Developing Digital Strategies

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Michael Parry

michael.parry@acmi.net.au

michael.parry@phm.gov.au

@vaguelym

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Museums & the Web Asia 2013

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Now: Deputy Director, Australian Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne

Soon: Director Public Engagement, Powerhouse Museum, Sydney

Australian Centre for the Moving Image

Powerhouse Museum

WORKSHOP SCHEDULE

2:00-2:30

2:30-3:30

3:30-4:00

4:00-4:30

4:30-5:00

5:00-5:30

Why, Benchmarking (and You!)

Examples & Frameworks

Break: Afternoon Tea

Content Plans & Digital Roadmaps

Workflows, People & Governance

Evaluation & Measurement

It’s not that hard.

It’s just coloured circles.

It’s not that hard.

It’s just coloured geometry.

Why?

Why even bother?

“No one under the age of 20 even talks about ‘digital’ anything anymore… lasting impact is found not in a raft of evolving technologies, but in our changing needs and behaviours”

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Sejul Malde (Culture24 UK)

Cultural Sector / Change Research

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Why?

“Digital media touches every aspect of a modern organisation...you need to know what you’re doing digitally. You need to have a convincing story. We call this story a strategy. It tells you what you will achieve with your digital engagement and how you will get there.”

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Visser/Richardson

www.digitalengagementframework.com

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Why?

“Creating a digital strategy is a chance to bring some order to the chaos that is most organisations approach to digital.”

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Paul Boag / Smashing

Why?

It forces us to answer difficult

organisation wide questions

Our online visitors are as important as our physical visitors?

Why aren’t we promoting my project?

Is that marketing?

No, it’s educational content

We are selling this? I thought we had open data?

That’s not on brand

but I’m the expert

Can’t we just put it on YouTube?

Why isn’t this digitised?

If we show them that content, they won’t come to the exhibition

Do I have to moderate that?

API OAI-PHM CIDOC/CRM

Our voice should be more authoritative

Why are we building an app?

we don’t own it

Definition / 1

“Strategy is about focus and direction. Strategy is about sacrifice and tough choices….put simply it’s about making tough calls on what to do – choosing the path that leads to success and neglecting the many paths that do not.

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A digital strategy outlines how to leverage all assets, people and resources available to apply digital in the most meaningful way to help the business win.”

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Simon Corbett / Slingshot Digital

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Winning is easy in business, you make money. In a cultural org defining what winning looks like can be harder...

Definition / 2

“...take a holistic view of technology in our organisation and how can we plan strategically to do more of it, do it better, and with greater sustainability and impact?”

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Digital Benchmarking / Collections Trust

Collections Link / Digital Benchmarks for the Cultural Sector

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So winning may look like more, better, sustainable and with impact?

Benchmarking

Digital Benchmarks

Nick Poole (@NickPoole1) Collection Trust UK

youtube.com/watch?v=V28M3DoleC8

www.collectionslink.org.uk/discover/sustaining-digital/1608-digital-benchmarks-for-the-culture-sector

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Digital Benchmarks: Core Areas

Strategy

People

Systems

Digitisation

Content Delivery

Analytics

Engagement

Revenue

Digital Benchmarks

Your Turn!

• Where does your organisation sit on this axis?

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• Where do you think is desirable to be on that axis in the medium term?

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ACMI

ACMI

• Digital is part of our mission/purpose;
• Digital projects and concepts are embedded in our business planning; but
• Digital Strategy is still a separate overlay in ongoing development

ACMI Purpose Statement

ACMI presents and champions the art and culture of the moving image, inspiring people to engage richly with creative practice as it evolves globally and locally.

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We celebrate excellence in art, film, television, videogames and digital culture, and explore their contemporary dynamics and evolving futures. We support innovation by fostering new ideas and talent, learning, research and collaborations in Australia and worldwide.

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Our vibrant exhibitions, screenings, events, workshops and collections invite people to experience, create and share in today’s connected world, and help shape screen culture as it changes our lives.

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Artistic Principles

• Illuminating Context
• Transformational Encounters
• Participatory Culture: We act as a studio space which nurtures collaboration among makers and audiences, to explore and generate new directions. We provide an accessible, stimulating environment supporting co-creative, user-generated and socially networked activity.
• Global Dynamics

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Frameworks & Examples

Approaches to Digital

• Smithsonian
• Tate
• Culture24
• Imperial War Museum
• ACMI
• Melbourne Museum
• Cooper Hewitt
• V&A
• Smashing Magazine
• Digital Engagement Framework (Visser/Richardson)

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Smithsonian “Web & New Media Strategy” (2009)

Eight goals, each of which has its own set of policy, program, and tactical recommendations.

1. Mission: Prioritize Web and New Media programs in proportion to their impact on the mission
2. Brand: Strengthen brand relationships throughout the Smithsonian
3. Learning: Facilitate dialogue in a global community of learners
4. Audience: Attract larger audiences and engage them more deeply in long-term relationships
5. Interpretation: Support the work of Smithsonian staff
6. Technology: Develop a platform for participation and innovation
7. Business Model: Increase revenue from e-commerce fundamentals and Web 2.0 perspectives
8. Governance: Design and implement a pan-Institutional governance model

smithsonian-webstrategy.wikispaces.com/Executive+Summary+and+Moving+Forward

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Tate

First strategy: Tate Online Strategy 2010-2012

More recently: Tate Digital Strategy 2012-2015

“Digital as a Dimension of Everything”

Tate Online (2010)

1. Tate’s website is for Tate’s online audience
2. The website is both a platform for publication and for interaction
3. The website must be alive with thoughts, conversation and opinion
4. Online content, commerce and community are intermixed
5. All webpages are the start of a range of possible user journeys
6. Content owners manage their content
7. Online content needs to be open and shared
8. Content and interaction should be taken to the online audience
9. Personalisation will improve visitors’ experience
10. The website must be sustainable

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Tate Digital (2012)

Tate’s audiences will have digital experiences that:

• increase their enjoyment and understanding of art
• provoke their thoughts and invite them to participate
• promote the gallery programme
• provide them with easy access to information
• entice them to explore deeper content
• encourage them to purchase products, join Tate and make donations
• present an elegant and functional interface whatever their device
• take place on the platforms and websites they use
• minimise any obstacles they may encounter

To achieve this, we will take an approach that is:

• audience-centred and insight-driven
• constantly evaluated and enhanced
• well designed and architected
• distributed across multiple platforms
• open and sharable
• sustainable and scalable
• centrally governed and devolved across the organisation

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Tate Strategy Structure

• Digital Principles
• Content
• Digital Collections
• Digital Publications
• Digital Gallery Content
• Digital Editorial Content
• Digital Community
• Blogging, Social Media & Third Party Platforms, Learning & Social Collections
• Revenue
• Ticketing
• Digital Products & eCommerce
• Multimedia Content on Devices
• Digital Fundraising
• Customer Relationship Management
• The Organisation
• Staff Skills and Engagement
• New Ways of Working (Content production & teams - Hub and Spoke)
• Governance & Leadership
• Analytics & KPIs

Culture24

Organisational Strategy (2013)

“So consider dealing with digital change by tearing up your digital strategy. Instead use digital tactics and tools to produce fit-for-purpose content, audience-focused research and a culture of honest collaboration. Build these into your wider mission and into the core of your organisation and you will be better ready for change.”

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http://weareculture24.org.uk/projects/action-research

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Culture 24

(Un)Strategy

“...tear up your digital strategy...” - but:

• Develop relevant content, not just digital products

Less shiny/disposable products - more ongoing content and materials that support your mission

• Embed research to understand your audiences

Make sure you understand who you are building for. Prototype before you build

• Promote collaboration, not just competition

“The value of digital is not just as a useful set of technologies, but as a shared collaborative agenda that can shine light on other areas of mutual knowledge and learning”

Museum Victoria

Organisation Strategic Plan 2013-18, one of five key focus areas is Digital Transformation

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“Keeping up with the continually shifting digital environment requires organisations to be forward-looking and agile. This presents both a challenge and opportunity for museums, which must reposition themselves to operate effectively in the digital age. At its heart, this means changes in the way that people think, work and interact”

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museumvictoria.com.au/pages/1711/mv_strategic_plan_2013-18.pdf

MV Initiatives - Next 5 Years

• Staff incorporate digital systems into their daily work
• Identify roles to have a digital profile
• Staff capability, leadership in digital thinking, change readiness
• Continue: collection registration and digitisation

• Our digital systems and platforms enable flexible content generation
• Fostering open-access mindset
• Redevelop online content management, multi-channel delivery
• Enhance: online partnerships, delivery of content to partners, realtime broadcast

• Our digital infrastructure meets our business needs
• Improve ease-of-use, convenience and security for electronic transactions
• Enhance wireless systems and infrastructure to support in-museum content delivery

Imperial War Museum (UK)

A focus of digital strategy:

• Develop confidence, initiative and digital capability of staff at all levels, so that they embed digital instinctively into their work
• The Digital Media team become consultants and facilitators, rather than being the only ones “doing digital”

V&A Principles

Rather than write a strategy which would soon go out of date, the V&A created a framework of guidelines for content:

• Be audience focussed
• Mobile first
• Treat content creation separate from delivery
• Use short planning cycles and product lifespaces
• Make faster, smaller changes to services
• Have clear governance and processes
• Objective-based planning/evidence based review
• Review and rationalise technology
• Use open data drive as default
• A common direction, not necessarily a destination

slideshare.net/museumscomputergroup/movingtodigitalfirst

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Cooper Hewitt

“How do we deal with the inherent challenge of incomplete research records, poorly digitised objects, variable knowledge and the reality of questionable acquisitions….one common institutional response is to pretend they don’t exist. But the alternative approach is to celebrate these inconsistencies”

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“It is the rough hewn bowl, not an angular refined box. Consider how your museum could be a ‘a bowl’ rather than ‘a box’”

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Seb Chan / issuu.com/forwardretreat/docs/digest

Wabi-sabi celebrating the impermanence, imperfection, and incompleteness, the small and the intimate.

Cooper Hewitt

But key themes:

• Acknowledging change from authoritative/we are in control > visitor is in control, we are a service provider, authority is contextual
• Embedding digital in the organisation and fabric of the building
• Accelerate in-house production (prototype, regular pattern of release, minimum viable product)
• “Promiscuous” Collaboration: Google Art Project, Art.sy, Behance, Laynrd, etc and exploring many platforms to deliver: Github, Many Eyes, Ushahidi,
• Using the Network (ie. everyone else has the same stuff, so provide useful hooks to connect them (persistent identifiers)
• New (digital) challenges for collecting and presentation: born digital assets, algorithmic objects, videogames, user interface design itself

Paul Boag / Smashing

“A traditional business strategy focuses on two key components; a long term roadmap and budget forecasting. Unfortunately both of these elements are hard to replicate in a digital strategy. Creating a digital strategy that looks 3–5 years ahead is an unrealistic expectation. Technology just moves too fast for that.”

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smashingmagazine.com/2013/07/18/you-want-to-write-a-digital-strategy/

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A digital strategy needs to focus more on creating policies, priorities and people who can be trusted to make the right decisions as new technologies emerge, rather than defining everything up front. As the old adage says, its about “teaching a man to fish”

Boag / Policies

One example: a social media policy.

What are staff allowed to say on social media?

What is acceptable and unacceptable?

Other policies to consider: Accessibility, Content removal, Development standards (including coding standards), Testing requirements (including device and browser support), Writing style, Design style, Crisis management

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Boag / People

Who makes decisions about different digital elements?

Who actually does the work?

How do you manage resource allocation?

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Boag / Priorities / Roadmap

• A rough timeline of development priorities (as far as two years ahead)
• When looking further ahead the level of detail should be reduced
• Make clear it is subject to change as the digital landscape alters

Boag / Budget & Resources

Start by shifting management thinking away from a series of fixed cost projects to a program of ongoing development - much better suited to the evolving nature of digital

Boag / Content Strategy

“Content strategy plans for the creation, publication, and governance of useful, usable content...defining not only which content will be published, but why we’re publishing it in the first place”

At its best a content strategy defines:

• key themes and messages
• recommended topics
• content purpose (i.e., how content will bridge the space between audience needs and business requirements)
• content gap analysis
• metadata frameworks and related content attributes
• search engine optimization (SEO)

A framework based on a structured set of questions

that provide the building blocks for a digital engagement strategy.

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Developed by Jasper Visser (@jaspervisser) and Jim Richardson (@SumoJim)

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Digital Engagement Framework

digitalengagementframework.com

Example: Exhibition Campaign

Audience Mapping

Engagement Phases

Conversion

So is this a Strategy or Process?

“if you're not embarrassed by your digital strategy six months after sign-off you probably haven't done it right”

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“ultimately, devising and implementing a digital strategy is (probably) a necessary process to go through but it's not a goal in its own right”

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“...is implementing a digital strategy like gardening? It needs constant care and feeding after the big job of sowing seeds is over. And much like gardening for pleasure (in the UK, anyway), the process may have more impact than the product.”

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MIA RIDGE (paraphrasing from Museums Association UK Conference 2012)

So, some options

1. Write a Digital Strategy, but keep in mind it’s as much a process as it is a product
2. No stand alone Strategy: just write it into your holistic Business/Org Strategy
3. Leave your organisational plan where it is, and focus on a Content Strategy

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Unless you are in a very mature social business* already...I’d advocate trying 1.

*Do (1) and (2) sound like an organisation you know?

A social business consists of three unique and critical aspects:

1. It create and delivers most of its value over the network, usually indirectly (i.e. not centralised production, but via peer production)
2. It consists of a loosely coupled entity of partners comprised of – usually a large number of – customers and suppliers who have as much control over outcomes as any other part of the business, and
3. It has effective strategies to take advantage of the new balance of abundance and scarcity along with greatly reduced dependencies on the old balance

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Social Business By Design: Transformative Social Media Strategies for the connected company - Hinchcliffe/Kim (2012)

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So that’s a lot of different things to consider...

(So far...) ACMI Strategy

Principles

Community & Experiences

Organisational

Objectives

Community & Experiences

Organisational

Key Actions

Develop: Road Map

Link to: Audience Development Strategy

Develop: Content Strategy (inc Social Media)

Improve: Workflows and Production

Improve: Analytics, Measurement & Reporting

Implement: Governance, Guidelines, Culture Change & Training

Evaluation & KPIs

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Digital Strategy

Content Plan

All Platforms, channels inc. Social

Guidelines

Policy, Style Guides, Voice

Workflows, People & Governance

Training, Peer Support

Analytics, Evaluation & Feedback

Digital Road Map

Audience Development Plan

Afternoon Tea!

Digital Strategy

Content Plan

All Platforms, channels inc. Social

Guidelines

Policy, Style Guides, Voice

Workflows, People & Governance

Training, Peer Support

Analytics, Evaluation & Feedback

Digital Road Map

Audience Development Plan

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2

Today...

Content Plan

Digital Roadmap

Workflows, People & Governance

Evaluation & Measurement

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Content Plan

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Content Plan

“A content plan tells you what content you need to make your digital engagement strategy happen. Ideally, such a plan is a combination between the content you already have, content you can easily produce and selected high value content you will specifically produce for your digital engagement strategy. A content plan helps you manage and recycle content.”

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Visser/Richardson

Content Plan / Channels

• Select your channels, make them work for you and your audiences
• Strategy is also about what you choose not to do

Reality Check from DEF

Quality is not defined by the number of channels you use or elaborate systems you devise.

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It is defined by keeping it simple enough for everyone to understand.

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“Unfortunately, most of your audience will only see a fraction of your digital engagement strategy. They miss most of your social media updates, hardly read any of your blogs, happily ignore important press releases and don’t care about the lively discussions going on. The simpler your strategy (few channels, straight forward high quality content, clear invitations, etc.) the more likely people are to stay with you, even when they miss some of your updates”

Can you sum it up in a statement?

“Our digital strategy is all about adding an extra layer to a physical visit so our visitors stay in touch with us. We share high quality additional content on a blog that stimulates debate, celebrate contributions on our social media channels and contribute with our own voice to discussion. We keep in touch with a regular newsletter and our website.”

Conversely, don’t underbake the opportunity

“Everyone sort of grudgingly accepts that ‘digital’ is something you need to at least pretend to be doing but the situation hasn’t quite reached the point where reality has caught up, we can still kid ourselves that having a website and ‘doing Twitter and Facebook’ is enough.”

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Ash Mann

bigthingsandlittlethings.co.uk/2013/11/04/digital-in-the-arts/

i.e. go beyond the knee-jerk ‘enhancing the physical visit’

Example: Spectacle / Cut to the Beat

ACMI has teamed up with triple j and rage to give up-and-coming directors under the age of 30 the chance to make a music video for Jinja Safari's track 'Mombassa on the Line'. If your video is selected as the winner it will be played in Spectacle, and you'll receive a trip to L.A. where it will be included in one of Flux's quarterly screenings at the Hammer Museum, UCLA.

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Cut to the Beat

• Entries now closed
• Finalists announced January 21
• Winner announced February 13
• 114 Entries
• The exhibition opened back in September

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www.youtube.com/watch?v=zkfFLf_6e3A

www.youtube.com/watch?v=O_xw3bgdrqQ

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Apply to DEF Model

Assets

Audience

Reach

Engagement

Music Lovers

Younger Film/Digital Makers

Existing JJJ/Rage Audience

Potential Exhibition Attendees

Existing Band Fan Base

You Tube

JJJ Website

JJJ Radio

Rage TV

In Gallery Display

ACMI Website

Facebook/Twitter

Original Song

‘Crowd’ generated videos

JJJ/Rage Expertise

Our curatorial expertise

In Gallery Experience

Flux Relationship

Travel Partner

Interest

- Promotion (all channels)

- Views on YouTube

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Involve

- Competition

Activate

- Sharing/Resharing

- Announcement

- Exhibition

ACMI Channels/Platforms

ACTIVE

Website

Digital Ads (placed)

Search Ads

Facebook

Twitter

YouTube

iTunes (podcasts)

Flickr

Blog

Linkedin

Google+

Educators Lounge (Ning)

Specific Exhibition Microsites

In Gallery Interactives/Socially Linked

Audio/Media Guides

Various Games, Apps, Toys

Email News (General, Members, Education)

Other Stand Alone Projects

Generator (Online Digital Workshop Space)

15 Second Place

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POTENTIAL

Instagram

Pinterest

Vimeo

Tumblr

Thingiverse

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MONITORED

Trip Advisor

Wikipedia

...and many more

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Exercise

Working it Out

• Select upcoming project
• Identify Assets
• Existing
• Easy
• New High Value
• Identify
• Platforms & Channels
• Identify Audience
• Identify Engagement
• Interest
• Involve
• Activate

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Done this before

• Take a recent project
• Identify Assets
• Which were most successful & why
• Identify
• New platform opportunities?
• Audience
• Which hit/missed?
• Engagement Method
• Did these loops work?

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DEF Model

Assets

Audience

Reach

Engagement

Channels

Digital Roadmap

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Boag / Priorities / Roadmap

• A rough timeline of development priorities (as far as two years ahead)
• When looking further ahead the level of detail should be reduced
• Make clear it is subject to change as the digital landscape alters

Road Mapping: Considerations

• For each key platform you are on: how does it change over time?
• When do new programs, products or content get introduced or cease?
• How often are you going to review the Road Map?
• How do you best involve your organisation in developing (and owning) the map?
• Look at existing projects/initiatives: how do these need to fold in or be acknowledged?

Example: NYC Digital

www.nyc.gov/html/digital/html/roadmap/roadmap.shtml

Exercise

• The top three issues for your Digital Roadmap
• For your organisation, what time frame of roadmap makes sense?

Workflows, People & Governance

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Governance

Who sets the strategy and goals?

Who ensures the resources are available?

Who reviews success?

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Digital “Protectionism”

“With digital spread out across many different areas it can be hard to know who is creating what and it doesn’t seem as if efforts are being coordinated. Digital should be deconstructing organizational silos. Instead, in museums, it is building the silos up. The problem with silos is that nobody knows what others are doing and it’s hard to work together. It stops the flow of creative content for digital media which is a missed opportunity.”

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Mairin Kerr

http://www.edgital.org/2012/12/28/my-precious-digital-protectionism-within-large-museums/

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V&A Organising

slideshare.net/museumscomputergroup/movingtodigitalfirst

ACMI Structures

Digital Strategy Steering Group

The DSSG provides strategic leadership for our digital agenda. It provides the planning and strategic function guiding all digital engagement and programming at ACMI. It’s scope includes:

• Digital onsite, offsite & online
• Whole of organisation systems
• Facilitator and sponsor for all digital programs
• Content publication
• Digital Audience development

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...more

Digital Reference Group

• Provides expert guidance and advice to the Digital Strategy Steering Group.
• Assists with making decisions and planning, as well as leading implementation, support and coordination for new projects, change or maintenance.

Workflows

Who does what when?

Who is enabled to produce content and outputs?

Workflows

Exercise

Working it out

• Take your example again: Can you link this to your organisational goals?
• How is your organisation decision making aligned to it?
• Do you need to (re)establish workflows to support it?

Done this before

• What is your best workflow? Why does it work? What does this tell you about how you need to improve other less successful flows?

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Analytics, Evaluation & Feedback

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“Starting with value first is a better plan. If your museum’s strategic plan does not have clear metrics that help you know what success looks like, then a document that describes what they are and how they are measured would be much more useful to the museum than a technology strategy”

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Rob Stein

museumsandtheweb.com/mw2012/papers/blow_up_your_digital_strategy

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Measurement

Tate

• Content: visits, repeat visits and dwell time
• Community: numbers of comments, followers, and sharing
• Revenue: sales, customer data, donations, and efficiency savings
• Organisational change
• staff survey data
• numbers of staff blogging and active on social media
• milestones for training development
• establishment of new governance and processes

Measurement

Cooper Hewitt

• Increased Visitor Diversity
• Increased Dwell Times
• Repeat Visitation
• Internal Innovation
• Collecting Capacity

ACMI Reporting / Monthly

• Visitation
• Top Pages
• Traffic Sources
• Top Keyword Searches (Organic)
• Online Ticket Sales
• Membership Sales
• Top Downloads (across platforms)
• Facebook: Likes/Reach/Demographics/Referrals/Landing Pages
• Twitter: Followers, Referrals/Landing Pages
• YouTube: channel views
• e-news: sent/open/clicks/unsubscribes/bounces/engagement + Top click throughs
• Search Engine Marketing: Lead Generation
• Selected captures/highlights from Facebook, Twitter (ours and between community)

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Exercise

Working it Out

• For the project or concept you developed earlier - suggest some useful measures that will tell you if it’s working
• Can you link them to your organisational goals?

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Done it all before

• What measures are you currently using, and why are these useful to you?
• Are you acting on the insight you get? Tell us about how you improved

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Digital Strategy

Content Plan

All Platforms, channels inc. Social

Guidelines

Policy, Style Guides, Voice

Workflows, People & Governance

Training, Peer Support

Analytics, Evaluation & Feedback

Digital Road Map

Audience Development Plan

What will stop you?

“Over 60 per cent of arts and cultural organisations report that they are constrained in their digital activities by a lack of staff time and funding, and over 40 per cent report a lack of technical skills such as data analysis and database management”

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Organisations identify a number of sources of advice and expertise as enablers for their digital work: 69% say that informal mentors, networks and partners are their most important sources, followed by in-house research/data analysis (59%) and help from funding bodies (58%)

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Digital R&D Fund for the Arts, England’s £7 million programme established by Nesta, Arts Council England and the Arts and Humanities Research Council to support experimentation with digital technologies in the arts.

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From Digital Culture: How arts and cultural organisations in England use technology

native.artsdigitalrnd.org.uk/digitalcultureresearch/

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‘A digital culture will get you through a time without a digital strategy much more than a digital strategy will get you through a time without a digital culture’

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Nick Poole

Image Credit

http://www.flickr.com/photos/x-ray_delta_one/4111574611/