Broad Impact

Posted by Nancy Proctor on | March 13, 2010 | 3 Comments

Last year on a beautiful spring day I took a friend from out of town to a local botanic garden. As I don’t know much about the garden I went looking for an audio guide. It didn’t have one, but it did have an audio service which was accessible by dialing a phone number with relevant access codes scattered through the garden. I thought why doesn’t the garden have a smart phone app? An app I can use on my own phone to get access to a garden map, images and exhibit information? Then I began to think about the exciting possibilities of including multi-language support, e-ticketing, user-generated content (comments, pictures, custom tours, etc), and much more…. this is how the idea for Broad Impact was created.

We have developed a cross-platform app for cultural institutions to connect their visitors with the rich digital resources for engagement, enrichment, and education. Using our expertise in technology and content development, we create sustainable communication channels for cultural institutions worldwide.

At this stage we are working with leading institutions – botanical gardens and museums – to help shape how mobile technology impacts museums space.

We are based in New York City area and are looking for both feedback and collaborative partnerships with institutions to conduct primary visitor research. How many visitors of your institution have iPhones? How many would actually use them? How? What types of visitor groups your institution has?

We offer our expertise in marketing research to the community on a pro bono basis. We will collect the information, analyze it and deliver a report. This will help us serve the community and will help advance the use of mobile in museums.

I’ve attached an overview of our app. If you are interested in collaboration or simply have feedback or comments for what we have already done, please do not hesitate to contact us – we’d love to hear your ideas or learn from your experience!

D Ryan

dryan@broad-impact.com

Broad Impact LLC

Comments

3 Responses to “Broad Impact”

Nancy Proctor
March 13th, 2010 @ 10:58 am

Thanks for posting the PDF of your app. Is it currently being used anywhere, or is this your design for an app in development? Who are the “leading institutions” you are working with?

It’s great that you are offering market research for free to the community. A good question for you to contribute research on would be the one you open with: “why doesn’t the garden have a smart phone app?” There are many reasons why a cultural site may not have a smart phone app. Some of them are outlined in the research already published in the ‘Research’ section of this wiki http://wiki.museummobile.info/wikiref and on the Tate Handheld Conference website: http://tatehandheldconference.pbworks.com/

I don’t really understand why you say in your pdf that websites are not available on the go? Are you suggesting that most websites are not well adapted for mobile browsing (since web surfing on the go is exactly the point of smartphones)? This point is another one to consider in asking why cultural sites may not have a smartphone app. Ted Forbes wrote an interesting post on web apps vs smartphone apps here: http://blog.tedforbes.com/2010/02/web-apps-vs-iphone-apps-for-museum-content/

The designs in your PDF look nice and the functionality you propose seems more or less standard in the tour apps now being offered in the market. It would be helpful to understand how your solution distinguishes itself from the others, either in terms of design, functionality, or business model. The ability to test a working model would help us give more feedback as well.

Best of luck!
Robin White Owen
March 13th, 2010 @ 4:11 pm

One thing you’re offering that I haven’t seen before is the e-commerce function – buy tickets, become a member, make a donation. Finding a way for museums to generate income from the app is a good idea.
Nancy Proctor
March 13th, 2010 @ 5:27 pm

Good point, Robin. Tristan Interactive is planning e-commerce functionality for selling related products (e.g. catalogues, posters, related to the collection), but I haven’t actually seen that implemented anywhere yet – even though it has been talked about since the PDA tours early this century! Would be nice to see it live somewhere…

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