Collaboration can be transformative – Take homes from the CILIP executive briefing ‘Beyond Silos of the LAM’s

“Collaboration can be transformative”. This was the opening statement made by Gunter Waibel at the ‘Beyond Silos of the LAM’s’ event at CILIP on 15th September.

He used an analogy for collaboration being like a trapeze artist, swinging from one swing to another. In other words, something that requires an act of faith and a trust in yourself, your fellow flyers and the technology you are using.

Trust and risk were themes of the day. Who was willing to do both? It was clear that in most cases it was getting a mandate for collaboration from senior management that was necessary.

Case studies from V&A, Smithsonian and York Library and Archives all shared the presence of a clear vision, a belief and clarity about purpose and value that drives your ambitions. With this, securing the mandate for collaboration seems easier – as Stuart Dempster so nicely put it“ success breeds success”.

One thing that struck me was the question – What are the incentives to collaborate beyond personal success that so often (if we are honest) can be defined as trumping your partner? Guenter spoke accurately I felt, about the inherent tension in the fact that we are often measured “against each other – not really a natural state for collaboration”!

Maybe a way to deflect this dichotomy might be as Nick Poole suggested in his talk the need to collaborate “beyond our mates”. and consider wider collaboration with perhaps the creative industries, tourism, arts or commercial partners.

This mirrors my personal feelings that by far the biggest threat facing LAM’s is the risk of not collaborating beyond their mates – not to face outwards from the sector to the wider environment and the many places where cultural content could be of value (schools, broadcasters, publishers, bloggers and more).

Nick encapsulated this very well when he said “ we have a collective opportunity, we are all emerging from an ere of mass digitisation into something more nuanced and sophisticated.”

Left to right: Brian Kelly, Fiona Williams, Roy Clare, Nick Poole and Guenter Waibel

I was struck by the fact that within the Smithsonian, they face internally all the same issues that an individual museum, library or archive face in collaborating with others. With their 19 museums, 20 library branches, research facilities, archives and a zoo, they probably have as many objects as a small country! They are singlehandedly their own silo, but with a brand (a bit like the Tate), that needs no introduction.

My own presentation considered the issue of users, their needs and behaviour online. In particular what methodologies and tools are available to us now that could deliver more focussed user friendly services that have a collaborative model at their core.

You can view the presentation of slideshare here.

My essential premise took a specific profile of a 10 year old child sitting down to a computer in a library. It asked “why can’t the library’s online offer, engage the child to the same degree as the physical library?

It’s a very good question and one that is long overdue in asking. For me, the answers are all there for the taking – diverse content feeds, open data sharing, aggregation platforms and interface personalisation.

I would love to see my idea tried out in a library and then track the usage.

Any takers???

ippr and NMDC book launch ‘Learning to Live’: Museums, young people and education

I spend much of the Christmas holidays last year writing a chapter for a new book about museums, young people and education. The finished book, entitled ‘Learning to Live ‘ and published by ippr and NMDC jointly, was launched today at an extremely interesting event at the National Portrait Gallery. You can download a pdf here. The first panel was chaired by Jon Snow and speakers included Estelle Morris, Nicholas Serota, Dea Birkett, Virginia Tandy and David Anderson.

The focus of the discussion was on what some museums were already doing, that many needed to do more of, in order to engage and attract young people.

There was much agreement about the intrinsic value of learning and museums and the body of evidence that has been collected over recent years (Virginia’s work in Manchester in particular came out strongly). However the heart of the conversation lay around the widely acknowledge benefits of opening up the physical museum and gallery space to be more welcoming and to offer ways for young people to interact with what is going on. This could be by putting sofa’s in the gallery to allow kids to hang out or by getting rid of the desks in entrance halls and replacing them with meet and greet (to see how the retail world get this approach you just have to go into Jack Wills clothes store, any Saturday afternoon).

As Dea Birkett put it so nicely, “ many museums ask young people not to chat, not to sit down and not to use their mobile phones – three things that many of then find virtually impossible”.

Unsurprisingly my chapter in the book is about unlocking online opportunities which did come into the debate about half way through. When asked by ippr co-director Carey Oppenheim to say a bit more about my ideas I couldn’t help wonder what the digital equivalent was of putting sofa’s in museums for teenagers to sit on?

Maybe it is finding a way to make the museum collections comfortable within the kinds of spaces young people hang out in online? Maybe it is allowing them to pick out and take the stuff they like into their own spaces and reuse it – become the producers as well as the consumers (I first heard this phrase in the late 90’s in relation to a conference I ran at Lighthouse called ‘Catching Up with the Kids’ – see Julian Sefton-Greens book “Young People, Creativity and New Technologies: The Challenge of Digital Arts” … sometimes I do feel that the museums world are still playing catch up to the rest of the arts?)

There then followed a second panel of eight 11 to 15 year olds from London schools talking about their own particular experiences and reactions to the contact they have had with museums and galleries, both in school and with their parents.

They were a pretty articulate group who would dispel any stereotype that young people and museums don’t mix. They were very clear that what they liked was being made to feel welcome, to be able to touch and play with stuff and to have fun. Not really an unrealistic request and one that the sector is perfectly placed to respond to.

The book has a VIP launch at No10 next Monday and I hope that there is the chance to impress these messages onto those within government who could offer read leadership in this area. I shall invest in a new frock and do my best.

Andy Burnham, Boogie Woogie, HMS Belfast and Museums at Night

I had never been on board a destroyer until last week when we hosted the launch of the first Culture24 Museums at Night campaign on board HMS Belfast. What a great venue that is. Nestled right up next to Tower Bridge, across the water from the Tower of London, flags flapping in the breeze, shiny brass everywhere and an awe-inspiring array of gun desks.

We picked HMS Belfast to launch the event to our crowd of museum, arts and government VIP’s because they are one of the 150 venues that are taking part this year. Their specific offering is called ‘Battleship Boogie‘ and is an evening of live jive dancing. As part of our launch event we staged a sneek preview of the daning for our guests with live DJing from Jeff Duck from Two Tone Boogie (he also does a seriously mean jive in his wheelchair).

Thanks to the excellent photographic skills of Charlotte Macpherson we also managed to get some fabulous publicity shot to give to press.

In fact it all come together to be really good event, with a few words from our chairman John Newbigin and the lovely Andy Burnham, ever the genuine enthusiast and museum lover. Thanks to both of them for their kind words of support. You can see excerpts of the speeches on YouTube.

It is not to late to check out what is happening near your this weekend and go along. If you do, don’t forget to take your own pictures and upload them to our Flickr group.

Finally, need to mention the smooth and mellow live jazz care of Jim Howard and the perfect summer sunset care of mother nature. The ideal backdrop for a Culture24 team photo.

Excellence, good practice, failure and the McMasters report (oh yea and audiences as well…) Museums Association conference Liverpool 2008

The debate at the Museums Association Conference, Liverpool 2008 about reactions and issues from Brian McMasters report started to define some of the substantial challenges the DCMS are going to have in implementing the recommendations.

On a panel were Mick Elliott (DCMS), Andrew Whyte (ACE), Mark O’Neill (Culture & Sport Glasgow) and Journalist Maev Kennedy. Unfortunately, Brian McMasters was not able to attend at the last minute but was replaced by a colleague who has worked on the report with him.

As the session went it it became clear that there was an undercurrent of fear coming from some in the Museum sector, articulated best by Mark O’Neill, of this all ending up with a return to the kind of elitism that the Arts Council have been criticised of before. Not so, was the reply from Andrew Whyte, this was about professional judgement and there was a need for the sector to trust those professionals who might be in the peer review process to be just that – professional. He also said that is was up to DCMS to balance judgements with measurements, one providing the context for the other.

As an optimist, I am inclined to give him this trust as my concerns from this debate about how DCMS is going to translate McMasters ideas into reality, lie elsewhere.

1) The focus of the debate was on the user (hopefully) being at the receiving end of some sort of excellence in terms of an experience. But for me its not just about considering the user at the end of a piece of work. You need to start with the user at the beginning. If you don’t start here, with can you know what the user might need or care about? How can you assess the potential? How can you assess impact or reach?

2) Good practice is not just something that falls out of the blue, it is learned. So, if excellence is one step up from good practice then one step down from it is failure. However in this session the debate on the value of failure was missed out and there was no talk about what we can learn from failure. This is a area where I think peer review could play a key part, not just to assess excellence or good practice but also failure (and failure as part of the journey all organisations are on towards excellence). If this kind of shift in thinking could be embraced and the understanding of failure seen as a success, it may also help to counteract the fear of elitism that some feel.

Christopher Frayling at the Museums Association Conference, Liverpool 2008 – the historical and the contemporary.

Liverpool Docks

Sandy Nairn called it an ‘historical moment’ which makes it sound very grand but in one way it was. The chairman of the Arts Council addressing the Museums Association conference for the first time is a bit of a shock for an event whose focus is largely inwards and whose speakers are usually on the same side of the fence. But this was a refreshing change and overdue.

The vision to mix the ‘historical and the contemporary’ (see Arts Council Turning Point strategy) for me is the bleeding obvious. Christopher Frayling puts it very nicely as to view the past through the prism of the present. Something I think most people actually do in their everyday life anyway. When we look back, reflect, remember, investigate it is through the eyes and body of who we are in the ‘now’. That ‘now’ is always shifting, much as a lens has to refocus as you move further away from its subject.

The context of his speech was the much-discussed McMasters report (see my other session notes from the same event) and the commitment from both the Arts Council and MLA to work together more closely.

Much of his speech focussed on some beautiful examples of commissions and interventions that contemporary artists have made into museum and heritage spaces. Stuff like the New Visions programme at National Maritime Museum. Sarah Lucus at Freud Museum, the Science Museums “Listening Post, Carl Clerkin’s “ Short Crawlies” in Derby, or Susie MacMurray at Pallant House.

He drew a comparison between artists and curators calling them both creatures of curiosity. Both brilliant at looking not just seeing, both understanding visual drama and narrative and the powerful effect of the plinth and the frame.

He talked about what he sees as their shared interests and how it results in different approaches and values towards the same things e.g. a curator may handle a thing in white gloves or not at all, but an artist will wants to hold it and feel it..

Obviously this is a generalisation but usefully within the comparison is a real recognition of the comparative value of both, a notion that some may feel is new for the Arts Council who have in the past focussed more on the artist as the only central figure in any work.

Mostly his comments focused on the good stuff that curators have learned from artists and the ways in which artists have brought new interpretations to old stuff. He said “By introducing arts into the equation, the meaning of objects doesn’t end when they enter the museum”. Sadly, there was little reflection on how the meaning of art is influenced by the historic or by the curator. I would have liked him to have gone further into how artists can learn from curators or the museum space. What perhaps you might call looking at the present through the prism of the past perhaps?

Poet Andrew Motion to chair MLA

What great news, Poet Laureate and Professor of Creative Writing Andrew Motion has been selected to be the new chair for the new MLA (Museum, Library and Archive Council)

This has got to be a good thing that signifies a recognition of the need for the organisation to more closer to the kind of innovation, passion and creativity that is the domain of those who create and curate.

He says Bout himself on his website “I see myself as a town crier, can-opener and flag-waver for poetry as well as wanting to write poems about various events that seem suitable to me”

He was appointed Poet Laureate in May 1999 and has done a lot to raise awareness of poetry through school and festival visits and improve assess to work online through the The Poetry Archive which he co-founded – a web-based collection of poets reading their work.

“Part of my interpretation of the role is to demystify it and prove that no matter how sophisticated the language, poetry latches on to very primitive human pleasures of reflection and association – which we forget as we grow older at our peril.”

His appointment comes at the same time as Culture Minister Margaret Hodge announces plans to strengthen DCMS engagement in regional policy through a new, simplified and improved way of working.

This basically means (finally) “For the first time, the Department’s four key agencies in the regions – Arts Council England, Sport England, English Heritage and the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council – will have a duty to work together to jointly deliver a core set of shared priorities across the culture and sport agenda.”

I feel certain that Andrew appointment, and the fact that he was previously a member of Arts Council England and Chair of the ACE Literature Panel, will be a great help in making sure this new shared agenda and duty has any hope of being a reality.

Well done MLA.

Presentation to the NMDC (National Museums Directors Conference) March 08

Below is the text and slides from a presentation I was invited to make to the National Museums Directors Conference meeting about what I see as the current digital issues and opportunity that national museums need to know about.

There have been huge changes in recent years online such as the hype about Web 2.0, the blogging boom, delicious, Flickr, etc. Including some high profile projects from museums like the Launchball game from the Science museum whose popularity on the social bookmarking site DIGG took out their server.

Too much to talk about in ten minutes, so going to concentrate on three examples of interesting work that is happening at the moment that encompasses some of the key issues.

1. Powerhouse Museum, Sydney

Put online over 70,000 of objects from storage.
Built a system that invited and allowed users to tag objects with words that meant something to them.
The tags not only add meanings that sat alongside the curators tags but also created better links between data and search engines.

Within first three months every single object had been viewed.
Since launch in June 2006 over 25 million collection records viewed.
300% increase in overall traffic.
Proportion of website traffic engaging with collection up from 8% to 65% (collection is now integral part of why people visit the museum website)

They have developed a very nice way of treating the viewing of objects online (above).

Result is that they have in effect turned their museum inside out.
Opened up access and improved visibility to search engines.

Through their interaction with people, have brought knowledge back into the organisation about their collection.

At Powerhouse the success is driving organisational change- puts the collection back at the centre of the organisation (why they exist, why they are different to other ‘leisure attractions‘). Most popular three objects have never been on public display, up-turning internal perceptions about collections.

Culture24 is working with the lead developer at Powerhouse who is doing this work – Sebastian Chan – because we are working with him on our international project Culturemondo Seb writes an excellent blog called Fresh + New about their work that is well worth following.

Through my conversations with him, I know that it is not about big budget, but clever use of technology.

Their *particular* system is also giving them new ways of understanding their audiences.
Software their team has built to present the collection (recommendations engine, social tagging, smart ranking) is generating an enormous amount of business intelligence around their collection and how people use it.

The intelligence allows the Powerhouse to rethink its real world exhibitions, classification and documentation processes, and will lead to more effective communication to their audiences. It isn’t just that the collection is online … it is that it is usable, user-centric, self-learning, and dynamic.

Another project, just gone live that also uses tagging of collection but in this case they have put their collections into an existing online community.

1. Flickr ‘Commons’ project

The Library of Congress Pilot Project
Show the hidden treasures in the huge Library of Congress collection.
Show how with audience input, a tag or two can make the collection even richer.

Within the first *month*:
- Over 5 million page views for LoC Flickr account
- 60,000 tags, 10,000 unique (So, a tag “woman” added to 5 photos)
- About 400 people added one tag, all the way up to one person adding 5,000!
- Roughly 5,000 comments

This is where the gold is in terms of useful data. The LoC has already made about 12 updates to their catalogue based on corrections they’ve received via Flickr!

Also created so far about 10,000 new contacts to the Library’s account in Flickr, so new photos they publish will fall into the “photos from your friends” page, and into RSS feeds and such.

This project interconnects the historical and contemporary, creating relationships between the two, effectively making Flickr a huge record of living social history photography.

Third and final example if much closer to home.

3. Integrated Architecture project – Partnership with MDA and MLA.
- Vision for a unified ‘infrastructure’ for creating; managing and sharing information across the sector
- Way to bring together different systems to share data openly easily
- Delivering locally-based services from a national platform
- Uses what exists, cost-effective framework, greater impact and reach

This builds on work Culture24 have done championing data sharing across sectors. Things like our RSS feeds and our agreement with Visit Britain to provide them with all our event data for inclusion in their own site.

It is also informing our current work with LOCOG to provide them with UK wide event information about Cultural Olympiad for inclusion in all their online projects.

As well as our work that has just received support form DCSF and BECTA to get stuff in front of teachers, kids and families.

For me, the Integrated Architecture project is about collaboration and an understanding that the future of the online world resides in the ways that information comes together into services and structures that meet the needs of different users in different ways.

So could museums in UK do what Powerhouse has done?
Yes of course, but why not go further?
How about browsing across collections and institutions.
Searching across different organisations. Bringing together meanings?
I see this as the big opportunity and the recent changes at MLA I think offer a chance to be bold.

To work across sectors with ACE, Tourism, Creative Industries and address the fact that there is still a lack of any digital strategy in the UK cultural sector.

I think a good starting point is with the National Museums Online Project, which I am sure you all know about – as you have helped to support the consultancy work that is just beginning. As you know it initially brings together a few of the nationals – Science Museum, National Maritime Museum and V&A, with Culture24. Bridget Mackenzie from FLOW has been appointed to explore the possibilities for online collaboration between different nationals and their digital collections.

There are very exciting opportunities here to bring on board an even wider set of partners, people like, MLA, PCF, Art Fund, Arts Council and DCSF, and set a national agenda that is focussed on needs of users.

Creative Industries – £10m Call for Collaborative Research

On 30th January details about the £10m call for collaborative research projects, targeted specifically at the creative industries, will be announced and the competition formally launched. Full details about the call and how to apply will be posted on the technology programme website.

Objectives: In recognition of the importance of technology to the sector, as both an enabler and potential disrupter, the aim of the call is to stimulate technology based or inspired innovation. The call is looking for projects that will lead to the development of new products, processes, capabilities and services or improve the competitive advantages of existing ones.

Target Audience: The call is open to collaborative projects between UK based companies; and companies and universities/ other research organisations. The overall theme will centre on the exploitation of digital technologies and has been designed to appeal broadly across the creative industry sub sectors, and includes specific mechanisms to encourage participation of small companies.

For more information and to register for the workshops and or information launch, go to www.technologyprogramme.org.uk

Innovation & Excellence – McMasters report and shifting DCMS thinking (maybe)

The Guardian calls it bold and brilliant and I agree. Well done to him and to Mr Purnell. All credit to them.

It should be obvious I suppose but with years and years of number crunching and head counting it is hard to believe that this kind of approach is being embraced. He is not the first to champion the culture of risk, the value of failure, the trust needed in the artist/entrepreneur.

I love it because it supports the way I like to work and recognises the value of judgement and experience, which so often is intuitive, evasive and difficult to quantify.

The future for the Library – Library of Congress and Flickr?

Interesting report by UCL saying, as an article in the Times Higher Education puts it, “Researchers’ web use could make libraries redundant”

It certainly warns of the possibilities for the Internet to offer more choice to researchers, in more flexible ways then the physical library. But what a call to action this should be! The Libraries and archives are rich with content that can help in so many contexts – learning, research, exploration, serendipity, interrogation, story telling etc.

I love libraries, for me, they can be cultural spaces and at their best are as vital as the best galleries or museums. (I am lucky to live in Brighton whose library is beautiful and vital).

Maybe they could take a lesson from The Library of Congress in the US who have just done a fabulous project with Flickr. Described as “Your opportunity to contribute to describing the world’s public photo collections”.

What is interesting here is the historical imagery, that previously was hard to find, is made available to a huge existing online community. The photographic community within Flickr already engage in higher quality tagging and user generated content and Flickr already has a lot of ’similar’ contemporary content with which these historical images can be linked. This puts both sets of images into different contexts.

Of course, the other important part of the equation is that the Flickr’s API opens up interesting possibilities for combining the info into other projects or services. Innovation at its best.