The Siemens Forum is a showcase for Siemens technology. It includes the history of electrical, electronics, medical, and communications developments since the company’s founding in Berlin in 1847 by Werner von Siemens. The museum is free and targets corporate visitors and business partners, potential recruits, as well as the public. As described in a gallery devoted to the company’s leadership, Siemens places a high value on loyalty and long-term thinking and has had only 10 CEOs in the 160 years since its founding.
From its earliest days, the company has focused on innovation and bringing great ideas to market. The main exhibit hall provides a display of representative products ranging from a generator that powered the first lights in Berlin to the first implantable pacemaker (1958 - see photo) to cell phones, computers, telephones, consumer electronics, and appliances. There is also a model of the first electric rail car, developed by Siemens in 1879. The one drawback of this gallery is its dreamy but annoying sound track that repeats every few seconds.
Siemens, like many corporations in Europe and elsewhere, is clearly seeing green technology as good corporate public relations. Many displays promote the ways in which Siemens has worked to increase efficiency or reduce energy requirements for its products and thereby reduce both the cost of energy as well as the load of CO2 on the environment.
The energy area clearly states that CO2 in the environment will be the primary limit to the growth of energy, as the world advances toward 8 billion people in 2030.
One lesson to be (re)learned from this museum is the difficulty of maintaining a display of cutting edge technology. One conspicuous display near the cafeteria, for example, highlights the latest developments of Siemens technology, with various devices spotlighted on pedestals in a well-lit cabinet. The notebook computer in this display boasts a “6 GB hard drive and up to 192 MB of RAM.” In comparison, the laptop I’m currently using has 120 GB of hard drive and 1024 MB of RAM (and is by no means high-end).
The entry lobby featured a special exhibition called “Megatrends in China” that depicts the ways Siemens has assisted with the development of Shanghai. This display is particularly engaging, with many large panoramic photos, as well as stories of how new products are being used and how they are changing the way people do things in China.
A new Siemens-developed mag-lev train installed in 2004, for example, whisks people 33 km to the Pudong airport from Shangai in 8 minutes at 430 kph – the currently fastest non-plane vehicle on earth.
To help tell the story of China and set a context for the introduction of new technology in Shanghai, a half-dozen displays sprinkled around the exhibition area show cultural objects from Chinese life and explain their significance. I found these displays interesting and highly readable.
I suspect that many visitors to science museums might find historical objects more interesting if we were to adopt an approach that, like these labels, minimizes text, eliminates information few visitors need (such as inventory numbers and other purely descriptive details), and instead focuses on the object’s relevance to a typical visitor.
From its earliest days, the company has focused on innovation and bringing great ideas to market. The main exhibit hall provides a display of representative products ranging from a generator that powered the first lights in Berlin to the first implantable pacemaker (1958 - see photo) to cell phones, computers, telephones, consumer electronics, and appliances. There is also a model of the first electric rail car, developed by Siemens in 1879. The one drawback of this gallery is its dreamy but annoying sound track that repeats every few seconds.
Siemens, like many corporations in Europe and elsewhere, is clearly seeing green technology as good corporate public relations. Many displays promote the ways in which Siemens has worked to increase efficiency or reduce energy requirements for its products and thereby reduce both the cost of energy as well as the load of CO2 on the environment.
The energy area clearly states that CO2 in the environment will be the primary limit to the growth of energy, as the world advances toward 8 billion people in 2030. 
One lesson to be (re)learned from this museum is the difficulty of maintaining a display of cutting edge technology. One conspicuous display near the cafeteria, for example, highlights the latest developments of Siemens technology, with various devices spotlighted on pedestals in a well-lit cabinet. The notebook computer in this display boasts a “6 GB hard drive and up to 192 MB of RAM.” In comparison, the laptop I’m currently using has 120 GB of hard drive and 1024 MB of RAM (and is by no means high-end). 
The entry lobby featured a special exhibition called “Megatrends in China” that depicts the ways Siemens has assisted with the development of Shanghai. This display is particularly engaging, with many large panoramic photos, as well as stories of how new products are being used and how they are changing the way people do things in China. 
A new Siemens-developed mag-lev train installed in 2004, for example, whisks people 33 km to the Pudong airport from Shangai in 8 minutes at 430 kph – the currently fastest non-plane vehicle on earth. 
To help tell the story of China and set a context for the introduction of new technology in Shanghai, a half-dozen displays sprinkled around the exhibition area show cultural objects from Chinese life and explain their significance. I found these displays interesting and highly readable.
I suspect that many visitors to science museums might find historical objects more interesting if we were to adopt an approach that, like these labels, minimizes text, eliminates information few visitors need (such as inventory numbers and other purely descriptive details), and instead focuses on the object’s relevance to a typical visitor.
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