Let's see how to develop such a strategy!
This strategy serves as a starting point for arts and cultural organizations interested in becoming more digital and progressing toward digital maturity. It is divided into three distinct stages:
1. Identifying the specific digital needs of your organization and its audiences (Analysis Stage)
2. Keeping a continual feedback loop of monitoring, assessment, and creating new digital initiatives (Agile Stage).
3. Putting in place a combination of doable and practical measures to improve digital maturity (Development Stage)
Analysis Stage
1. Conduct and/or commission research on the demands and needs of your local community and business stakeholders in terms of artistic and commercial digital offering.
2. Appoint a 'digital trustee' to your board of directors, preferably an expert with experience in digital transformation programs who can advise on related concerns;
3. Make an assessment of existing data management methods and software a top priority, and look for ways to improve data collecting synergy.
4. Involve employees in evaluating the 'interoperability' of technology on the premises - how do existing digital technology systems and activities link and communicate with one another? Develop a strategy for enhancing interoperability.
Agile Stage
1. Strengthen and expand connections with local arts and culture-friendly firms, organizations, and social enterprises, which may have a lot to offer in terms of expert knowledge, resources, and commercial prospects.
2. Strengthen local cultural ties by providing more opportunities for young people to participate in digital arts programs, such as student curatorship's or apprenticeships;
3. Reconsider the physical and virtual environments you provide:
- Are they adaptable? Do they allow and encourage mixed-purpose usage — for learning, creating, and working in a variety of formats?
- Are they approachable and welcoming?
- Could they be used in new or different ways to reach a larger audience?
Develop an online gallery platform or a digital channel, for example.
4. Implement a digital upskilling program for employees, which will be phased in over time to avoid disrupting day-to-day operations.
Development Stage
1. Track your digital success on a regular basis:
- Form a "digital taskforce" or pick a key staff member or mentor to analyse and provide feedback on the methods you've adopted.
- Conduct quarterly digital maturity evaluations with all employees - are your development initiatives working?
- Assess if you are achieving an enhanced quality of information about your audience base using your new data collecting strategy (if you have installed one).
2. Create a 'digital manifesto' that displays your desired direction of travel and engages important partners, other organizations, your viewers, and the industry.
3. Keep in mind that there is no such thing as a "best practice" model for digital maturity.
Use cases and best practices
In times of confinement, museums, opera houses, and tourist sites all across Europe and the world are making more and more content available online to make self-isolation and social distance more pleasurable and calming for everyone.
- Iconem's 3D projects (Worldwide Cultural Heritage)2
- Iconem's expanded preservation work on World Cultural Heritage
- V4Design (EU project) using photos and paintings to re-create buildings and environments in 3d
- iMARECulture (EU project) underwater Virtual Reality apps with games
- Kunsthistorisches Museum - Austria
- Musée Verviers - Belgium
- Croatian Museum of Naïve Arts virtual guide - Croatia
- National Gallery of Denmark - Denmark
- Museum collections in 3D - Finland
- Brandenburg Gate in 3D - Germany
- The Hunt Museum - Ireland
- Swedish Pompeii project - Italy
- Uffizi virtual tour - Italy
- Luxembourg sites 360-views - Luxembourg
- The Van Gogh Museum - The Netherlands
- National Museum of History - Romania
- Museo del Prado - Portugal
- British Museum online tour - United Kingdom
- Sistine Chapel - Vatican City
