So as we pursue mobile projects that showcase the great variety of attractions within the Park (80+ destinations and 50+ events each day), that objective translated into the re-use and re-purposing of content. After all we want to solve the common problems that visitors face (like getting lost!) using a low-cost approach and ship it fast.

The first app that we created was the Balboa Park iPhone app, a branded app that works on iPhones, iPads, and iPod Touch devices. By featuring content fed directly from the Balboa Park website via RSS feeds (organization listings, locations data, event instances, etc.) we spend very little time maintaining the app. If it’s right on the website, it’s right on the app, and we know we’re providing visitors with up-to-date info at their fingertips. We are also launching some kiosks around the park that use the same feed.

While we had a great response to our first iPhone app, we knew we weren’t meeting all the needs of our visitors. We then wanted to focus on two objectives:

• Provide a product for the increasing audience of Android users. Over the last year, we saw the share of mobile traffic to Balboapark.org from Android devices grow to more than 29% of mobile traffic (mobile traffic is 10% of total traffic).

• Provide better navigation tools. While our first app had a detailed Google map, people were still having trouble finding the right routes to their destinations.

A few months ago we began working with the Meridian App team— the same developers that helped us launch our first iPhone app—to build a multi-platform Balboa Park guide for both iOS and Android devices. Our content would be integrated into the Meridian platform, which would have guides to other destinations such as the Portland Art Museum and had a strong emphasis on turn-by-turn navigation. By joining this common platform instead of branding our own app, we would also minimize our expenses while enjoying this advanced functionality and other features that the Meridian team would continue to add.

Plus it would be free for our visitors to download. As we learned from our first release, people may buy $4 lattes but they care about their dollars when it comes to apps.

Yesterday we released the Balboa Park guide on Meridian.

Now, if you want to find your way from the Air & Space Museum to the San Diego Zoo, or from the Prado Restaurant to the Museum of Man, you can find your way, step-by-step. Next steps will include adding location-aware audio and video content.

The Meridian app is available for free through the Android Market and the App Store.  You can start the process of building your own app here: http://www.meridianapps.com/

• To enhance collaboration and cooperation of the institutions to achieve joint objectives and to take advantage of the opportunities that are available because of their location together;
• To support programs of outstanding artistic merit which may not have sufficient audience appeal to allow their presentation without outside support;
• To support efforts to insure the relevance of the institutions in a rapidly changing community; and
• To insure the viability of the park and the maintenance of a park environment in which the institutions can flourish.

Inherent in serving these goals was the funding of significant duplication of services as each institution operates as an independent entity. Each organization independently had a website, a base of software and technology and in some cases dedicated technology staff. For example: when funding was asked for by an organization to add an innovative feature to their website the benefit was restricted to that organization and patrons of that website.

In 2008 the foundation began to consider ways to encourage technology collaboration among the Balboa Park Institutions in order to enable better online access to institutional resources while attaining some cross organizational benefit to its investments. To this end they engaged cultural informatics consultant David Bearman of Archives & Museum Informatics. David began work on this project in the Fall of 2008 by convening meetings of executive, program and technical staff from organizations in Balboa Park. Out of these meetings a each group indentified a set of high level goals and functional areas around which online collaboration would be beneficial:

Goals:

• Increase visitation to Balboa Park as a whole and to the individual institutions
• Increase public participation in Balboa Park institutions’ programs
• Achieve greater collaboration, integration, and synergy among all the institutions
• Establish Balboa Park as an integrated learning environment, both virtual and real
• Ensure coordination with goals of 2015 Centennial Celebration

Functional Areas:

• Content Management System (education, curatorial/collections/visitor services/intranet),
• Online transactions (membership/donations/ticketing/sales/registration),
• Shared Technology services

In my next post I will outline how these requirements turned into BPOC

This first post is an introduction to Balboa Park San Diego and some of the history leading up to the creation of BPOC.  Additional posts will describe the primary funders, how the project is put together, what the plan is and how we are progressing on that plan.

Balboa Park

In 1868, Alonzo Horton set aside a tract of land for a public park, one that would grow over the next 140 years into one of the most significant urban parks in America, with a third more land than Central Park and the perhaps the highest concentration of cultural organizations in one place in the US except the National Mall in Washington, D.C..

In the years leading up to 1915, after many years of public enjoyment, several Spanish Colonial Revival buildings and structures were built for the Panama-California Exposition, a huge fair commemorating the completion of the Panama Canal, transforming an urban wilderness into the national historic landmark we know today. Over the next 20 years, the San Diego Zoo, San Diego Museum of Art, and the San Diego Natural History Museum all opened their doors in the park. In 1935 and 1936, Balboa Park hosted the California-Pacific International Exposition, adding a replica of London’s 16th-century Elizabethan Globe Theater. Other park structures followed, including the opening of the Timken Museum of Art and the Reuben H. Fleet Science Center, officially making Balboa Park the cultural center of the city.

Today, Balboa Park represents the center of the thriving San Diego metropolis, housing a rich cultural tradition in an unparalleled setting. Spread out over 1,200 acres, the park is home to 85 cultural, conservation and recreation organizations and attracts more than 10 million visitors a year.  According to the Trust for Public Land, Balboa Park is the fourth most visited city park in the country, attracting more visitors annually than the National Mall and nearly three times as many visitors annually as the Grand Canyon.

Nevertheless, looking beyond the Spanish architecture, important cultural destinations, and incredible collections, the park is in fact facing huge challenges.   Over the last decade, organizations in Balboa Park have started to look to collaborative solutions to solve problems. In 2001, 24 institutions joined together to form the Balboa Park Cultural Partnership (BPCP), including such nonprofit organizations as the San Diego Zoo, the Timken Museum of Art, The Old Globe Theatre, the House of Hospitality, and the San Diego Museum of Art.  BPCP takes a leading role in park advocacy, joint purchasing agreements, sustainability projects, management and facilitation of some park wide projects, and has created a learning institute for museum professionals, areas where collective strengths and resources make the organizations stronger together than they can be individually.

More recently 17 of the same organizations partnered with a local foundation to form the Balboa Park Online Collaborative… more about that and the foundation in my next post.

Seth Godin: Quieting the Lizard Brain from 99% on Vimeo.