! We developed a conceptual framework for how an organization can provide a new ICT-enabled service through a value-networkwide solution for establishing a service ecosystem.
! Any traditional organization must understand the needs of its business partners to be able to set up such an ecosystem.
! To implement a new value network for providing an ICT-enabled service, museums must consider these non-technical but ICT-related issues before and during development of projects related to a new service.
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IMAGE COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL PALACE MUSEUM
This convergence has created a consid-erably less expensive ICT infrastructure that more effectively connects compo-nents, including information, knowl-edge, content, people, organizations, information systems, and other hetero-geneous devices. As a result, new ICT-enabled services are available at lower cost to customers in general and mem-bers of the younger generation in par-ticular. ICT-enabled services provide online, real-time interactive opportuni-ties through applications; for example, a number of ICT-enabled services are offered through mobile applications.
Previous studies1,7,12 showed mu-seums use computing technologies primarily to increase interactivity and enhance their visitors’ experience vis-iting a museum. Various ICT-enabled museum services have been designed to meet the needs of the public; for example, the world’s top museums, including the Louvre Museum in Par-is, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, and the National Palace Museum (NPM) in Taiwan, have estab-lished Facebook fan pages and other interactive, social, informative, enter-taining online elements to stimulate awareness of and interest in their col-lections and encourage users to visit
their physical sites. Another example is the British Museum Channel playing video clips of exhibitions, collections, and behind-the-scenes experiences at the museum. This content is available on the museum’s website. These tech-nologies and platforms are expanding ways visitors access and interpret the objects displayed in museums.2
ICT-supported services enable mu-seums to expand their social role and values by improving the timing and in-creasing the scope of their individual and collective engagement with visi-tors worldwide. Their services can be used to reach out to frequent museum visitors and potential visitors and non-visitors alike. Their purpose is to en-hance the interaction and visiting ex-perience of a broader range of visitors, on-site or online. Many such services are designed specifically to attract young people, who are often interested in experiencing new ICT and accus-tomed to using multimedia services in their daily lives.
Digital Archives Project
NPM was recognized in 2014 as one of the most visited museums in the world by The Art Newspaper and is dis-tinguished by its extensive collection
of high-quality artifacts from Chinese history, making it one of the most pop-ular destinations in Taiwan for inter-national tourists. NPM management is supervised by the Executive Yuan, the highest administrative organ in the government of Taiwan.
NPM implemented the National Digital Archives Program (2002–2013) to digitize its collections on an ongo-ing basis, resultongo-ing in a large volume of high-quality IT-generated content on the museum’s cultural and histori-cal artifacts. In addition, NPM recog-nizes the novel opportunity provided by video and interactive objects to in-troduce historical treasures and revive interest in ancient artifacts. NPM also uses corporate advertising to stimu-late the public’s imagination and help them more fully appreciate China’s historical artifacts. It continues to produce a number of videos related to collections, IT-generated content, and behind-the-scenes experience at the museum.
The videos produced by the muse-um have been extremely successful at sharing NPM’s digital collection world-wide. In 2007, NPM used cutting-edge techniques to create a 3D animation called Adventures in the NPM that was
Adventures in the NPM: Poster for Formosa Odyssey.
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considered a milestone accomplish-ment, winning first prize in the public section of the 2008 Tokyo International Anime Fair, in addition to the Prix Coup de Coeur award at the in 2008 Festival International de l’Audiovisuel et du Multimédia sur le Patrimoine. At the 2009 Muse Awards, organized by the Media and Technology Professional Network of the American Alliance of Museums, NPM received a Silver Award for marketing development for a docu-mentary called Inside: The Emperor’s Treasure and a multimedia installation called Passé-Future: The Future Museum of NPM. In 2013, at the 46th Houston In-ternational Film Festival, NPM gained additional recognition by winning six major awards: two platinum, two gold, one bronze, and one special-jury. Its lighthearted comedic entry Journeying from Past to Present—APP Minifilm re-ceived a Platinum Award, the festival’s highest accolade, in the network cat-egory. NPM plans to showcase its most representative collections on the global stage by internationally releasing its animated video Adventures in the NPM.
Released in 2011, Adventures in the NPM 2 featured treasures from the Palace Museum in Beijing to inspire and pro-mote collaboration.
In 2012, NPM partnered with Google to display exquisite Chinese artifacts worldwide on Google’s Art Project webpage. The Art Project ini-tiative allowed NPM to publicly display its collections on an online platform, overcoming the temporal and spatial boundaries separating the museum from the rest of the world. NPM chose 18 artifacts familiar to the Taiwanese public to reach audiences worldwide on the Art Project webpage.
The experience collaborating with Google and creating so many high-quality videos inspired NPM to con-struct a video-streaming website to enable young people to access the museum’s collections of inspiring Chi-nese artifacts. The iPalace initiative (http://npm.nchc.org.tw) was devel-oped, then revised in December 2014 to address this goal.
iPalace
The table here outlines NPM strategic vision for the iPalace initiative. The target audience includes mainly young people who use Web browsers, are
in-Figure 3. Process of diffusing iPalace from its prototype.
Prototype
Facility expenditure
Major challenges
! Interorganizational
! Technical
! ICT facilities
! Video production
Transformation
! Organizational
Major challenges
! Social
! Managerial
! Interorganizational Service Figure 1. Components of the iPalace service system (adapted from Huang et al.8).
Strategic service vision for iPalace
Sustainability
iPalace Service System Components of iPalace Service System Video Production
Cloud Computing Platform of Cloud Computing Software of
Cloud Computing
Figure 2. NIST cloud computing reference architecture (source: Liu et al.10).
Cloud Provider Cloud Broker
Cloud
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terested in China’s heritage, and enjoy videos and animations. The service concept emphasizes efficiently curat-ed, well-organized video exhibitions that deliver fresh, attractive video con-tent with smooth streaming in the form of a television program, giving viewers a high-quality online experience with NPM artifacts. Achieving these goals involves several operating strategies: a video-production process to ensure vid-eos and animations are original and at-tractive; regular updating of the appear-ance of the interface to make it user friendly; and load balancing with such features as a task-oriented process de-sign, an elastic Web service infrastruc-ture, and peer-to-peer networking ca-pability. As NPM’s online counterpart, iPalace must deliver services that com-plement the museum’s brand reputa-tion while also coping with potential huge peaks in demand.
From the museum’s perspective, iPalace was a radical innovation in ICT-enabled service, or RIIS. In addition, it is primarily a video-streaming service based on Web technology that provides a wonderful online visiting experience not linked to an in-gallery experience.
Technically, however, iPalace requires expertise in sophisticated cloud-com-puting technology NPM does not have.
From the public’s perspective, iPalace is radically different from NPM’s tradi-tionally text-heavy webpages. Typical museum video channels offer a variety of video clips; for instance, the video content of the British Museum Chan-nel is accessed through individual clicks on video clips. In contrast, op-eration of the iPalace initiative would be like a television program that broad-casts continuously until the viewer turns off the channel.
iPalace Value Network
The iPalace prototype was built in ac-cordance with the strategic service vi-sion within a reasonable timeframe and with limited effort. As the proto-type was positively evaluated,3 NPM sought to transform the pilot service system into a real-world service sys-tem by implementing a full-scale value network. However, as outlined in Fig-ure 1, the full iPalace value network includes video-production and cloud-computing services—areas where NPM lacked expertise. As a result, time and
effort beyond the museum’s capabil-ity would have been necessary to verti-cally integrate the full value network.
NPM thus chose a value-networkwide solution involving outsourcing video production and cloud computing. As discussed earlier, though NPM previ-ously outsourced video production, it lacked experience outsourcing cloud-computing systems.
After several rounds of negotia-tion with potential outsourcing part-ners regarding the cloud-computing system, NPM became more realistic about how it could address the com-plexity of the iPalace value network;
for instance, it recognized the useful-ness of the cloud-computing refer-ence architecture developed by the U.S. National Institute of Standards and Technology involving cloud con-sumers, cloud providers, cloud carri-ers, cloud auditors, and cloud brokcarri-ers, as outlined in Figure 2. In outsourcing the cloud-computing system for iPal-ace, NPM functioned as a cloud cus-tomer aligned with other cloud actors identified as reliable strategic part-ners. Ultimately, it was necessary for NPM to collaborate with four catego-ries of business partners in the iPalace value network:
Content makers. Studios, channel managers, and cloud operators;
Connectivity makers. Cloud opera-tors, Internet service providers, and telephone operators;
Technology makers. Infrastructure manufacturers and middleware manu-facturers; and
Sponsors. Agencies and advertisers providing sponsorship.
Leading the Value Network
Fitzsimmons and Fitzsimmons5 said one of the challenges facing all ser-vice innovators is how to achieve the required degree of integration; Figure 3 outlines the process of diffusing iPal-ace, beginning with its prototype. Relat-ed activities can be classifiRelat-ed into three architectural categories—outsourcing, deployment, and diffusion—based on expected outcomes and underlying expenditure. Outsourcing activities in-volve expenditure on appropriate ICT-enabled facilities through interorga-nizational collaboration. Deployment activities require expenditure on trans-formation, as NPM and its partners must ensure the museum’s existing ca-pabilities and ICT facilities are able to support iPalace. Moreover, the muse-um’s diffusion activities must be able to translate the new service system into concrete service performance through market-related expenditure on specific means of diffusing iPalace.
The challenges in the deployment process, as in Figure 3, relate to intra-organizational integration (such as em-ployee acceptance involving emem-ployee culture and incentives and other nizational matters); processes in orga-nizational management/reengineering (such as enforcement of interdepart-mental collaboration or establishment of new departments and functions); and acceptance of a reference group. Addi-tional professionals (such as curators
Power consumption for typical components.Strategic service vision for iPalace (adapted from Huang et al.8).
Service-Delivery
Targeted Market Segments Fresh, attractive video
content
Well-defined NPM experiences:
! NPM images;
! Ease of use; and
! In-depth insight into Chinese culture and aesthetics.
Smooth video delivery
Continual provision of new video exhibitions
Periodically changing interface appearance
Effective load balancing:
! Task-oriented process design;
! Elastic Web-service infrastructure;
! Peer-to-peer networking; and
! Distributed system architecture capable of multitasking.
Video service that smoothly displays NPM relics:
! Well-arranged exhibition;
! Available anytime, anywhere; and
! Uninterrupted multicasting.
Easy-to-use user interface:
! Updated for the occasion; and
! In-depth insight into Chinese culture and aesthetics.
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