{"id":236,"date":"2014-07-07T17:05:06","date_gmt":"2014-07-07T22:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/?p=236"},"modified":"2014-07-08T07:25:23","modified_gmt":"2014-07-08T12:25:23","slug":"practicing-extreme-transparency-why-does-your-about-us-section-have-to-be-so-boring","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/2014\/07\/practicing-extreme-transparency-why-does-your-about-us-section-have-to-be-so-boring\/","title":{"rendered":"Practicing extreme transparency:  Why does your &#8220;About Us&#8221; section have to be so boring?"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_237\" style=\"width: 310px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><a href=\"http:\/\/walnutcreek.patch.com\/groups\/politics-and-elections\/p\/walnut-creek-takes-corporation-yard-land-off-the-market\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-237\" class=\"wp-image-237 size-medium\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Walnut-Creeks-maintenance-yard-300x225.jpg\" alt=\"Entrance to Walnut Creek's maintenance yard\" width=\"300\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Walnut-Creeks-maintenance-yard-300x225.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/07\/Walnut-Creeks-maintenance-yard.jpg 393w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-237\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Entrance to Walnut Creek&#8217;s maintenance yard<\/p><\/div>\n<p>As part of a major project I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m working on with the Philadelphia-based <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wyncotefoundation.org\">Wyncote Foundation,<\/a> I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been spending a lot of time on the websites of cultural organizations; looking at their apps, social media projects, and other digital channels; visiting them to see projects first-hand; and talking with them about the capabilities and resources needed to do the work.<\/p>\n<p>In the course of this research I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m engaging with interesting people and seeing a lot of terrific work and so I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve decided to start blogging about it, in part to engage all of you in the journey. (Besides, maybe you can help.)<\/p>\n<p>First up is an example of extreme transparency on the business side of a cultural enterprise \u00e2\u20ac\u201c at least by the standards of U.S. cultural nonprofits. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s easily discoverable on the website of the<a href=\"http:\/\/www.tate.org.uk\/\"> Tate<\/a> in England. An early and persistent leader in all-things-digital (more on that another time) the Tate\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s leaders also are modeling their explicit strategy of creating \u00e2\u20ac\u0153a digital dimension to everything we do\u00e2\u20ac\u009d by doing something other organizations could do, but most don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t. The Tate has created a transparent and content-rich \u00e2\u20ac\u0153About\u00e2\u20ac\u009d section of their website. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tate.org.uk\/about\">It even looks good<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>I won\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t recount all the things that are there, just a few highlights to entice you to look around for yourself.<\/p>\n<p>Try these for appetizers:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.tate.org.uk\/about\/who-we-are\/board-of-trustees\/meeting-minutes\">Board minutes<\/a> going back to 2009<\/li>\n<li>Information about <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tate.org.uk\/about\/who-we-are\/board-of-trustees\/become-a-trustee\">how to become a Board member<\/a><\/li>\n<li>Interactive <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tate.org.uk\/about\/who-we-are\/tate-structure-and-staff\/structure-charts-pay-and-posts\">organizational charts<\/a> with bios of people in leadership positions <em>and their salaries<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Position papers, existing and historical, on topics like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tate.org.uk\/about\/projects\/digital-transformation\">digital strategy<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tate.org.uk\/about\/working-at-tate\/diversity-at-tate\">diversity strategy<\/a><\/li>\n<li>A digital metrics <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tate.org.uk\/about\/our-work\/digital\/digital-metrics\">dashboard<\/a> with <em>updated monthly results<\/em><\/li>\n<li>Research and evaluation reports across all departments and activity areas, like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tate.org.uk\/download\/file\/fid\/37523\">this report<\/a> on understanding visitors\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 use of the on-line collection and this <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tate.org.uk\/research\/research-centres\/learning-research\/in-progress\">section<\/a> on research-in-progress throughout the organization<\/li>\n<li>A link to this interesting <a href=\"http:\/\/webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk\/*\/http:\/\/www.tate.org.uk\/\">archive<\/a> of the Tate\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s websites going back to 2004<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Organizations of every size have all kinds of enterprise information they&#8217;ve never catalogued for sharing with the public. In fact a lot of website sections called \u00e2\u20ac\u0153About Us\u00e2\u20ac\u009d are a sort of corporation yard that is both disorganized and ugly. I speak from experience, having combed dozens of these sections over the years for a variety of purposes.<\/p>\n<p>Interactivity depends on openness and transparency \u00e2\u20ac\u201c on offering ideas, processes, and information substantive enough to make interaction worth it for the participant. If you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re a leader reading this, what\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s stopping you from pursuing radical transparency and reaping the benefits of deeper engagement and interaction with the public, and with policymakers, researchers, and funders?<\/p>\n<p>I asked <a href=\"http:\/\/www.thestacker.net\" target=\"_blank\">John Stack<\/a>, Head of Digital at the Tate, about this. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153In terms of advancing our digital strategy across the Tate, we thought we should model the needed behaviors.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Bravo.<\/p>\n<p>Know of other interesting examples? Would love to hear about them.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<div class='ctx-module-container ctx_default_placement ctx-clearfix'><\/div><span class=\"ctx-article-root\"><!-- --><\/span>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>As part of a major project I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m working on with the Philadelphia-based Wyncote Foundation, I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve been spending a lot of time on the websites of cultural organizations; looking at their apps, social media projects, and other digital channels; visiting them to see projects first-hand; and talking with them about the capabilities and resources needed to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":237,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[33,57,8],"tags":[42,35,40,41],"class_list":{"0":"post-236","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-digital-culture","8":"category-leadership","9":"category-management","10":"tag-digital-media","11":"tag-media","12":"tag-tate","13":"tag-transparency","14":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=236"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/236\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/237"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=236"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=236"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/speaker\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=236"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}