Special Notice:

MOT International will be visiting Croatia at the end of this summer, Dubrovnik to be more precise. In an effort to expand the network of museums in our network, we’re going to be visiting “The Best In Heritage” annual conference that’s going to be taking place there. It’s a conference for institutions, museums, heritage and conservation projects that whose goals are very similar to our own. The conference will take place in September this year, 25-27 September to be more precise. We won’t be visiting Dubrovnik at the height of the summer season, but we’ll still try to make the most of the visit.

Team has heard great things about the Krka waterfalls national park, which we’re definitely be going to, even though it isn’t that close to where we’ll be staying. Still, there are many organized excursions from Split so we believe it is worth visiting it. Against the usual advice, we’re going to be mixing business and pleasure. We’re visiting Croatia, it’s hard not to do that. Should you decide to visit the conference, we’re more than happy to meet up with any potential future members of MOT International. We’ll post more updates about the exact dates about the conference, and when exactly are we going to have our 5 minutes of fame.

For our guests and partners who will be traveling on their own, please check an email we’ll send to you. That email contains all the information needed to be safe and well informed about upcoming business trip. There we’ll explain what you need to cross the border, how to get from once city to another, how ferry transportation in Croatia works etc. In case you want to meet us on our scheduled visit to Krka waterfalls National park, please visit out official partner who is doing scheduled visits to Krka national park starting from Split, Zen travel Croatia.

You should get in touch with our team if you want to schedule a one-on-one with us. We’re here for any interested parties that might be coming to the conference and would like to know more specifics about what exactly MOT does, and how membership in our little organization can help your museum. Hope to see you there. Till then, take care.

What is MOT International

MOT is a newly founded international non-profit whose goal is to bring together and improve cooperation between museums of technology from around the world. MOT International stands for Museums of Technology International, which is a name that we thought was fitting for our little organization. We are headquartered in Brussels, Belgium and so far we have about a dozen of partner museums who benefit from our services, which are numerous.

Perhaps the most intriguing service that MOT offers is the use of small indoor drones for creating invitational virtual tours of museums. We have plenty of other tricks up our sleeves to lure visitors to museums and we encourage every member of the MOT family to contribute with their ideas as well.

“A museum is a spiritual place. People lower their voices when they get close to art.”

Mario Botta

MOT International beginnings

MOT was started by a group of technology museum curators from UK, France and Belgium. Technology museums and museums in general have been struggling with low visitor counts for years now, which continue to drop year after year. People just don’t seem to be that interested in museums anymore and we here at MOT have took it upon ourselves to try and make museums interesting again. To do that we’ve come up with several methods and resources for museum curators to use. Seeing how we are technology oriented organization, we decided to use technology as a tool. For example we already mentioned the use of indoor drones for making up short aerial invitational tours of museums. Another project that we are working on is the use of holographic info plates at museum exhibits. MOT was started back in 2014 as a non-profit organization based in Brussels. Since we started our little effort, we’ve expanded our network of museum partners significantly, and every year new museums become proud members of the MOT International efforts.

How is MOT helping museums

There are lots of ways that MOT International helps museums who are its members. Short version of what we do would be that we provide exhibit setup support, we give promotional advice and lastly we serve as a communication hub for member museums. Keep reading to find out what we mean with each of these points.

Exhibit setup support

Key aspect of modern museums isn’t just getting interesting exhibit pieces. That stopped being a part of the whole going to the museum process a long time ago. Nowadays it’s almost equally as important to work on museum decor and exhibit piece presentation as much as it is to score interesting exhibits for your museum show. MOT has noticed that people are much more inclined to visit a museum if there is some additional buzz about the exhibit pieces.

For example we are currently helping out with an exhibit setup for a museum from the UK. Exhibit revolves around steam engines, and seeing how we are technology history buffs, this is very interesting for us, but public interest rarely peaks when it comes to steam engine museum shows. Enter laser based holographic displays. You can see an example of what we’re talking about on the image above.

Now we won’t go into specifics of how we used this to our advantage, you’re going to have to find that out on your own by visiting the show once it’s open (stay tuned for an announcement). You can see however the MOT method at work. Use modern tech and tricks, combine it with old (steam engines shows) and attract people maybe even more with the exhibit display and presentation than with exhibit pieces themselves.

Promotional advice

Getting people to visit museum shows and exhibits is a constant uphill battle. Public interest in museums has been weening for some time now and it’s the duty of museum curators if their goal is to keep their museums open to increase the number of visitors. MOT has had lots of experience helping museums on their promo game, to draw visitors in.

It all boils down to going the extra mile to create buzz about a particular exhibit. For example we have mentioned already that we do not shy away from using things like holographic projection, laser shows and indoor high quality drones to get the interest of the media in a particular exhibit that we help setup. By media, we’re talking both mainstream and social media.

Our goal is always to see tweets, Facebook shares and news coverage talking about the exhibits that we help setup. That’s how buzz is created and that’s how people will come visit your show. If the exhibit is something that the public isn’t that interested in, we just make the exhibit presentation more interesting, like we have already discussed. There’s always some way to help get the public interested in an exhibit and that’s what our job here at MOT is.

Museum cooperation

MOT isn’t just a single office in Brussels, MOT is all over the world, it exists in every museum that is its member and one of the main goals of MOT International is to make cooperation between it members possible. Sharing experiences, ideas, what works, what doesn’t is very important if you want to be a part of MOT International.

For this purpose we frequently organize workshops, seminars, lectures and various other types of get togethers that allow our members to exchange what they know about running a successful museum in the 21st century. In fact soon we plan on arranging a seminar on the topic of using modern tech in order to improve museum visitor count.

Communication is key just about everywhere, but it’s especially important when it comes to museum management. That’s why we put so much emphasis on it here at MOT. Even though we are a technology focused group, we welcome any and all museum type into our organization. Just remember that communication is key.

How is MOT helping museums

Keep up to date with all the latest happening around the MOT International by subscribing to our events feeds. We will try to post updates frequently and also use this website to post quick tips for any museum curators and employees who might be visiting our pages. We’re sure that you’ll be able to find something useful here. Come back and check us out often. Cheers.

Join us

If you want to become a part of MOT International you can do so by getting in touch with the MOT main office, in Brussels, Belgium. Currently our membership consists of museums from UK, Belgium, France and the Netherlands. If you want to join us you can do so by either sending us an email, calling our office during working hours or coming to visit us directly (make sure to make an appointment). As the name of our organization, and even our current membership suggest, we are an internationally oriented, and just about anyone can join us. Most of the events hosted by MOT will take place somewhere in Brussels. Events hosted by members will be hosted in their respective country. Keep that in mind, that some traveling