working smarter, not harder with #digital in museums

Working smarter, not harder

RAMM, 31st October 2014

I’m Nick Poole

CEO of the Collections Trust, responsible for around

EUR19m in digital programmes in museums,

archives and libraries

The Collections Trust is...

...the professional association for people who work in

Collections Management

Collections Management is...

...the strategies, policies, processes and procedures relating to a collection’s

development, information, access and care

Going Digital

• Collections Trust programme supported by the Arts Council England

• ‘Back-to-basics’ on IT in museums

• Launch event at Tyne & Wear Museums & Archives, 17th November

• Free ‘How to...’ guide on implementing a simple IT audit• How to choose, implement & upgrade databases• Digitisation & Digital Asset Management• Generating revenue from digital

• http://www.collectionstrust.org.uk/going-digital

Digitisation: A Simple Guide

• New free guide by Natasha Hutcheson for Collections Trust

• Available from www.collectionstrust.org.uk

– Deciding to digitise– Deciding what to digitise– Choosing a camera– Choosing a scanner– A basic digitisation setup– Taking good photographs– Budgeting for digitisation– Glossary of terms

Digital...

...the single most unhelpful, catch-all term in the history of

museums.

Digital?

• Someone entering University this year was born in the same year (1996) that the Netscape browser was launched

• They’ll have been 11 when the app economy began, and they’ll have been 15 when Apple sold the 100 millionth iPad. There is no ‘online’ or ‘IRL’ for these people, no ‘digital’ or ‘physical’, it’s just life

• Their expectations in terms of value, interactivity, usability, quality and responsiveness & cross-platform compatibility have been forged in a highly competitive consumer environment

• What we’re working on is how you remain relevant, attractive and sustainable in light of the profound social & cultural changes happening in the wake of digital innovation

Digital Design Principles

• Start with needs*• Do less• Design with data• Do the hard work to make it simple• Iterate. Then iterate again• Build for inclusion• Understand context• Build digital services, not websites• Be consistent, not uniform• Make things open – it makes things better

• www.gov.uk/design-principles

(* Other people’s needs, that is...)

Mission

• Mission matters more than people think!

• Two commons types of museum Mission Statement

– “We are going to change the world,” or

– “We will collect and preserve the history and heritage of [insert name of town] and interpret it for the benefit of the public to support education”

• It doesn’t really matter what the words are. It matters whether you believe them, whether they inspire you and whether you are proud to say it out loud

Brand

• Pretty much every museum that succeeds in harnessing technology to their mission has a clear connection to their brand & its underlying values

• The brand is the expression of who you are, what you care about, how your museum feels about itself and the relationship you want to have with your audience

• Success in harnessing the power of any form of digital engagement means creating a ‘voice’ that is authentic to your brand

• Every member of staff should be a champion for the brand – if its controlled through the marketing team, you’ll never achieve reach and scale

Culture change

• A digital culture will get you through times of no strategy (or money) better than a digital strategy will get you through times of no culture

• ‘Digital’ is not a project, or a set of activities at the periphery

• It’s a process of ongoing culture change, embracing risk, agility, enterprise, experimentation and partnership – stuff museum Trustees really love

• Become a digital organisation – build it in, don’t bolt it on!

The ‘traditional’ museum...

Most cultural organisations operate in ‘vertical’ silos

Education Management Collections Retail IT

The ‘responsive’ museum...

Content Strategy

70’s “Collect Everything”

Content Strategy

70’s “Collect Everything”

80’s “Document Everything”

Content Strategy

70’s “Collect Everything”

80’s “Document Everything”

90’s “Digitise Everything”

Content Strategy

70’s “Collect Everything”

80’s “Document Everything”

90’s “Digitise Everything”

20’s “Publish Everything”

Content Strategy

70’s “Collect Everything”

80’s “Document Everything”

90’s “Digitise Everything”

20’s “Publish Everything”

10’s “Open Everything”

Content Strategy

70’s “Collect Everything”

80’s “Document Everything”

90’s “Digitise Everything”

20’s “Publish Everything”

10’s “Open Everything”

... “Curate Everything”

Content Strategy

70’s “Collect Everything”

80’s “Document Everything”

90’s “Digitise Everything”

20’s “Publish Everything”

10’s “Open Everything”

2014 “Curate Everything”

20’s “Everything Everywhere”

Content Strategy

• “If you build it, they won’t necessarily come”

• Collections-based content adds depth & value to the web/mobile experience

• As far as possible, the strategy needs to be designed around the needs and expectations of the specific audiences

• What you share, and how openly you share it, depends on the use cases you want to support & the relationship you want to have with your visitors

HRP Strategic Planning

VISITOR JOURNEY

7 ‘personas’

ANALYTICS & CUSTOMER DATA ASSET MANAGEMENT

IT INFRASTRUCTURE

CHANGE PROGRAMME

The ‘user journey’...

...describes how people discover your museum, what they do while they’re there and how you maintain the

connection after they leave.

The key challenge for collections is to find ways of enhancing and extending the user journey so that people are:

•More likely to discover the museum

•More likely to engage with the museum

•More likely to develop a lasting relationship with the museum

‘Create Once, Publish Everywhere’

• If collections and collections-based information are to play their part in enhancing and extending the visitor experience, they need to be discoverable and usable outside the museum and its website

• ‘COPE’ is the Collections Trust’s strategy for developing collections information and collections-related content that supports:

• Collections care• Collections discovery & re-use• Learning and intepretation• Visitor engagement

COPE in practice, from this...

COLLECTIONSDOCUMENTATION

COLLECTIONSDOCUMENTATION

DIGITAL ASSET MANAGEMENTDIGITAL ASSET MANAGEMENT

INFORMATION / RECORDS

INFORMATION / RECORDS

SYSTEMS OF RECORD

SYSTEMS OF ENGAGEMENT

USER CHANNELS & PLATFORMSBYOD

Museum website

Gallery interactives

Social media

Aggregators

To this...

Digital sustainability

• ‘Digital’ is not a business model

• There are three main patterns:

– Find a way of getting people to pay for your digital content

– Give your digital content to someone else to sell (eg. picture libraries)

– Make use of your digital content to funnel more people at your existing business model (merchandising, retail, event hire, donations)

• The critical finding for your line-manager is that if they don’t invest, you can’t deliver

Digital rights

• From risk-averse to managed risk

• A solid ‘take down first, figure it out later’ policy is your friend!

• New indemnity for Orphan Works, but still too expensive for most

• Changes to UK copyright law on 1st October provide specific exceptions for museums which permit copying for preservation & format-shifting

• Don’t let the problem get any worse – capture rights information on an ongoing basis (SPECTRUM Rights Management procedure is a good place to start)

Thankyou!

www.slideshare.net/collectionstrust

www.collectionstrust.org.uk

@NickPoole1@CollectionTrust