A keen fan of the heritage possibilities of new technology, Bill Taylor of Strengthening Communities at Highlands and Islands Enterprise, asks the age old question...

Where Next?

Today we are facing a world of constant change, and our reality, and the future for the heritage that we hold dear is being redefined. Within the heritage sector, as in life more generally we are facing a need to embrace changes in media and how we communicate with our audiences. At a recent technology seminar at the BT Research facility, near Ipswich, I listened to a manager from the BBC website articulate how the world of media has fundamentally changed. Our role as communicators of heritage values needs to recognise this and to use these changes in positive ways to engage with new audiences. 

The BBC man spoke of the way that communication has come full circle from the days of the Jester/storyteller (where being interactive was a crucial skill), through millennia to the invention of print, the movies, TV, the video, DVD, and for some us within the last few years (or maybe not yet for some) the arrival of broadband. We are now in what is called the era of flexible media. We have come full circle back to an interactive communication process. 

The creation of new types of websites such as flickr, google, wikipedia and media uses such as blogging are all examples of this. Websites now deliver an open infinitely flexible structure and it is clear that this is what the new media savvy generation want. In the future, what we receive and what we watch will be determined by us, not by some Hollywood producer or some BBC programme executive. This will be demand led communication, where the choice is so vast it can be personalised for your individual needs. 

Innovation now has low entry barriers, fast development cycles and is driven by users not just research companies. Here the users are the designers, and innovation is a social and collaborative process. We are moving from periodic delivery through book, programme or panel to perpetual evolution. We have moved from what has been called Fire and Forget communication to direct flexible programming.

We are no longer in the publishing paradigm, where something is produced and then provided at a fixed point in time. This has huge implications for interpretation, the heritage sector and the ‘keepers of the knowledge’. As the monasteries kept control of the production of books, as this meant power, so we are perhaps also seeing a shift in who are the ‘keepers of the knowledge’. In the era when Wikipedia is more up-to-date than the Encyclopaedia Britannica, where even Museums curate collections online……. where will it end? How do we as a profession within the heritage sector move from what has been essentially a Victorian paradigm of ‘the expert’ communicating with the amateur to one of the audience determining the content?

Photos are from Timespan's Sutherland Explorer GPS landscape interpretation tool.

HIE are currently launching their THT Challenge fund project. It offers funding for projects that use Technology to highlight Heritage resources to benefit Tourism outcomes. Register interest by 18th December, no obligation, but don't hang around.

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