Institutional Advocacy
From Digital-JumpStart
(notes from Alex Capriotti, Skirball Cultural Center, Los Angeles, acapriotti@skirball.org
What are we interested in? -Interested in how to get the message out -Cultural change within an organization -Institutional slowness v speed of technology -Strategy for technology; honing in on needs -Networks and people -Marketing v content -Reorganizing
•Themes -Future -Marketing -Content -Marketing/content -Technology
•Institutional slowness -Change -Lack of resources -People --In the institution --Outside the institution -Law of increasing expectations --What do we turn off so we can turn other things on -Measuring the impact of new technologies --Resources v results
•What is strategy? -Strategy is a plan of action, not just talk -Unless there is an agenda and action items from the meeting, it is a social gathering -Being strategic=creating a plan of action, organizing -Control strategy by creating a vision statement, agree on it, and vet every tactical decision against the vision statement -TATE just released their technology strategy --Everything they initiate has an exit strategy --However, a fundamental point of technology is obsolescence --With online communities based around an exhibition, we need to accept that, after the exhibition, we may lose that following, but it is important that they were there and they may stay as part of another of your communities
•Values -Right now, it is much easier to ascribe values to physical programming and not to new media programming -Do we print materials for a new exhibition or do we put our resources into a digital initiative -Comfort level with letting go of things we have always done --Justifying why a new social media campaign might be a better way to go than creating and printing catalogs -The more time you invest in stopping to write things down, the better --Even with business plans that often state the obvious -Share observations
•What’s the purpose of new technology? -Solution before problem
•Are our audiences online? -YES! -Do our audiences’ expectations match up with what we are producing? --They may not be expecting new media, but they will be pleasantly surprised -People who are visiting museums are using new media at a greater rate than other communities
•Metrics -Podcasts being downloaded --Curator’s talks, etc. -Need to find a way to have outcomes, exit strategies, and find ways to track them
•Building support within -MUGS—museum users group (Linda Kelly) -Safe place for people to ask questions about media
•Institutional involvement -New media needs to be a part of all staff jobs -Build an internal network --Community of interest --Crossing over between marketing and content -Find out who in your organization is on Facebook -Justify why you came to this conference; use it as leverage for creating content and strategy for new technology initiatives -Managing up -Be opportunistic -It is extraordinary that new media at organizations is often being run by younger staff --And now, not only are we talking to people, but they are talking back at us --But, our docents, educators, and security staff have been having conversations with visitors on a day to day basis
•Purpose -Find the media space that is best for your audience -The web is ephemeral; not always important to regularly blog, tweet, etc. --However, after building a community, is sometimes hard to walk away from --The communities are somewhat fragile and need to be nurtured
