Digital and cultural organisations:
Where are we now?
John Stack, Digital Director, Science Museum Group
3 July 2015

Digital is …

Digital is …
hard to define
• Technology
• Content
• Design
• Data
• Social media
• Copyright
• User generated content

Digital is …
part of everything
• Programme
• Marketing
• Research
• Collection access
• Commerce
• Education
• Visitor experience
• Brand

Digital is …
helping us
• Reach
• Niche
• Live
• Commerce
• Community
• Multimedia
• Interactivity

Digital is …
challenging us
• Too expensive and risky
• Too cheap and easy
• Doesn’t have a “right”
place in the organisation
• Doesn't respect
departmental boundaries
• Is changing quickly
• Is hard to measure
• Requires new skills
• Requires us to work differently

Audiences …

Audiences …
• Expect a high-quality,
seamless digital experience
• Have limitless access to
information
• Need help understanding this
information
• Are digital creators too and
need resources to use
• Have knowledge about the
collections that we don’t

We’re thinking about …

We’re thinking about…
experiences
• Online
• On gallery
• Holistically

We’re thinking about…
collections
• Digitisation
• Creative Commons
• Crowdsourcing

We’re thinking about…
narratives
• Telling stories through
the collections
• Engaging audiences
with contemporary science

We’re thinking about…
technology
• Solid foundations
• Sustainable
• Scalable

We’re thinking about…
organisational culture
• Audience data
• Skills
• Processes
• Innovation lab

Thank you