including online, mobile, in-gallery interactive media, eCommerce platforms and social media.

Carolyn’s experience spans both public and private sectors and my areas of speciality include: creating and implementing digital strategies, leading digital transformation programmes, building departments and project teams, managing high-profile and complex multi-stakeholder projects and growing new and existing revenue streams.

She is a Board director for the Museum Computer Network (USA) and on the Program Committee for Museums and the Web (USA). She also speaks regularly at conferences, and facilitate and lead professional development workshops.

Prior to joining IWM, Carolyn was Project Director of the National Museums Online Learning Project responsible for coordinating and managing the needs of nine national museums and galleries to create an ambitious programme of e-Learning resources and a cross-collection search linking the nine museums together for the first time.

Previously, she was Head of e-Learning at Atticmedia, a top 25 UK digital agency where she built up their e-Learning portfolio in the cultural and education sectors.

Carolyn lived in the USA for over ten years and attended both high school and university there. She is also a qualified teacher.

Ngaire Blankenberg

Principal Consultant/Lord Cultural Resources

Ngaire Blankenberg is a Principal Consultant with museum planning firm, Lord Cultural Resources. With a background as a documentary-maker and television producer, she brings strong skills in story-telling, public engagement and communication to the world of museums, cultural planning and cultural tourism. She is particularly focused on helping museums inspire all people- rich and poor, black and white, young and old, in the north and south through innovative and accessible programmes and operations that are not afraid to change the world.

Ngaire has developed exhibitions, mobile and web programmes, educational programmes, public engagement campaigns, master plans and tourism strategies for a range of diverse projects. Current and recent clients include the David Livingstone Centre (Scotland); the Parlamentarium Visitor Centre for the European Parliament (Belgium); the National Museum of African American Heritage and Culture (Smithsonian) (USA); the King Abdulaziz Centre for World Culture (Saudi Arabia); Te Papa National Museum of New Zealand, (New Zealand); Museum of AIDS in Africa (South Africa); Greenhouse Project WTown (China); Canadian Museum of Civilization and the Canadian Museum for Human Rights (Canada) and the Al Maktoum Hospital Museum (UAE)- which she will be discussing at the MuseumNext 2014 conference.

Ngaire grew up in Winnipeg, Harare and Christchurch, and has lived and worked in Johannesburg, Toronto, Paris and Barcelona where she currently lives. She is a versatile and creative thinker who draws on her vast international experience for all her projects, enriching each one with new ideas and best practices from multiple disciplines, genres, countries, regions and languages.

Jackie Antig

Independent Product Consultant/Ian Potter Museum of Art, University of Melbourne

With a past richly devoted to museums (exhibition installation, print collection inventory management, museum education, economics of museums research), and a lucky side-step into the technology startup sector (data, business analysis, product development, product management, design, branding, digital marketing), Jackie Antig has been intrigued by the untapped possibilities of applying technology to art and museums.

Whilst at the Ian Potter Museum of Art at the University of Melbourne in Australia, she led the concept development and design direction of the institution’s first location-aware pilot mobile app, Float, with an interdisciplinary team of curators, technology researchers and students.

She is endlessly brainstorming and prototyping ways for technology to create new experiences across industries and loves helping people and businesses grow their own ideas into tangible and actionable products and services. Jackie holds an MBA from the Mills College Lorry I. Lokey Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics and Art at Mills College. She’s been a Public Relations and Marketing Manager at a historic site in California and a Multicultural Undergraduate Intern in Museum Education at the J. Paul Getty Museum.

Shelley Mannion

Senior Content Producer/British Museum

Shelley Mannion is Senior Content Producer at the British Museum. She manages digital interpretation projects across audiences and platforms including web and mobile. Previously, she managed the museum’s Samsung Digital Discovery Centre for young audiences, which pioneered the use of mobile learning and Augmented Reality. Before joining the British Museum, Shelley led a grant-funded research project into social media and community engagement for the Rubin Museum of Art. She was among the first graduates of the TEC-CH program in technology and communication for cultural institutions at the University of Lugano in Switzerland and served as a teaching assistant on courses taught by respected museum professionals from around the world. Shelley also has a degree in Art History with a specialism in Buddhist art. She has worked as a web designer, software developer, multimedia producer and project manager in 11 countries.

Andrew Lewis

Digital Content Delivery Manager/Victoria and Albert Museum

Andrew Lewis is Digital Content Delivery Manager at the Victoria and Albert Museum, London. He is responsible for public-facing digital content platforms and channels for the V&A, including web and mobile. He leads on research, strategy and the roadmap for change of public-facing digital media delivery and manages the web development team.

Andrew is qualified in Cybernetics and Information and Library Science and is active in the UK and International Museum digital communities. He has been responsible for developing and delivering new public-facing technology services in libraries and museums since 2001, including a range of self-service technologies, electronic information access, public computers, website redevelopment and data-driven digital media services.

He is a committee member of the UK Museums Computer Group and serves on the programme board of Museums and the Web. He is fascinated by digital technology, the data that drives it and how people come together to use it, hack it and change the social meaning of it. He also quite likes to make interesting things - puppets, automata, physical and digital mashups, etc.

Twitter: @rosemarybeetle

Joe Baskerville

Head of New Technology/Cogapp

Joe is a creative technologist who works at a high level in many areas of Cogapp. As a senior member of the Tech Department he helps push forward in areas such as:

- Dev Ops: Continuous integration, Automated deployment, Test Driven Development

- HTML5: Complex Javascript driven webs apps, WebGL

- Mobile App development: both native and hybrid, Android and iOS.

He also explores emerging technologies and how they can be utilised in future work, such as possibilities for internal wayfinding and embedded technology. A Certified Scrum Master he is responsible for managing several projects within the company and is always looking to improve our Agile working practices. He also works very closely with, and manages, Cogapp’s excellent Design department, helping to reduce the boundaries between our three craft departments, UX, Tech and Design, and maximise opportunities for all disciplines to explore ideas and prototype possibilities. Joe is a Dad, keen cyclist and massive bread geek.

Amy Heibel

Vice President of Technology, Web & Digital Media/Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Amy Heibel is vice president of technology, web and digital media at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art where she oversees content, user experience, strategy and development for seven museum websites, as well as mobile apps and other technology-based initiatives. She also directs the Art & Technology Lab, a multidisciplinary program to encourage collaboration between artists and technology developers. Prior to coming to LACMA, Amy worked for over a decade creating mobile experiences for museums across North America and Europe, and her team won top awards from the National Association for Interpretation and the American Association of Museums. She also worked as a consultant in Silicon Valley in media production. Amy holds an undergraduate degree from Scripps College, and a graduate degree from UC Berkeley. In her spare time, she plays a lot of basketball.

Rick Lawrence

Digital Media Officer/Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery

Rick Lawrence joined the Royal Albert Memorial Museum & Art Gallery in 2008 to implement its online presence project. This included the museum website, revamped Exeter Time Trail and World Cultures websites. He led on software interactives in the 2008 – 2012 redevelopment and created RAMM’s social media channels to raise the museum’s profile.

Rick’s work now includes both the day-to-day service delivery and our work as a Major Partner Museum. Based in the Collections Team, he works closely with curators on knowledge management, collections data and images, funding bids, project planning and digital creation. Additionally he ensures our collections link with external bodies such as the Collections Trust, Culture Grid and Europeana.

Rick also represent museums on Arts Council England’s South West Digital Forum.

Gavin Mallory

Head of Production/Cogapp

Gavin has worked with many of Cogapp’s key clients including MoMA, The Met, The Children’s Society and The British Library.

He has managed some of Cogapp’s most successful projects, including Magnificent Maps for the British Library,BMA Go Mobile for the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the new responsive website for Virginia Historical Society.

He is currently working with The British Library on a culturally significant project to expose half a million digitised pages of archive material including maps, manuscripts and photographs for the Qatar National Library, as part of an £8.7 million partnership between the two libraries to transform our understanding of Middle Eastern history.

Gavin has a speciality in facilitation and runs user testing sessions, stakeholder interviews and creative workshops in the US and UK.

He has demonstrated work at Museums and The Web and delivered talks on digital best practice for museum professionals, as well as presenting for the Brighton Digital Festival in 2012 and 2013. Wired Sussex invited him to write a guest post for the Wired Sussex blog describing a typical week at Cogapp, which he illustrated with Vine clips. It’s worth a look!

Gavin holds multiple media qualifications including PRINCE2, Agile accreditation and a Postgraduate Diploma in E-learning theory and design.

His travel blog Worthing Versus The World was featured on the BBC and in Sussex newspapers and is now available as an e-book raising funds for charity.

Tim Groot

Business Developer/Nodes

Tim is a business developer at Nodes with a prime focus on introducing new technologies into new and existing businesses. He is a strong advocate of making museums more interactive and creating more personalised experiences tailored to the needs and wants of the audience. With the new iBeacon technology he believes that he has found the holy grail for museums to realize this.

Twitter: @Tim_Grand

Chris Evernden

Mobile Advisor/Nodes

Chris has always been a fervent champion of user experience and has developed a diverse and passionate knowledge of well thought out design, presentation and idea implementation. These skills have been honed through experience in the mobile applications industry; each area providing widely contrasting clients, business challenges and delivery expectations.

Esther Herberts

Web Marketer/Naturalis

For the past seven years Esther Herberts has been working as a webadvisor and web marketer for Naturalis Biodiversity Center. At Naturalis Biodiversity Centre they want to describe, understand and explore biodiversity for human wellbeing and the future of our planet. With a unique combination of knowledge, talents and skills they realise their various functions as a national museum, academic research institute and cultural heritage institution.

As part of the Communication & Events department Esther is responsible for the online marketing and communication through our corporate online media and social media. She’s interested in innovation and how great stories engage people to our cause.

Esther has a Masters degree in Art History (focus on New Media and Women in Art) and is an active photographer in her spare time.