My slides are here; the podcast of the talk is here. If you have comments or ideas to build on this work, there are pages on the Museum Mobile wiki dedicated to the topic:

• On mobile experience design
• My manifesto for a new mobile information architecture
• And some ideas for a new information architecture

The International Spy Museum in Washington, DC now offers an amazing taste of what it’s like with a GPS-triggered game and tour of the city. Inspired by two real FBI cases – Operation Lemon-Aid, conducted in 1977, and KITTY HAWK in 1966 – Spy in the City is a 1.2 mile (1.5 hour), $16 experience using the BarZ Adventures GPS Ranger device. Code-named ‘Geo-Cobra’, the multimedia handheld uses Flash to simulate the experience of receiving text messages, audio, video, photographs and other breaking intelligence from headquarters as you track a foreign agent. You scan for fingerprints, descramble audio messages and decipher local monuments to identify your quarry.

It’s an ambitious application of the new technology, offering lots of important lessons for others interested in trying the treacherous world of location-based mobile, as well as exploring the value of gaming in education. For those less intrepid, this interview with the tour’s author, Amanda Ohlke, and the Museum’s Executive Director, Peter Earnest, also shares ideas on lower-tech mobile programs like scavenger hunts, and how they can be leveraged for team-building and other group experiences. After all, “it’s not about the technology” – though I do try to get some hints from Peter, a former spy with the CIA himself, as to what new mobile tricks we might inherit from the clandestine services in the next generation!

So don’t be surprised if this podcast self-destructs after you’ve heard it…

He is also at the origin of another aphorism I often invoke:
“I have only made this letter rather long because I have not had time to make it shorter.” Lettres
provinciales, 16, Dec.14,1656.

Despite my fondness for this quotation, I am looking forward to having the superiority of simplicity (or KISS principle), implied here, challenged in an upcoming paper from Koven Smith. In response to Tate Modern’s Handheld Conference (Sept 4-5, 2008), Koven will be sharing his provocative insights into the future of multimedia interpretation during the Handheld Workshop at Museums & the Web, April 15-18, 2009 in Indianapolis. After years of trimming away the automatic triggering, the instant messaging and other bells & whistles to make new mobile technologies fit within the old audio tour mold, maybe we’re about to find that our handheld projects don’t even come close to being ambitious enough?

In celebration, then, and anticipation of ambitious new beginnings, I’ll lift the veil on plans for MuseumMobile.info:

If I can settle on an audio signature (or none), the first podcasts for the online course on Mobile Interpretation will come out in the next day or so. I’ve been interviewing interesting and expert museum professionals on how they develop content and use technology for audiences on the move. The last time I edited was using Super8 film and Scotch tape, so getting up to speed on digital technology has been a challenge! But it’s fun to get back to my filmmaking roots with zippy new tools, and learn some of the skills my old colleagues in the audio tour business use to such great effect. I won’t pretend to that level yet, but am inspired by the brilliant and entertaining conversations that I’ll soon be able to share with you!

In the meanwhile, feel free to shoot me questions, demos, suggestions and comments on all things mobile for the cultural world. Anything that looks useful to a broad audience I’ll post on the Handheld Wiki as part of the resources and best practices in mobile interpretation being collected there. Feel free to join the community there, or lodge your contributions on MuseumMobile.info if they are more specifically directed at me.

Yours,
Nancy