This post is an advertorial written by an organization that serves the museum field. The views, opinions, and positions expressed by the authors and those providing comments are theirs alone and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, or positions of AAM or its employees.

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Today’s world is evolving at unprecedented speeds, but museums rarely have the capacity to keep up. The Georgia O’Keeffe Museum Galleries in Santa Fe, New Mexico, faced these same challenges before implementing Bloomberg Connects, a free digital tool that empowers cultural organizations to add new forms of engagement through audio guides, wayfinding, accessibility features, and more. Since then, the platform has become integral to the O’Keeffe Museum’s experience for guests and administrators alike. 

The institution consistently ranks among the top ten in visitor usage across the international platform, and its commitment has yielded increasingly positive results. The museum frequently averages a Net Promoter Score in the upper quartile, outgoing visitor-satisfaction surveys show. The impact ripples beyond the galleries, too: “When people use the audio tour, they overwhelmingly comment that it added to their overall experience in a positive way,” the museum’s Head of Visitor Experience, Meredith Jones, says.

A Deeper, More Dynamic Experience

Guests visit the O’Keeffe Museum to learn about Georgia O’Keeffe or take their interest to the next level. It’s a challenge many single-figure institutions face: How do you appeal to both the uninitiated and the devout? How do you provide a reliably educational experience while pushing the narrative? With Connects, the museum has struck an elegant balance between these mandates. 

The platform adds an active, haptic element to the museum experience, encouraging users to learn instinctively, on their own terms. For some, it’s a gateway to the museum’s more extensive online archive for the artist, Access O’Keeffe. “They serve different purposes but complement one another well,” says Liz O’Brien, the museum’s Digital Experience and Rights Manager. 

“Connects provides an accessible, interpretive experience for visitors in the galleries, while Access O’Keeffe allows people to explore individual artworks and related research in much greater depth.”

In one recent exhibition, the museum used Connects to pair music from O’Keeffe’s own library with her work on view, allowing users to listen to what she listened to while painting. “That was a curatorial decision we couldn’t have done otherwise,” explains Liz Neely, Curator of Digital Experience. “That made it more dynamic.” 

The guide has introduced a new way of learning about the namesake artist, too. “There’s only so much a guest may take in with wall labels,” Jones explains. “The thing that makes her more approachable to people is when she seems more like a human and less like an icon. The audio tour helps with that.”

Bigger Audiences, Smaller Footprints

For many, Connects adds real value. A ticket-buyer who might spend 45 minutes in the galleries could easily extend their stay an extra hour following the audio tour, getting more from their time with the collection.

Connects has reinforced the museum’s accessibility efforts by offering translation tools and responsive design that lets guests view text in various sizes. The digital guide has also obviated the need for many printouts – a small but important consideration for the institution’s environmental impact. 

Data-Driven Decisions

A lack of actionable data is an issue across the museum world. Connects’ data dashboard unlocks new insights into viewing patterns, traffic flow, and audience demographics, equipping museums with a tool for optimizing operations and communicating to stakeholders. “We’ve been analyzing our current data to see the ways we can best serve visitors,” says O’Brien.

“Being able to track a visitor’s path and how they are actually using the audio tour as they’re going through the museum has been interesting,” she added, noting that this information has shown administrators “which stops visitors are choosing and where they are spending their time.” The museum uses this information, along with visitor feedback and front-line staff observations, to prevent bottlenecks in the museum’s horseshoe-shaped building and offer the best possible framework for content. 

It Takes a Village 

Connects encourages intraorganizational collaboration, bringing many departments into conversation. “We each bring a different perspective: how the platform and content function, what visitors are asking for and experiencing in the galleries, and how the interpretation connects to the artworks and broader curatorial goals,” O’Brien explains.

It educates staff members too, ensuring employees across the museum are equally informed and aligned in message. This has proven particularly helpful in moments when the O’Keeffe Museum has been busy or short-staffed, such as in October, during the annual Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. “We see a flurry of visitors. The Visitor Experience team is at capacity,” O’Brien says. “This is a time when staff across the museum have the opportunity to help the team and take shifts such as audio guide support.” 

The affinity expands beyond the walls of the institution, too. Connects has integrated this museum, located in a small city in the mountains of New Mexico, into a global family of more than 1,500 museums and cultural institutions. It provides opportunities for professional development – offering convenings, Crit Rooms, and webinars – as well as an irreplaceable resource for troubleshooting. “It’s great to be part of a community so we can ask other people,” Neely says. “To me, as a technologist, having a bigger network for problem-solving is a real benefit.”

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