Presentation at RAMM in Exeter on how museums are working smarter by building technology into the range of their work.

1. Working smarter, not harder
RAMM, 31st October 2014

2. I’m Nick Poole
CEO of the Collections Trust,
responsible for around
EUR19m in digital
programmes in museums,
archives and libraries

3. The Collections Trust is...
...the professional association
for people who work in
Collections Management

4. Collections Management is...
...the strategies, policies,
processes and procedures
relating to a collection’s
development, information,
access and care

5. 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

6. 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

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

8. 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

9. 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...)

10. 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

11. 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

12. 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!

13. The ‘traditional’ museum...
Most cultural organisations operate in ‘vertical’ silos
Education Management Collections Retail IT

14. The ‘responsive’ museum...

15. Content Strategy
70’s “Collect Everything”

16. Content Strategy
70’s “Collect Everything”
80’s “Document Everything”

17. Content Strategy
70’s “Collect Everything”
80’s “Document Everything”
90’s “Digitise Everything”

18. Content Strategy
70’s “Collect Everything”
80’s “Document Everything”
90’s “Digitise Everything”
20’s “Publish Everything”

19. Content Strategy
70’s “Collect Everything”
80’s “Document Everything”
90’s “Digitise Everything”
20’s “Publish Everything”
10’s “Open Everything”

20. Content Strategy
70’s “Collect Everything”
80’s “Document Everything”
90’s “Digitise Everything”
20’s “Publish Everything”
10’s “Open Everything”
... “Curate Everything”

21. 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”

22. 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

23. HRP Strategic Planning
VISITOR JOURNEY
7 ‘personas’
ANALYTICS & CUSTOMER DATA ASSET MANAGEMENT
IT INFRASTRUCTURE
CHANGE PROGRAMME

24. 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.

25. 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

26. ‘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

27. COPE in practice, from this...
BYOD PLATFORMS
COLLECTIONS
DOCUMENTATION
COLLECTIONS
DOCUMENTATION
Social
media
DIGITAL ASSET
MANAGEMENT
DIGITAL ASSET
MANAGEMENT
INFORMATION /
INFORMATION /
RECORDS
RECORDS
USER CHANNELS &
SYSTEMS OF
ENGAGEMENT
SYSTEMS OF RECORD
Museum
website
Gallery
interactives
Aggregators

28. To this...

29. 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

30. 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)

31. Thankyou!
www.slideshare.net/collectionstrust
www.collectionstrust.org.uk
@NickPoole1
@CollectionTrust