As the museum's first Director of Digital Experience, there was much expectation for my role, but little instruction beyond making the Asian Art Museum a world-class institution through innovative digital experiences. During my first six weeks at the museum, I met with over two dozen stakeholders —including staff members, Board members, community advocates and visitors — to understand the definitions, perceptions and expectations of the word "digital." Staff was most interested in understanding the difference between the role of my new Digital department and that of Information Technology (IT); even after explaining that my focus would be on creating visitor-facing digital products, they still told me about their Outlook issues, Mac requests and their challenges working with IT. Community advocates and visitors wanted to know how my work would overlap with that of the Education team, while Board members were interested in my thoughts about emerging technologies and new digital work by our peer institutions (including the Cooper Hewitt, Cleveland Museum of Art, and the SFMOMA).

While a majority of the conversations covered needs outside of my immediate role and responsibilities, it was important to hear the challenges, frustrations and needs of our key museum audiences. For the Senior Management Team (SMT) and staff, there was a sizable disconnect when it came to digital expectations: the former favored shiny new toys — augmented reality, virtual reality and mobile gaming — that demonstrated digital leadership to Board Members and potential donors, while the latter simply wanted more efficient tools (e.g. latest version of Outlook) to do their jobs. Additionally, staff expressed technology fatigue due to the numerous digital products that had been launched over the years, only to be replaced in a year's time. This mindset made stakeholders question whether or not they should invest time in my digital strategy if new my digital products would have a similar fate. Oftentimes, digital issues speak to larger institutional challenges, which I addressed in my initial presentation of findings to the SMT.

After spending the next few months compiling digital case studies from peer institutions, attending museum conferences, and researching emerging technology opportunities, I defined the museum’s digital vision and values, proposing a four-year digital product roadmap, which I called The Transformed Visitor Experience, to support the museum's grand re-opening in 2020. Additionally, I proposed positioning Digital as a service department to provide digital governance and leadership for department-owned digital experiences, including digital interpretation, education resources, marketing campaigns, guest experience, and the online collection. I reassured the staff that my goal was to provide them with digital literacy and coaching to do their jobs more efficiently — I was not interested in taking their jobs away.

I identified five key Transformed Visitor Experience initiatives to support the museum's grand re-opening:

1) a new asianart.org website, consolidating multiple digital experiences across departments
2) an interactive tablet-based Masterpieces experiences, spotlighting the museum's nine most prized objects (to be featured prominently in the new gallery spaces)
3) a digital wayfinding experience, orienting visitors following the grand re-opening
4) a location-aware mobile museum app, delivering a personalized content experience inside and outside the galleries
5) a CMS-enabled digital signage solution, providing visitors with vital information around the museum

Highlights of my tenure at the museum follow below.