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Sarah Lutman amplified

What’s fear got to do with it?

In 2014 the Wyncote Foundation commissioned Lutman & Associates to research digital adoption by legacy cultural institutions. The resulting study, Like, Link, Share: How cultural institutions are embracing digital technology, showcases the awesome creative work of 40 cultural organizations and shares common themes and lessons learned among these leading practitioners.

When I spoke about the report at conferences and meetings, arts leaders’ responses were frequently that they knew they “should be” engaging digitally, but they feel overwhelmed about beginning. Surprisingly, the most frequent response from arts leaders was not excitement, but instead fear. Fear of missing out. Fear of getting started. Fear of not knowing what to do after beginning. Fear of making mistakes. Fear of not having enough time or money. Fear of incompetence. Fear of adding more stuff to do on top of already busy jobs.

We were intrigued by the intensity and consistency of this reaction and wanted to provide support. As a result, discussions with Wyncote led them to commission Wayfinding and Wandering: Navigating the Digital Engagement Landscape, or Wanderway, for short.

Launching this week, Wanderway is a free online course in seven parts, designed to walk users through the necessary steps toward creative and sustainable digital engagement. The goals of the course are to provide encouragement, build confidence, and offer useful tools and know-how so that arts organizations, artists, and creative small businesses can connect with, engage, and serve more people in the ever-evolving online environment. It is designed with the resource-strapped in mind.

Wanderway is a different kind of course.

Wanderway focuses on engagement and relationship-building. It aims to help you expand your reach and develop substantive interactions with fans, allies, and collaborators using the wide range of digital tools available today. These transformative possibilities are available to those who overcome their fear of digital technology and commit to the process of learning new tools and ways to connect.

There are plenty of courses available that provide technical knowledge and skill-building exercises, such as the Google Analytics Academy, or courses available through Coursera or Khan Academy. Many are written with the assumption of a higher level of basic knowledge and experience on the part of the user.

Also, most existing online courses target sales and marketing objectives – using digital tools to get more money, more transactions. Wanderway was created with the belief that while more contributions or ticket sales can be a by-product of digital engagement, they are not the goal. Engagement can be significantly more meaningful and have greater impact if audiences are treated as conversation partners and collaborators rather than customers and consumers.

Digital engagement as creative practice

Wanderway addresses the emotional life of digital practitioners by approaching engagement as a creative practice. In creative practice we begin, try things, learn, and start again. A beginner’s mind is a necessity and a strength, not a liability. Creative practice expects “mistakes”—they’re part of the process. Iteration is constant. It’s how we learn. And fear is something most artists and creative workers know a great deal about because it is their constant companion.

Fear doesn’t stop the creative artist. Or as poet Carolyn Forche puts it, “Courage does not mean you are not afraid; courage means a door opens and you walk through.”

So, open the door and walk through

Wanderway invites your participation. We also invite your feedback. Please check out the course, try the exercises and reflections, read the interviews, and, if you like it, share these resources with others.

Thanks to the amazing collaborators who built the course with me: Beck Tench, independent educator, writer, speaker, and practitioner, whose work explores creativity and experimentation in digital engagement; and Jessica Fiala, company member of Ragamala Dance Company, independent scholar, and colleague.

We’ve had a lot of fun packing the course with tools that are free and accessible to anyone, and getting to know the dozens of artists and organizations whose work we feel privileged to highlight.

Defining R & D in the cultural sector: why we need innovation in grantmaking strategy

As part of the research project I’m working on with the Philadelphia-based Wyncote Foundation (see previous posts), I recently had the opportunity to attend the Annual Forum for Nesta‘s Digital R & D Fund for the Arts in London. To give you the lay of the land in case you don’t already know anything about it, Nesta calls itself “an innovation charity with a mission to help people and organizations bring great ideas to life.” R D Annual ForumNesta works in partnership with other businesses, nonprofits, government agencies, and funders to increase social impact and to innovate around ways to test new ideas, new financing methods, and new ways to gather and analyze results. Through research, piloting, convening, and publishing, Nesta spreads knowledge and improves practice around innovation, approaching its work across sectors and disciplines. If you’re interested in these topics you really should scour the website and follow Nesta and its principals on social media. They’re a font of useful information about emerging practice in many different fields.

The Digital R & D Fund for the Arts is a multi-year collaboration among Nesta, the Arts Council England, and the Arts and Humanities Research Council. The Fund was established to help “accelerate effective innovation and experiment, bringing together researchers, technology businesses and arts organizations.” The Fund’s £7 million budget (about $11.7 million in US dollars) has been distributed via 3 two-year grant cycles with maximum awards of £125,000 ($210,000). It was created in response to the one-two punch of challenging economic conditions and the onslaught of digital technologies that together have required arts organizations “to sharpen up their thinking about how to relate to audiences, and how to develop business models that can bring more revenue.” (Check out the first year report here.)

It would be great to have something like this in the U.S. The Fund is supporting really interesting projects. (Examples: the Imperial War Museum partnering with HistoryPin to invite the public to help curate the content in its First World War paintings collection, Dance Digital‘s development of an animated learning tool to help children create dances, and Cambridge Junction‘s effort to interest youth in digital music production through the development of a customizable and codable musical instrument.) But what interests me even more is the methodology. The underlying questions being asked at the grantmaking table are not about which projects are “the best” but rather which projects ask the best questions and are best designed to deliver answers that will result in field-wide learning. Nesta is taking a crack at defining the nature of R & D as it applies to the cultural sector, using the Fund’s architecture to innovate in processes that result in learning andfailbetter632 progress. The Fund’s goals are to generate knowledge, to share knowledge efficiently, and to speed up the rate of learning not just in the individual organizations that receive support but among the broader field of practice.

Field-wide sharing and learning was the topic of the Annual Forum, held in Vinopolis, a sprawling wine emporium and conference center at Borough Market in Southwark, conveniently adjacent to one of my favorite coffee shops. About 250 people from across the U.K. gathered for the day, many with job titles like Digital Producer, Digital Communications Officer, Developer, Creative Director, Senior Innovation Consultant, or my favorite, Imagination Catalyst (@KnowNOW_KnowHow). We heard a strong panel on “What is R & D in the Arts?” along with panel presentations from funded projects, keynotes delivered from a business’ (Patrick Bradley) and then a cultural organization’s (Nick Starr) perspective, and an interesting panel on the role of data as it applies to creativity and learning. Program highlights are viewable online and Nesta promises more coverage in future editions of its on-line publication, Native.

Nesta gave me a copy of the application form for the Fund (it’s not available online because applications are closed). The Fund’s specific interests are in expanding audience reach and engagement, and in the exploration of new business models (or a combination of these two). Each applicant must collaborate with a researcher and a technology provider, and is asked to propose “investigations from which the wider arts sector might learn.” Applicants incorporate a plan for the action research methods — created with the third-party research collaborator — that can capture lessons from their proposed experiments. This supports the Fund’s overarching goal to “extract lessons and transferable insights to contribute to a growing body of evidence and data on digital innovation in the arts.” The quality of the team — organization, researchers, technologists — and the clarity and importance of the question being asked, are determining factors in funding.

Nesta’s R & D orientation is different from the logic model-driven funding approach so pervasive among U.S. funders. The differences are more than semantic. Logic models detail intended inputs, outputs, and impacts, and are oriented toward planning, delivery, and evaluation. Logic models ask us to demonstrate the causal relationships between what we do (inputs) and what will happen (outputs and impacts). Logic models say, “If we do x, then y will happen.”

What Nesta has designed is a process based on “trying and learning.” It is iterative, modeling a creative process. Their model requires the development and clarification of an important question, one worth asking, and one for which the answer or answers are not known. In their model, the planning rigor is around the quality of the question and in how it will be investigated.  Their inquiry asks, “If we do x, what will happen?” The outcome is not planned, it is sought.

Perhaps I’m out of touch and if that’s the case, please, pile on the examples! But I don’t remember ever being asked by a funder, “What idea are you testing?” and “What data, evidence, and research findings can your project deliver?” and “How is this learning beneficial to the wider arts sector?” Einstein quote

Shouldn’t this methodology be added to the ideas and instruments grantmakers deploy in their program architecture? Certainly, we need operating support grants, capitalization grants, and support for major projects and initiatives, all funding mechanisms represented in contemporary grantmaking. But what would it look like if we also had specific support for R & D in separate programs whose purpose lies in the testing, documenting, learning, sharing, and iterating of new ideas?In thinking about anything at all comparable in U.S. private sector arts grantmaking, what comes to mind are the reports and publications about what the grantmakers are learning, not so much about what the grantees are learning.

In an environment in which the purpose of a grant is to learn, organizations have full permission to innovate, to fail, and to iterate. When the knowledge gained is shared, other organizations have access to data and results, and they’re encouraged to adopt and use tools and practices that work. Some of the Digital R & D Fund projects have been major flops, with audiences, or technically, or otherwise. And some are delivering very promising results. All learning is welcomed.

At a time when it seems especially important for cultural organizations to be able to try new things and iterate, Nesta’s approach is both sophisticated and refreshing. I’d love to see R & D approaches modeled locally, regionally, or nationally. What is stopping U.S. grantmakers from building similar efforts in our country?

Announcing Hothouse: Exploring new ideas in co-working with the Minneapolis Institute of Arts

Something new is launching in Minneapolis next week! I’m excited to announce Hothouse, a 12-week pilot co-working project I’ve created as MIA Entrepreneur in Residence. In collaboration with Hunter Palmer Wright, Venture Innovation Director of the Minneapolis Institute of Arts, Hothouse will explore whether and how the museum can foster a creative co-working space that is inspired by the museum’s collections, capabilities, and setting but operates independently as a lively incubator and convener. The pilot will demonstrate newHOUTHOUSE-02 ways the museum can use its assets, including its facilities, collection, and staff, for imaginative new civic purposes, and will encourage civic connectors and animators to draw on the museum’s resources to power their individual and collective work and impact.

The project will allow exploration of a co-working strategy that is new to the Minneapolis-St Paul region. The vision for Hothouse is to create a space not only for co-working, but also for fostering public discourse and civic engagement, reflecting and amplifying ideas and projects from the co-working community, and inviting the public in as participants and co-developers. Participants interested in this public programming orientation have been intentionally recruited for the Hothouse pilot. The group includes artists, journalists, non-profit organizations, small businesses, and independent producers and consultants.

(Who will be there? Here’s a list, some with links  — the list is still growing. Lutman & Associates, Ben Hertz, Coffee House Press, Collective Eye Productions, Copilot Web Services, Danger Boat Productions LLC, The Drawing Project, e-democracy/Open Twin Cities, Northern Lights, Pollen, Kate Nordstrum Projects, Chris Farrell (MPR))

The co-working group will share the MIA’s Villa Rosa Room, a large sunny meeting and event room on the top floor of the MIA, as well as using other museum spaces for programming. Co-workers will be encouraged to draw on the museum’s collection for inspiration and metaphor, collaborate with museum staff, and help identify opportunities and obstacles that can inform the feasibility of an ongoing co-working and alternative programming space. We’ll share our learning in a final report.HOUTHOUSE-02

During the 12-week pilot we plan to:

  • Explore the benefits of a co-working space connected to a museum
  • Identify new civic purposes for MIA’s less-used and rental spaces
  • Introduce new people to MIA
  • Discover ways the co-working community can draw on the MIA’s assets across their varied occupations and disciplines
  • Identify obstacles to public participation as co-workers create programs independently and “beyond the museum”
  • ​Foster new connections between co-workers and MIA
  • Encourage collaborations among the co-working participants that are new and actionable
  • Inform MIA future choices and directions

The Hothouse co-working pilot project has resonances for any cultural nonprofit that owns and operates its own buildings. What are the highest and best purposes for these structures and how can new creative uses be explored? How can we share infrastructure and ideas in new ways? And how can our increasingly independent workforce find ways to connect with each other and to cultural institutions in ways that amplify and extend the work? We will be working to discover the answers to these questions over the next twelve weeks. To track our progress, follow #Hothouse on Twitter.

Hothouse houseIf you think about it, there are all kinds of civic buildings — wherever you may live — that can be adapted to new uses and can become part of the sharing economy. If you know of other tests or projects going on that resonate with our ideas, please be in touch. And we’ll let you know how things go.

 

 

 

 

 

Sarah Lutman

I am a Twin Cities-based independent consultant and writer working with cultural, philanthropic and public media organizations across the United States. You can read my entire bio on LinkedIn or read about current clients and projects on the Lutman & Associates web site.

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