Museums Association Festival of Digital - Engage Critically
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A reflection considering digital for museums
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Museums Association Festival of Digital - Engage Critically
- 1. Frankly, Green + Webb Created for: Presented by: Date issued: MUSEUMS ASSOCIATION TECH FESTIVAL ALYSON WEBB 21ST JANUARY 2016
- 2. Frankly, Green + Webb Change pic and headline The MA Tech Festival
- 3. Frankly, Green + Webb “…digital technology has become seemingly less important… …and some cultural organisations have cut back on their level of digital activity” From: Digital Culture 2015
- 4. Frankly, Green + Webb vs • Less digitally active • Less likely to report a positive impact • Report significantly lower levels of impact Museums Rest of cultural sector
- 5. Frankly, Green + Webb 1. Money 2. Time 3. Poor Infrastructure Top Challenges - The Usual Suspects 4. Poor IT support 5. Operational barriers 6. Senior management
- 6. Frankly, Green + Webb Optimism Pessimism The Line of Technological Confindence
- 7. Frankly, Green + Webb Optimism Pessimism The Line of Technological Confindence
- 8. Frankly, Green + Webb The role of the hero “a person who, in the face of danger, combats adversity through impressive feats of ingenuity, bravery or strength” Changing the Story
- 9. Frankly, Green + Webb Audience Mission Technology Context
- 10. Frankly, Green + Webb Participation = Audience Serving visitors’ needs, motivations & behaviours Audience Mission Tech Context
- 11. Frankly, Green + Webb
- 12. Frankly, Green + Webb Academics + Curators studying the works of Robert Rauschenberg Everyone Who is your target audience?
- 13. Frankly, Green + Webb Undergraduates + Museum Educators Academics + Curators studying the works of Robert Rauschenberg Everyone Who is your target audience?
- 14. Frankly, Green + Webb Outcomes The RRP presents itself as something that makes me trust it to a very high standard. Curator …generally…I don't cite online material…but because of the rigor that was used in this project, I felt comfortable citing it. Graduate student • Greater & more diverse reach than comparable print catalogue • Viewed as a trusted Source & exemplar • Reached the primary audiences & beyond • Used widely by secondary audience [Recommended format for citation is] super super important…in terms of training our students in research and documentation” Professor
- 15. Frankly, Green + Webb Tips & Tools Don’t rely on demographic or quantitative data alone – get under the skin of your audience •Understand what they do, what they need, what they want •Identify their challenges & opportunities •Consider their level of drive Consider using: •Interviews •Observation •Narrated visits
- 16. Frankly, Green + Webb Stop thinking about what digital can do What do our organisations need to achieve? Mission Audienc e Mission Tech Context
- 17. Frankly, Green + Webb 1. Modernise 2. Stay Relevant 3. ‘Keep up’ with the market 4. Pressure from Trustees/Senior Management 5. Trends amongst vendors Drivers for Change to a New Technology?
- 18. Frankly, Green + Webb Outcome Lack of objectives for the service & evidence of impact has left digital services vulnerable to cuts
- 19. Frankly, Green + Webb Tips & Tools Identify what success & failure would mean to your organisation. •“The project is successful, what does that look like?” •“How will we measure that?” •“What measures will we put in place to manage the risks we have identified?”
- 20. Frankly, Green + Webb The Importance of Organisational Culture •Digital Literacy •Attitude •Capacity & Skills •Collaboration Context Audienc e Mission Tech Context
- 21. Frankly, Green + Webb With thanks to Amy Heibel
- 22. Frankly, Green + Webb Amazing people but…. •Organised in silos •Lack tools & structures to support collaboration •Low levels of digital literacy - awareness, confidence •High levels of fear - of digital, of failure •Unrealistic expectations What we see
- 23. Frankly, Green + Webb “If you get culture right, the technology will happen.” Amy Heibel, Technology, Web and Digital Media at LACMA
- 24. Frankly, Green + Webb Tips & Tools • Take a look at Digital R&D ACE/NESTA’s Digital R&D behaviours • Encourage playful engagement & exploration of digital • Reach out to other departments • Involve all the teams the project will affect right from the beginning • Accept it is slow work!
- 25. Frankly, Green + Webb Be open Be excited But engage critically… What affordances do these technologies offer? Technology Audience Mission Tech Context
- 26. Frankly, Green + Webb e: alyson@franklygreenwebb.com e: lindsey@franklygreenweeb.com t: @FranklyGW Images thanks to Flickr Commons: The hidden treasures of the Worlds Public Archives http://www.flickr.com/commons Created for: Presented by: Date issued: Museums Association Tech Festival Alyson Webb 21st January 2016
Notas del editor
- I’m delighted to welcome you all here today to the Museums Association tech Festival. we have a great lineup of exceptional speakers and presenters to come And I am delighted to see such a fabulous and diverse audience I’m from Frankly, Green + Webb. We work with Museums, galleries and historic sites to help them use digital more effectively Our work is a mixture of evaluation, design research, strategic planning, concept development and getting in up to our elbows in the implementation.
- In thinking about what I should speak about today I was struck by the fact that the MA has called the event a festival. Now a festival might bring to mind rather a lot of mud, too few ladies loos and arguments about who forgot the tent poles but, more than all of that, I think of festivals as an opportunity for celebration. So imagine my disappointment when, as I began to pull my presentation together, I read the 2015 ACE and NESTA Digital Culture Report.
- Visitors using a mobile guide are more likely to report a better than expected visit than non-users. Across all the studies visitors consistently report enjoying their visit more, learning more and exploring
- The ACE report suggests that since 2013 attitudes, activities and impact are either plateauing or actively in decline. Where originally we were buoyed aloft by optimism we are now challenged by some pretty hefty obstacles...
- If I’m honest, this wasn’t so much of a surprise to me
- You see in previous years I think we have all seen a lot of frankly crazy optimism about the way in which digital was going to ‘fix’ museums, when an app was the solution to every problem. But over the last year or 18 months I’ve seen something else. We have seen a number of projects fail to deliver on expectations and, subsequently there has been a loss of faith and that very retrenchment described in the report.
- But over the last year or 18 months I’ve seen something else. We have seen a number of projects fail to deliver on expectations and, subsequently there has been a loss of faith and that very retrenchment described in the report. While in so many areas of our lives the digital revolution is in full swing we seem to have hit a moment of doubt in the Museum sector. The story could have a bleak ending.
- In fact, I think there is an opportunity for all of you in this room to be the heroes in that story What would that look like? And what might it take to achieve. Well I’ll be honest. I can’t claim to have all the answers. We are all engaged in a work in progress – all our projects at this stage are essentially R&D projects - but i am fortunate to see a lot of projects and talk to a lot of visitors and Museum professionals so I thought today I would share just a few observations
- I’d to begin by taking a small step back to identify the categories we need to consider. A while ago Lindsey - my partner in crime at FGW - and I, sat at the kitchen table and tried to capture on paper what we thought were the factors affecting the outcome of digital projects. The idea was to have a model for thinking that both enabled us to analyse current projects and identify areas of opportunity for future projects. This is what we came up with. Forgive me if you’ve seen me speak about this before, but we continue to find it helpful in giving some structure to our thinking. Our experience – from observation and detailed evaluations is that the best results for digital come about when the experience or service: Meets the needs and motivations of the audience Aligns with the organisations objectives Is designed to work within the organisational and physical context And uses the appropriate technology
- I’m pretty sure that all of us in this room care about our audiences and we believe in what is often termed user centred design But following through on that can be hard All too often we see projects that attempt to please everyone - and in doing so fail to delight anyone Or Projects that are designed to address the needs & interests we THINK the audience has
- Just over a year ago, we were hired to carry out an evaluation of an online project. The project was just one of several exploring how museums could make the transition away from costly printed catalogues to web-based publications.
- Now, this was a surprising project in many ways but the first came when we talked about the audience. Now normally the conversation about target audience goes something like “well we really wanted to reach adults and families… and it would be great if...” In reality most people target the yellow circle here. This time however, the client said that their primary audience was “academics and curators studying the work of Robert Rauschenberg”. Quite a “niche audience”! To the point where they proceeded to give us a list of names!
- They had identified a secondary audience - undergraduates and museum educators - but importantly this secondary audience shared many of the same characteristics, behaviours and needs – but they absolutely focussed on that tiny red dot. I know this sounds scary. When you are running a digital project that costs thousands there is a natural desire to deliver for as many people as possible. When they first interviewed individuals from that red dot they got to really understand what this audience needed and how they used catalogues -and they are after all a very particular and demanding bunch. You may know some people just like them! The are looking for a wealth of detail, signs of authority and permanence Institutional involvement (SFMOMA, Getty, Rauschenberg Foundation) Well-known contributors Proper academic formatting and proper citations of the scholarly essays And they delivered on that in spades
- In fact by really understanding this target audience and respecting their needs, motivations and even fears the SFMOMA team achieved some outstanding results The catalogue was widely perceived as an exemplar – it was trustworthy and effective and proved that online scholarly catalogues are indeed possible But it also reached not only the primary target audience achieved a ripple effect – reaching out to that wider secondary audience While this secondary audience may not have such extreme needs or behaviours as that tiny target group they did indeed share the same characteristics – in fact some of them were really just curators in the making.
- Once you have identified that very specific target group you can look beyond but you need to make sure they share significant needs, behaviours and attitudes – this project could never for example work for families or non-art motivated generalists
- These first years of digital exploration have been a lot about us exploring what digital can do, how digital can do what we have always wanted to do but couldn’t. But, as a sector, we face some pretty steep challenges. I would like to suggest that now is the moment when We need to stop thinking about what digital can do and ask instead what do our organisations need to achieve? And then, can digital help with that? We need to set objectives for our projects and then measure progress and understand what is driving that progress
- While my first example for audiences was one of success, I’d like to share with you now an example of what can happen where it gos wrong Last year we carried out a study in the heritage sector. Our goal was to understand whether organisations had adopted a specific technology and where they had, how successful it had been. The specifics of the technology are of less importance here than the underlying ideas so I’ll not get bogged down in the details What we saw was that most of the organisations had adopted the new technology but when we asked why and with what result we discovered something surprising: The biggest drivers of this trend identified during the interviews included: Sense of the need to ‘modernise’ and ‘stay relevant’ Pressure from Trustees and/or Senior Management to ‘keep up’ with the market Trends in the market shaping technology on offer
- Broadly speaking The organisations were happy with the change they had made However, what became clear during the course of the conversations was that many of the people we spoke had anxieties. The introduction of the new technology had increased costs And, as finances became squeezed and services right across the organisation came under pressure, the lack of objectives and evidence around impact and value left them vulnerable Staff talked about the possibility of reducing or removing the services altogether
- We are firm believers in experimentation but we also want to know whether our experiments have succeeded so we can learn from them ACE and NESTA have reflected something similar by identifying the behaviours they see in the most digital active and successful organisations that includes objective setting and evaluation We have a detailed project process but at its heart sits a fairly simply list of questions: We ask these of everyone who is likely to contribute to or be affected by the project Being clear and open (internally and with vendors) about why we are doing a project, the nature and level of risk helps everyone – it’s a key method for supporting communication, reducing the blame culture and for growth of skills, knowledge and success It doesn’t prevent unexpected learning, changes in direction along the way but it does help everyone understand the journey and whether the destination has been reached
- Next I’m going to touch on context. What do I mean by this? Well There are a number of aspects to what I would consider under context. It includes for example both the physical environment – the challenges of digital in historic buildings for example - technical infrastructure and people I’m going to focus on the people and the organisation The R&D report – and my own experience - suggests that this is a key area of challenge for organisations in their bid to develop digitally and hits smaller organisations hardest where they may not have dedicated digital teams –
- Last year I was lucky enough to speak at a conference in a session with Amy Heibel. Amy heads up Technology, Web and Digital Media at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and when she put this image on screen it immediately struck a chord with me Because in so many places and on so many projects I see that it is the people and culture of an organisation that determines so much of success Technical skills can be bought but awareness, attitudes, openness is harder to buy in
- And this isn’t necessarily an issue of difficult individuals. Wherever we go we see amazing people who are often working in organisations that simply aren’t set up in a way that supports them to develop their use of digital. And I’ve had to learn, sometimes painfully, that changing this is slow, hard work But I’ve also begun to see some wonderful examples where people have taken the bull by the horns and started to make things happen
- Amy takes this challenge so seriously that she has brought in someone to work with individual memebers of staff to develop their personal digital skills. Not all of us can afford that approach. But another of her top tips was simply to find a person in your organisation – in another department. Someone who is open to new things, who maybe has a problem that needs fixing and simply to start working together – make it happen. And closer to home organisations here are setting up computer clubs and introducing new models for working together And this idea is an important one for us today – our speakers are briging new opportunities to share but only we can create an organisational culture that can let them blossom
- My top tips aren’t to hire a new person – tempting at that might seem – but to take time to explore and play and accept that change will come albeit slowly
- I’ve left technolgy - to last rather deliberately In fact I’m going to say very little given that we now have a wonderful line up of speakers to come I would simply like to invite you to be open, be excited but engage critically Keep a hold of your audience needs, your organisational mission and capacity and ask whether any of what you see today might offer you a way to achieve your objectives