Neighbor blogger Tyler Green switched me onto this new feature on the Indianapolis Museum of Art website: the Dashboard. It’s a user-friendly view into all sorts of operational data from the museum — electrical consumption, percentage of membership attendance, current expenses against budget, percentage attendance from the museum’s Metropolitan Statistical Area.
For arts administration nerds like me, it’s info nirvana. And while it may be well beyond the depth and detail desired by visitors, supporters, and even staff, it’s an extraordinary service to provide such data on-line for the world to see (even if the world doesn’t care to look).
I’ve mentioned the fun and promise of such dashboards before, and also discussed the need to be clear and public about what your organization values, and provide metrics to help others keep you honest. But to see an organization actually diving into the deep end helps bring the idea into sharper focus.
I’m going to need to annoy the good folks in Indianapolis to see how they did this, and how others might, as well.
