I recently went through the process of Myers-Briggs profiling. For those unfamiliar with Myers-Briggs it is a form of psychometric testing developed during World War II when it was believed that “knowledge of personality preferences would help women who were entering the industrial workforce for the first time to identify the sort of war-time jobs that would be “most comfortable and effective”.
The ‘test’ identifies an individual’s Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), ”the underlying assumption of the MBTI is that we all have specific preferences in the way we construe our experiences, and these preferences underlie our interests, needs, values, and motivations.”
The results showed that my ‘type’ is INTJ (Introversion/Intuition/Thinking/Judging), which according to the (always reliable) internet means there’s a dinner party going on in my brain where the guests are: Stephen Hawking, Mark Zuckerberg, Angela Lansbury, Martina Navratilova, Jane Austen, Ellen Ripley, Batman, Dexter and (perhaps mostly worryingly) Hannibal Lecter!
So all this got me thinking about what an INTJs top tips for the social media battlefield might be… so here goes:
I - Reflect, act, then reflect again. With social media there can be a hell of a lot of ‘noise’ which can appear to be non-stop. Take a moment to step back, to listen, to evaluate (to breathe) and to refresh.
N - Think about the bigger picture. Where does social media fit in and support your overall mission, vision and values? Social media doesn’t sit it a vacuum so what are the objectives for the longer term that will have a positive impact on our organisations.
T - Analytics is a girl’s (and a boy’s) best friend therefore use data to inform decisions in a consistent way that enables you to take action – what works? what doesn’t? how can we get better? how can we achieve our desired outputs?
J - Have a plan and develop you content calendar, give yourself a structure to work to (even if you change it) it helps provide direction and something against which you can track progress. Where are we now? > Where do we what to get to? > How are we going to get there? > Have we got there? > What should we do next?
Morning readers and welcome to my first ever attempt at a live blog… coming to you direct from the Digital R&D in the Arts Forum taking place at Manchester Town Hall. Apologies upfront for fat fingered typos, grammatical howlers and nonsensical sentences – I promise a somewhat re-edited version of this post after play has ended for the day.
To help me keep pace with the day I’ve taken the liberty of sketching out the schedule before we get started… don’t forget you can also follow on Twitter via the hashtag #artsdigital and away we go…
Welcome: Dr Paul Gerhardt, Managing Director, Archives for Creativity
We are underway, those that can’t be here do participate on Twitter by following #artsdigital.
Introduction: Geoff Mulgan (Chief Executive, Nesta), Alan Davey (Chief Executive, Arts Council England) & Rick Rylance (Chief Executive, Arts and Humanities Research Council)
Geoff:
Alan:
Rick:
In Conversation: James Davis (Content Team, Google’s Cultural Institute)
An introduction to the Google Cultural Institute:
Opportunity Panel: Anthony Lilley (CEO, Magic Lantern Productions Ltd), Hasan Bakhshi (Director of Policy and Research Creative Economy, Nesta), Tim Plyming (Head of Digital, British Museum) & Victoria Tillotson (Digital Producer, iShed, Watershed)
What are the opportunities for the arts in the years ahead?
Hasan:
Tim:
Victoria:
Interesting case study of the Stand + Stare Theatre Jukebox:
Stream A: User Generated Content & Social Media - Rohan Gunatillake, John McGrath (Artistic Director, National Theatre of Wales), Skinder Hundel (CEO, New Art Exchange), Lawrence Chiles (Acting Head of Design & Digital Media, Royal Museums Greenwich) & Jane Burton (Head of Content and Creative Director, Tate Media)
Social media has become mainstream over the last 5-6 years and has impacted on everything from marketing and communications in the arts to the artistic process itself.
John:
In 2009 National Theatre Wales developed a Ning based platform to create a social community for their organisation which now contains at over 4000 blog posts. What lessons have been learnt from this process?:
1) It’s about community building and not ticket sales
2) It’s about buy-in at all levels from artists, from staff, from the audience etc.
3) It’s about asking questions
Jane:
Examples of digital work at Tate and the questions these projects have raised:
1) This Exquisite Forest – asks the question how do you moderate creativity? And make moderation scaleable?
2) BMW Tate Live Performance Room – how do you target the “right” audiences in spaces such as YouTube, the ones that will want to listen, watch and/or do?
3) Gallery of Lost Art – What can digital exhibition spaces do better than the real thing? And how can social media enhance them? How do we take art to people, rather than expecting them to come to us?
Lawrence:
The Compass Room has opened up the museum to the possibilities of co-curation and public participation.
Stream II A: Exploring new business models for digital engagement - Rohan Gunatillake, Kam Star (Playgen & Digital Shoreditch), Laura Sillars (Artistic Director, Site Gallery) Liz Rosenthal (Founder and CEO, Power to the Pixel)
Laura:
Skinder:
Lessons learnt from Culture Cloud:
1) The digital platforms accelerated the formation of relationships
2) Keep it simple, the technology shouldn’t add another barrier
Kam:
Stream III B: How can we make the most of our data and archives? – Dave Moutrey (Director and CEO, Cornerhouse), Dr Paul Gerhardt (Managing Director, Archives for Creativity) & Sophie Walpole (Head of Digital Media, V&A Museum)
Paul:
Talking about the opportunities archives present and the experiences of the BBC. Archive materials should be things we can share, use and learn from. Lessons learnt:
1) Technology solutions for archives are still central, we need to make effective public value arguments though to secure resources.
2) Copyright – we need to create effective relationships with rights holders.
3) Data is complex so collaborate with partners which might already have standards/frameworks for metadata.
4) Fast track creative outcomes, learn from others what can be done with your archive.
Sophie:
Dave:
Futures Panel, Next Steps and Closing Remarks (Dr Paul Gerhardt, Managing Director, Archives for Creativity), Anthony Lilley (Chief Creative Officer and CEO, Magic Lantern Productions), Honor Harger (Director, Lighthouse) & Paula Le Dieu (Mozilla FOundation)
Looking into the crystal ball how will be producing and consuming culture in the longer term?
Honor:
Anthony:
Paula:
What does the future look like through the eyes of young people?
1) It’s one world, not a digital and non-digital one.
2) For young people digital devices and services are ways to collect, understand and store the world around them – a 6th (7th?) sense.
3) The web i.e. the connected world is an expression of themselves.
4) In the future the next generation will be making the connected world, sharing and collaborating in public.
5) Privacy will become an ever increasing challenge.
And finally…
Today the first successful applicants for the Digital R&D programme were announced. Projects include a ”mobile-friendly app-album” featuring Grammy-winning musician and performer Imogen Heap from Script, a London-based music and content agency to a collaboration between the Imperial War Museums and Historypin on a scheme that will invite the public to contribute information about and responses to its collection of World War I paintings.
Pre-digital communications: taking the message to the audience, ancient methods of content distribution
This week I was out and about attending a Mobile Marketing seminar organised by Manchester based integrated marketing and digital agency, Access.
As well as providing delegates with an excellent breakfast, cookies and cups of tea they also shared their insight into the best ways to take your business “mobile” – all with a bit of help from the Carat and theEword boys.
I’ve collated a few tips, highlights and flippant remarks from the Twittering of my colleague (thanks Rachel) and I. This includes a very useful cheat sheet from those Google guys about when to go m.dot or responsive… as going mobile is no longer a when but a how.
***Drafted on the 21:00 from London Euston to Manchester Piccadilly, 16th January 2013***
The clock ticks past midnight, they’ve started handing out the complimentary chocolaty snacks, the lights shut off on the station outside the window…
It certainly wasn’t the highlight of my week but being trapped aboard a severely delayed Virgin Train just south of Stockport did give me the luxury of time to think.
Time to think… step back… reflect… How ‘timely’ I thought as only earlier in my journey (although for it to constitute a journey I hope I eventually reach my destination!) I had been reading how Google have since 2002, afforded their staff 20% of their ‘working week’ to being able to ‘think different’ (to coin a phrase from those folks at Apple) and work on R&D projects.
Scanning through another article I read a quote from Karl Gregory, Managing Director of match.com, on his company’s approach to investing 5-10% of their monthly marketing budget (and in turn effort) on experiments. This in turn encourages the match.com team to be focused on getting 90% right, knowing that the ‘tests’ might fail or flourish.
This got me considering about where I’d find my 5, 10, 20% – can I work more effectively, can I cut out the distractions to eke out and extra hour here or a half a day there?
20%… that might pushing it but 20 minutes a day surely that’s doable? So I here by commitment to my own R&D (read and do) time, my own space to learn, think of new solutions and to innovate – even if only in baby steps and preferable not during another train ride from hell.
***Footnote: I did make it home in the early hours of Thursday morning… well at least I avoided the snow!***
Image c/o binaryCoco licensed under Creative Commons.
*Holidays are coming, holidays are coming…*
In case you missed it Christmas is just *in take of breath* 32 days away and in Manchester that means one thing… a giant Santa looms over Albert Square. The city wept when the famous inflatable Farther Christmas went to a better, snowier place in the sky in 2007. The fat fella was replaced with a bigger and brighter St. Nic that has light up the Manchester Christmas Markets each year since.
Last year (despite no visible fingers or thumbs) the Manchester Santa (AKA Crimble Zippy) began surfing the wave of social media when he joined Twitter - and he’s back at it this festive season. Twitter character accounts are nothing new but I’m already enjoying his pun-tastic tweets… a great reminder that social media should be fun. It also got me thinking about how in 2013 @MCRsanta might tie his ‘voice’ and ‘body’ together – like this convergence of offline and online from Marmite…
Last weekend I was in London and took a wander through the yeast extract spread sponsored Christmas lights on Oxford Street. A centre piece to the display can be seen above is part of the Marmite Gold marketing campaign. Here the Christmas Lights display the faces of Marmite lovers (or haters) submitted via the sparkly Marmite Gold Facebook - a lovely example of the ‘real’ world and ‘online’ world crossing over…
I’m a sucker for this kind of thing, I bought (and still own) Nabaztag after all! For a start I’d love to see more arts organisations experimenting in this area, imagine art works tweeting through a Little Printer for example – with a bit of imagination the opportunities to delight are endless.
Manchester Santa image c/o mjtmail (tiggy) licensed under Creative Commons.
Marmite Christmas Lights, Oxford Street London image c/o Rain Rabbit licensed under Creative Commons.
We’ve only gone and done it… Along with colleagues from Cornerhouse and MIF we’ve resurrected a group for those working at the ‘coal face of digital’ across the arts and cultural sector in Greater Manchester.
Our first meeting took place last month, followed by a second this week and we’ve already had attendance from The Lowry, Royal Exchange, Manchester Art Gallery, Marketing Manchester and Quay Tickets.
The aim of the group is to:
We’ve already talked about Facebook advertising, email marketing providers, the best kit for video and audio recording, upcoming website developments, cross promotional marketing opportunities and more. Long may it continue!
Image c/o localstatic licensed under Creative Commons
Yes I’ve only gone and done it at last… Published in all their Slideshare glory the final conclusions and recommendations from my MA thesis – Creating a museum without walls: Twitter as a case study for the role of social networking sites in museum audience development. Background to this study can be found in these (much) earlier posts:
I recently attended the Culture Geek conference, the first in a series of events focused on the digital side of the arts. Here’s a quick run down of my key take-aways from each of the day’s speakers.
Andy Levey - Cirque du Soleil
Look to insert your brand at each stage of the ‘engagement cycle’ for example before the event >> during >> after >> before the next event.
Chris Mellor – The Broadway Theatre Barking & Camden Theatres
With live streaming you need a campaign to drive people’s interest to watch in advance – it’s not a case of build it and they will come.
Ellen West and Jamie Tetlow - Royal Opera House
The Royal Opera House developed their new website using a data driven and evolving prototyping approach. The key to the new site was to make functionality core, preceding ‘looks’.
Jill Colvin - Sydney Festival
Simple but spot on the Festival’s social media motto “Tweet good stuff”
Tijana Tasich and Elena Villaespesa - Tate
Help colleagues become stakeholders in an analytics culture within your organisation. To do this get them to feed in their metric requirements: activity, strategic goal, objectives, metrics, target
Shamir Allibhai - Doha Film Institute
The Institute are beginning to use tools such as Storify to curate tweets, posts, photos etc. in order to bring a narrative back to social media content.
Julia Kenyon - BBC Worldwide
Embrace fans and their love for your brand by being generous, sharing and fuelling their passion.
Interested in attending future Culture Geek conferences? Follow them @culturegeek, ‘like’ on Facebook or subscribe to email updates at culturegeek.com
Specialties:
- Online and offline marketing
- Social media
- Arts marketing
- Conference and business tourism
- Event bid/tender development, design and production
- Business development
- Relationship building
- Project management