Five thoughts about digital engagement strategy after tens days in Sydney

I’m on my way back from Sydney, where I’ve participated in Intercom 2012 and given both a Digital Engagement Framework workshop at the State Library of New South Wales, and a masterclass for a group of institutions from Australia and the Pacific region. Summarising almost 2 weeks of intense digital strategy debate is a 500-word blog post is tricky, so I’ll leave you with some recurrent thoughts that might be of great value to you.

I definitely recommend you have a look at my Intercom 2012 presentation and – if you can – attend Sharing is Caring December 12 in Copenhagen, where I will discuss in depth these and other findings from a full year of digital engagement strategy development. For now:

“Readers, not books”

I don’t know who first signalled the change in focus of libraries from books to readers, but this has been a recurrent theme in my thinking the past days. For museums this would translate into “visitors, not objects” and down under I definitely see a growing understanding of this shift. I really think that, generally speaking, we’ve digitised enough objects from our collections for the coming decades and it’s about time we start spending these multi-million dollar budgets on actually reaching and engaging people.

Curators (will) have the sexiest jobs in the world

An article this summer in the UK edition of Wired explained how data analysts might well have the sexiest jobs in the world. With all data in the world available, it’s what you do with this that makes you shine and people who manage doing the coolest stuff will be on top of the career food chain. I immediately thought about curators and how they are the data analysts of museum collections. There job descriptions might have to change a bit, but as culture’s data analysts they will be the quants of a ‘cultural revolution’. Read the rest of this entry »

Duende, a story about digital strategy

Photo by Fransesco on Flickr.

Not too long ago in a meeting about the new online strategy of the Zeeuws Museum Claudia Urru reminded me of my favourite Spanish word, duende. It’s tricky to translate into English, but duende is the special moment when everything comes together, usually in performing art. To me, it is like magic. It is said a lucky person experiences duende at most a handful of times throughout his or her life.

They say you recognise duende when you experience it.

We talked about duende at the Zeeuws Museum, because I believe a great digital strategy is like magic. In a great digital strategy all the parts fit together perfectly and the sum is more than the parts. People are really involved, audiences engaged, staff energised. All the pieces fit. Amazing things happen.

Together with Jim of Sumo we developed a framework to make the pieces of a digital strategy fit. We call the framework the Digital Engagement Framework and it is meant to help your organisation develop ‘digital magic’. At MuseumNext this week I’ll run a workshop with about 40 people about the framework, taking them through the steps and creating (ideas for) a digital strategy from scratch in under 2 hours.

The Digital Engagement Framework, by Sumo and Inspired by Coffee. Read the rest of this entry »

6 social media trends in culture according to you

Photo by Simone Schoutens of Mediamatic.

Most of the workshops I run I conclude with a simple and effective game I call Bag It or Bin It*. Simply put I ask participants to summarise the main ideas of the workshop and put them into two categories: the ideas they will follow up (these go in the bag) and the ideas they never want to hear about again (these go in the bin). The result is a nicely coloured co-created do’s and dont’s list for the participants.

Minke Havelaar, with whom I run a series of workshops for Mediamatic’s Kom Je Ook?, has made a summary of a couple of Bag It or Bin It games we played about social media marketing strategy with cultural institutions. The result reads like a trend list for social media development in the cultural and non-profit sector. Especially interesting is what people put in their bags regarding the strategic use of social media.

So, what do our colleagues focus on when it comes to social media? Here’s 100s of ideas summarised in six clear trends:

1. Quantity versus quality of content
   Do’s include writing Tweets and Facebook updates according to best practices (short, images, etc.), the 9-1 rule for writing more about others than about yourself and thinking more strategically about each piece of content.
2. Measuring and analysing
   Participants planned to focus on metrics and tools such as Google Analytics, but also on writing reports about social media successes and outcomes for management and coworkers. Read the rest of this entry »

Next year: The strategy start-up

Photo by Sofia Torrão on Flickr.

This post will answer the number one question I’ve been asked after it became known the Museum of National History would cease to exist in January: What will I do next year? And to take away some worries immediately, I won’t be gone from the cultural sector. At least not entirely, as I will explain shortly.

Starting right after New Year I will be working on what we call a “strategy start-up”. Together with the talented digital producer, music enthusiast and my good friend Erwin Elling, I will start a company that will help others to use the opportunities of the 21st century strategically and sustainably, and create campaigns and strategies that add value to brands.

We call it a strategy start-up because on the one hand we will use the no-nonsense mindset of start-ups in approaching challenges, while at the same time we will look beyond the short-term objectives that often dominate (digital) projects.

Ever more organisations have taken successful first steps in the digital domain, and can pride themselves in an established traditional presence. Today, however, they’re faced with the question “what’s next?” How to turn Facebook fans into visitors? How to connect with completely new target groups? How to build a meaningful relationship with our audience that spans the physical and digital domain? How to make some money doing so?

That’s where we come in. Together with our future clients we will give workshops, training, co-create successful campaigns and strategy, develop a vision for the coming years and help you make sense of the immense possibilities of the 21st century. Read the rest of this entry »

From Good to Great to Obsolete

Photo by John Ryan on Flickr.

Ten years ago Jim Collins published a book that would change the way many organisations would do business: Good to Great. You’ve heard about it, maybe you even read it. The book gives a recipe for sustainable success, businesswise, based on a number of companies that outperformed their competitors over a long period of time. Jim Collins told millions how to be Great, as opposed to simply Good.

Quickly, a prequel for startups (Built to Last) and a special edition for the social sectors were published. For many consultants, Jim Collins was God.

The ten years since

Unfortunately, the years since 2001 brought trouble: The web 2.0 revolution, financial crises and the never-diminishing effect of Moore’s Law. The world changed, and not all of Jim Collins’s great companies managed to stay on top of things.

This week I spent some time with Anders Sorman-Nilsson, an expert on the disruptive nature of change for business. In a recent video on his blog, he explains how the years since 2001 have made some of the great companies become obsolete, or even go bust.

It very much seems that although you were brilliant the entire 20th century, it can be a matter of months in the 21st to have your organisation disappear into oblivion. What made you great in yesteryear might make you obsolete today.

And I don’t think this is limited to the moneymakers of the world. Museums, theatres and even social causes can become obsolete just as easily if they’re not designed to deal with the menacing effects of Moore’s Law and the like.

Read the rest of this entry »