Helping cultural organisations generate different ideas

UK based charity Culture24 have been using the Visitor Box Ideation Cards as part of their Let’s Get Real programme of action research. They can be useful in a light touch way to spark conversations or for more in-depth planning.

Culture24 used them as part of a two-day workshop where participants came together to be introduced to some low-cost technologies, then used the cards to quickly generate ideas about new ways to engage visitors.  The brief was that these ideas should be different from their existing visitor engagement offer and not require sophisticated, expensive technology to implement.

The group created a wide range of ideas, then focused on a subset of those that seemed feasible, dedicating time to storyboarding these ideas from the point-of-view of a potential visitor. The cards were then used to critique the storyboards, forcing the group to collaboratively problem-solve and improve the ideas.

Culture24 continues to use the cards to help museums develop ideas for digital experiments and have developed two customised decks that are freely available here:

• Let’s Get Real 6: On social impact
• Let’s Get Real 7: On human connections