Personalizing Cultural Attractions
First posted on InPark Magazine, 30th April 2024. Author: Joe Kleiman.
According to Elizabeth Merritt, Director of the Center for the Future of Museums at the American Alliance of Museums (AAM), the education sector has pivoted from a "conformed one-size-fits-all model" to personalized learning, where students' individual needs and interests shape their lesson plans. Within the related fields of interpretation and curation in museums and other cultural attractions, a similar transition is taking place, sometimes through physical media and live facilitators, but often through the implementation of technology as an educational tool. As new technologies such as artificial intelligence (AI) are embraced, personalized curation begins to take the visitor experience in new directions.
Mad Systems' team, headquartered in Southern California and led by Tricia Ensing (President and CEO) and Maris Ensing (Founder and Creative Tech Consultant) is a leader in providing custom technological solutions tailored for the specialized needs of owners and designers within cultural attractions. Their signature offering, the QuickSilver® AV ecosystem, is the cornerstone of the AV++® suite. QuickSilver represents a major transformation in AV integration, facilitating personalized visitor experiences while significantly reducing infrastructure requirements. Previous installations include the Missouri Botanical Garden, Crayola IDEAworks traveling exhibition and the Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Honor and Museum.
Mad Systems got its stronghold in the industry through creative exhibitions and unique installations that were rooted in traditional AV. Now, their capabilities transcend those roots as they work closely with facility owners, architects, and exhibit designers to understand the specific challenges and opportunities involved in creating engaging visitor experiences that are sustainable and economically viable. Their AV++ suite provides solutions that create personalized experiences, making each visitor interaction unique and memorable. This approach has created a space for new methods of designing exhibitions that can be inclusive for all.
The whimsical yet sophisticated naming of their system components, inspired by Lewis Carroll's Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, reflects their transformative potential as well as the company's creative ethos. Under the leadership of Maris Ensing, a pioneer in the AV field and known for his disruptive innovations and unconventional problem-solving, Mad's development team has introduced groundbreaking patented and patent-pending solutions. "We're updating a 40-year old toolkit," Ensing says. His outside-the-box style thinking led to three new products within the AV++ space.
CheshireCat® and Alice® are patented and patent-pending technologies, respectively, centered around personalization and interactive engagement. CheshireCat offers high-speed, privacy-centric, recognition-based media delivery, while Alice serves as a dynamic, AI-driven media generator that adapts content in real time to match individual visitor preferences and interests. If a client prefers to not use facial recognition, Alice is flexible and designed to also work with barcode wristbands, QR codes, RFID, and NFC tags.
Specifically designed to enhance accessibility and to allow for additional language support, the patented Lory® tour guide system uses a visitor's personal smart devices to cater to guests with diverse needs or preferences, including those requiring hearing assistance or vision-related support. It also handles multilingual content via headphones or AirPods, ensuring a more inclusive and engaging experience for all visitors. Since Lory can also use QR codes or NFC tags, it is possible to retrofit existing exhibitions.
The cultural sector - comprising museums, visitor centers, and similar institutions - is facing an increasingly complex landscape. Challenges stem from evolving visitor and client demands, the need for innovative communication strategies, and the drive for competitive differentiation. Visitor expectations are also escalating, with a growing demand for memorable experiences that cater to a broad demographic spectrum and encourage repeat visitation. Moreover, the rapid pace of technological advancements presents its own set of challenges, including faster redundancy rates for proprietary hardware and the ongoing quest for long-term viable, flexible solutions.
Mad Systems addresses these multifaceted challenges by taking a revolutionary approach to audiovisual system design in the form of QuickSilver and options for patented CheshireCat, patent-pending Alice, and patented Lory technologies. These technologies offer a myriad of benefits to owners and designers in the cultural sector, promising to redefine and advance the visitor experience through personalization, inclusivity, and adaptability.
Hyper-personalization in terms of what these systems can deliver includes seamless multilingual access and inclusivity for individuals who are hard of hearing, deaf, partially sighted or blind. Hyper-personalized experiences have the capability to instantaneously adapt to the visitor's preferences, encouraging repeat visitation by providing targeted and changing media to each visitor.
While the technology is very sophisticated, its reliance on standard PC hardware ensures longevity and overcomes obsolescence with flexibility that allows for both wired and wireless installations. Since Alice derives personal media from a curated Body of Knowledge, content is forever changing and can easily be kept up to date, encouraging return visits.