Cuseum’s 2019 Year in Review

It’s been an extraordinary year at Cuseum, and we are filled with momentum as we head towards 2020. Between new partnerships, exciting additions to the Cuseum family, launching our third product, and sharing our vision all around the globe, 2019 marks the best year in our company's history.

Over the last 12 months, we’ve worked with an ever more diverse range of cultural nonprofits and visitor-serving organizations, including museums, zoos, aquariums, science and nature centers, botanical gardens, universities, and public attractions of all sizes. We’re inspired by all the fantastic happenings in the museum and nonprofit ecosystem this year and want to thank all our partners for being part of this journey toward deeper visitor, member, and donor engagement.

As we prepare to jump into the next decade, join us in looking back at a few highlights from 2019!

January

We started off the New Year by launching a new mobile app for the Winter Show, the leading art, antiques, and design fair in America. The app was an immediate hit, and Architectural Digest touted it as the “ultimate of-the-moment addition” to the fair.

As profiled in The Yale News, the Yale Center for British Art and Yale University Art Gallery launched their Cuseum-powered apps to enhance the visitor experience. Both apps allow visitors “to hear from the artist or curators while viewing objects in the galleries,” including Matthew Barney, whose anticipated exhibit, Redoubt, premiered in the Yale University Art Gallery.

We presented at AR in Action hosted at the MIT Media Lab and flew off to Paris 🇫🇷 for Museum Connections, one of the largest international museum conferences. We shared various developments around Augmented Reality (AR) in the museum space, including innovative projects with the Perez Art Museum Miami, Museum of Applied Arts in Vienna, and our comprehensive research on the impact of AR on the museum experience.

Leading organizations such as the Fernbank Museum of Natural History, Cheekwood Botanical Gardens, and Longue Vue House & Gardens launched their digital membership programs.

February

February brought us to London 🇬🇧 for the Global Auction House Summit, where we spoke about the impact of mobile and digital strategy in the art world alongside heavy-hitters from Sotheby’s and Phillips.

*In London for the Global Auction House Summit*

We were tapped for insights for Grayling’s report, Museums at the Crossroads: the Role of Corporate Partnerships, where we offered up our perspective on some of the latest trends in museum partnerships with brands, corporations, and more.

A few notable launches included the Science Center of Iowa, San Diego Archaeological Center, Minnesota State Horticultural Society, and Carolina Raptor Center.

March

You can’t spell March without AR! No stranger to publicity, Perez Art Museum Miami’s Invasive Species, a Cuseum-powered AR contemporary art exhibition, was featured in The New York Times, Wall Street International Magazine, and MuseumNext.

Our vision for how AR promises to transform the way we experience and navigate through cultural attractions was featured in VentureBeat, one of the world’s leading tech publications.
➔ See more: “AR is going to kill the map’s blue dot”

Digital membership programs went live at one of America’s top radio stations, WBUR, as well as Westmoreland Museum of American Art and Science Museum of Virginia.

April

April was a whirlwind month of some of the most vibrant conferences of the year. We zipped down to Pittsburgh for the American Museum Membership Conference (AMMC), where we presented on best practices for communicating with members. This was an illuminating, collaborative effort featuring the voices of colleagues at the Cleveland Art Museum, Minneapolis Institute of Art, and Carnegie Mellon. Year after year, AMMC proves an invaluable opportunity to exchange ideas and insights with top membership professionals.

*In Pittsburgh for the American Museum Membership Conference*

We celebrated the opening of another cutting-edge exhibit: the Annual Spring Contemporary showcase at Deering Estate. This exhibit featured The 9th Ecosystem, another Augmented Reality artwork by Felice Grodin powered by Cuseum.

We were lucky enough that Museum and the Web, one of the premier conferences focused on digital innovation in the cultural sector, came to our beloved hometown. We presented alongside leaders from Harvard’s Innovation Lab and Minneapolis Institute of Art, in a session entitled “Growth Hacking Museums: Institutional Innovation and Intrapreneurship.”

The following week, our CEO flew to Abu Dhabi 🇦🇪 to participate in the Culture Summit, a forum that convenes leaders from the fields of the arts, heritage, media, museums, public policy, and technology to shape the future of culture.

*Featured in Convergence: How The World Will Be Painted With Data”*

Cuseum was featured in the foremost expert on augmented reality Charlie Fink’s new book Convergence: How The World Will Be Painted With Data in an extensive chapter about AR in museums. 📖

We shared our founding story in an interview with Art Market Guru and chatted with Pratt Institute’s Emerging Museum Professionals program about the importance of partnerships and digital strategy in the museum sector.

This was also a packed month full of digital membership card launches. Children’s Museum of Tacoma, Florida Museum of Natural History, and Tellus Science Museum (just to name a few!) all rolled out new digital membership card programs.

And we can’t forget Earth Day! Earth Day 🌎 was a meaningful opportunity to celebrate all our partners who’ve chosen to go green with digital membership cards!

May

In May, we were on the scene at the American Alliance of Museums (AAM) Annual Meeting in New Orleans. As always, we had an incredible time at AAM, and see this conference as a preeminent forum for learning, exchanging best practices, and catching up with our community. We ate our fill of beignets and also presented two sessions, including one on “How AR is  Transforming Museums  & the Culture Sector."

Later in May, we had the opportunity to attend the We Are Museums conference in Poland 🇵🇱, where we were part of a line-up of international museum experts and presented “How to Collaborate with Startups to Produce Buzz-worthy Digital Experiences” and “The Entrepreneurial Museum.”

*Feature article published in AAM’s Museum Magazine*

The same month, our CEO’s perspective on innovation in the cultural section was published as the feature article in AAM’s Museum Magazine. The article featured the voices of museum leaders and provided a snap-shot into new, experimental models.
➔ See more: ”Museopreneur: How museums are leaping into new business models with entrepreneurial spirit”

It was then off to Austria 🇦🇹 for strudels and the MIT Grafenegg Forum, a world-class symposium hosted by MIT charged with exploring “the future of humanity vis-à-vis the future of technology.”

One of American’s leading contemporary art museums, New Museum, launched its digital membership program, and Boston’s legendary Boch Center made moves to enhance their visitor experience with Cuseum.

June

We traveled to New York to speak at Christie’s Art + Tech Summit, where the theme was the AI (artificial intelligence) revolution.
➔ See more: “Emerging Technologies and the Future of the Museum”

June included launches for Chicago Children’s Museum, Film at Lincoln Center, and Poster House. Fun fact: Poster House opened in New York City this June as the only museum in the United States dedicated exclusively to poster art. They’re also the first museum to adopt digital membership from day one!

Cuseum was named a finalist as one of Boston’s Coolest Companies 🏆! We’re so proud to be recognized for our top-notch products and creative company culture 😎.

July

In July, innovation was sweeter than ever as we celebrated receiving our 4th patent! As part of a company tradition, for every new patent granted, the whole team enjoys a cake 🍰 adorned with the official number of our latest patent.

Organizations around the country such as the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, San Antonio Zoo, Museum of the African Diaspora, LA Plaza de Cultura y Artes, and Rockford Art Museum, launched new digital initiatives powered by Cuseum.

We shared our perspective on various trends, such as the impact of 5G on museums with AVNetwork and trends in museum membership and the role of artificial intelligence in museum operations with our friends at Blackbaud.
➔ See more: “4 Important Membership Trends Every Museum Needs to Consider”

We were thrilled to have two of our projects featured in Blooloop, one of the top resources covering the attractions sector, in an article about immersive technology in museums.

August

We began August with a big celebration: Cuseum’s 5th Birthday 🎂! The Cuseum team spent the day reflecting on everything we’ve accomplished and topped it with a spirited cruise through Boston Harbor on the Liberty Clipper ⛵. These past five years have been unforgettable, and we look forward to the next!

*Celebrating Cuseum's 5-Year Birthday aboard the Liberty Clipper*

The celebrations continued when we were featured as one of 7 Startups Changing the Face of the Art Market in Venture Radar.

We announced our official partnership with NeonOne CRM. We’re big believers in partnerships, and we’re committed to building relationships that will help boost up the rapidly growing family of nonprofits using our tech solutions.
➔ See more: “Five Ways That Digital Membership Cards Can Improve Your Membership Program”

We helped more of our partners introduce their new digital membership cards, including the Bruce Museum, and the University of Texas, San Antonio Alumni Association, to name just a few.

We were featured in a CMSWire article about the customer experience in the cultural space. Our CEO shared his insights on how “arts institutions, such as museums and performing arts centers, are leveraging technology to improve the customer experience.”

September

September was one of the most monumental months of 2019. We announced the launch of our latest product: Guest Pass Referral! After spending the year engaging in countless conversations with cultural sector professionals about their needs and pain points, we rolled out easy-to-distribute digital guest passes to help organizations multiply their reach, deepen trust with constituents, and aid in new visitor and member acquisition.
➔ See more: “Introducing Guest Pass Referral by Cuseum”

New Product! Guest Pass Referral by Cuseum — ***New Product!*** *Guest Pass Referral by Cuseum*

It’s our mission to help the nonprofit world thrive by developing digital tools that reimagine traditional paradigms in cultural space, and we were so excited to make another digital option available to cultural organizations!

Shortly after this new product launch, we were off to New Orleans for the Association of Zoos and Aquariums annual conference. And back up north, we spoke at Better World by Design, a conference hosted by two world-renowned institutions, Brown University and RISD.

Cuseum went Twitter-viral in Japan 🇯🇵 after being featured in Bijutsu Techo and Yahoo Japan.

A wide range of new organizations initiated their digital membership card programs with us, including Chattahoochee Nature Center, Connecticut Audubon Society, KidsQuest, MoCA Westport, Anne Springs Close Greenway, and Dallas Symphony Orchestra.

October

We shared our perspective on how augmented reality will transform wayfinding and visitor experience design in museums at the Visitor Experience Conference in Philadelphia.

From there, it was off to Nashville for bbCON, the Blackbaud-hosted “tech for social good” conference. This was our first time at bbCON, and we were beyond impressed by the range of cultural organizations and cause-based nonprofits using technology to make a difference in the world. We presented a special session on “Hacking the Heist: How an Augmented Reality Experiment Went Uber-Viral” and also showcased some of our latest products at Blackbaud’s Innovation Hub.

We were delighted to welcome Virginia Museum of Fine Arts to the Cuseum family. It’s an honor to work with one of the largest comprehensive art museums in the United States to help bring their innovative, personalized membership program to the next level.

November

In November, it was back to Paris 🇫🇷 for the International Museum Membership Conference to presented about member loyalty and the future of engagement.

Over in sunny San Diego, we made our way to the Museum Computer Network conference. There, we exchanged best practices and new ideas for advancing digital transformation in museums with other cultural sector professionals. We presented two sessions on augmented reality: one on the mobile apps that help create a personal connection with each visitor, and another on the power of AR to transform wayfinding in museums.

Our CEO shared his perspective with Dell Technologies on the importance of soft skills and creativity in the technology field.

We closed out the month much closer to home in Burlington at the New England Museum Association conference, where we shared insights on the latest trends in museums and caught up with the New England museum community.

We were stoked to help world-class art organizations like the Seattle Art Museum, McNay Art Museum, and Rubin Museum of Art, launch their digital membership programs.

December

Thanksgiving fell late this year, but that meant we got to start December off on special note: Giving Tuesday ❤️! Giving Tuesday is one of the most important days of the years in the nonprofit world, as organizations use new, creative engagement strategies to bring in new supporters.

December is a bustling time of year for our partners, as organizations make the final push to secure new supporters. It has been amazing to see members of the Cuseum family develop innovative strategies to communicate and engage their constituents this holiday season using our digital tools!

We’re thrilled to play a role in the first-ever AR-based art exhibition to take flight at an airport. In partnership with Perez Art Museum Miami, Felice Grodin’s new immersive site-specific work IM/Movable Asset was unveiled at Miami International Airport.

Our CEO’s article ”Museopreneur: How museums are leaping into new business models with entrepreneurial spirit” was the #2 most-read article on AAM.

As we close out the year, we’re happy to celebrate some new additions to the Cuseum family including, the Detroit Historical Society and the Cayton Children’s Museum.

2019 has been full of unprecedented growth, new discoveries, and deeper relationships with the organizations we have the honor of serving. We’re grateful to our customers, partners, friends, and families, and for the privilege to build tools that help museums and cultural organizations succeed in this fast-paced digital world.

With a new decade among us, we can’t wait to roar into the 20s! ⭐

We hope you’ll join us! Happy New Year! 🎉