Excavating the secrets, scandals, and untold stories hiding below the surface of life, and giving voice to the characters who make or made those hiStories happen.
And at Time Traveler Tours & Tales (TTT&T), we are no exception. On my trip to the States earlier this month, I gathered members of team TTT&T as well as a dedicated group of major supporters to alpha-test the first iteration of IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF GIANTS.
It was exciting. It was fun. It was also very tasty for apropos the Renaissance Italian theme of our launch story app tour, we met at an NYC restaurant: Osteria del Principe. Highly recommended!
Our hope was to be able to turn the app right over to YOU for beta testing. But we encountered two unanticipated technical issues too serious not to fix.
The summer travel season is in full swing. Opportunities abound to escape "normal" life, create cherished memories with the family, and share your passions with your children through a non-school lens.
Guaranteed: No matter where you travel this summer, you’ll be in a place steeped in backstories of historical importance.
With just a partly completed first chapter of In the Footsteps of Giants, I had the pleasure -- and privilege -- of taking our app out of the digital garage for its first trial spin.
We wanted feedback on our proposed User Experience (UX) design. So I brought it to a group of Museum Studies students at the University of Washington-Tacoma. Their instructor, Stephanie Lile, was my supervisor when I interned the Washington State History Museum back in my student days.
The goal was to verify whether the navigational flow of our app makes logical sense. Do the button placements, copy, and linkages between screens flow without a hitch to the user? Are the colors, textures, and graphical elements pleasing and effective?
The “lone ranger” small business model works perfectly for some creators – those people who can successfully wear all the hats in their creative business and have no need for additional team members. But big visions require more hats – and more people to properly execute.
Sarah had a big vision:
Combine the traditional power of storytelling with the latest in touchscreen technology to create portals to the past and bring history to life at the tips of your fingers.
Her vehicle is Time Traveler Tours, a new generation of tour guides for a new generation of traveler, and Time Traveler Tales, the multi-format cousins of her story tours. Together, they #TurnHistoryOn.
Exactly a year ago, you held the fate of a dream in your hands. We were asking for $40,000 to fund our moonshot. And in Kickstarter, if you don't reach your campaign goal, you get nothing. Now, remarkably, we are feeling the gravitational pull of the App and Google Play Stores.
Without you, we'd have never gotten our time-traveling machine off the ground!
No one's taking anything for granted, but a year on from our Kickstarter launch in May 2015, hosted by Julie Gribble and KidLit TV, we wanted to pause for a moment, take stock and recognize all of you who shared the vision strongly enough to reach out and help us cross that first finish line… before we cross the next one — toward which we inch closer every day...
