3 by 3: Modelling new digital leadership in museums
Lead Research Organisation:
University of Leicester
Department Name: Museum Studies
Abstract
It is people who drive digital change in the museum.
Irrespective of the focus on 'technology' (on hardware and software, standards and systems, products and platforms), it will, in fact, always be the leaders and curators, partners and stakeholders, who enable the digital capability of museums.
And yet, the lived professional experience of individuals inside the organisation, in the workforce, around digital change is little understood, much overlooked, and frequently generalised upon. Plainly put: the very dimension that we now know is fundamental to digital change in the museum, is that about which - in our scholarship and practice - we know the least.
Moreover, at a time when museums are not only attempting to understand new forms of visitor participation and digital experience, but are doing so within a moment of both institutional and individual precarity, this need to understand the human (and not just the technical) dimension of museum digital change, becomes crucial.
And so, it is to this issue - and this gap in our knowledge of museum digital maturity - that this project looks.
'3 by 3' is an 18-month, multi-partner, transatlantic research collaboration, bringing together cultural institutions, academics and professional bodies to open new directions for leading empathetic and equitable digital change in museums at a time of institutional and individual precarity.
The project asks what new models of 'empathic leadership' might be needed to enable the holistic institutional adoption of (and adaption to) digital, as well as which inequalities exist in the landscape of digital change in museums, and how can these be confronted. In doing so, '3 by 3' attempts to initiate a retelling of what successful digital leadership in museums looks like - in human and not just business and technological terms.
This research confronts and articulates a new set of questions on equity, inclusion and diversity within the digital workforce, workplace and culture of museum digital change, re-locating museum technology as a socially purposeful subject and set of practices. In this way, the project is leading an 'emotional turn' in museum computing and digital heritage, characterised by a new sensibility to the emotional labour, affective practices and personal storytelling underpinning digital work in museums.
Led by the University of Leicester and Southern University New Orleans (and supported by Harvard University and Johns Hopkins University), '3 by 3' is a unique research collaboration, bringing together the leading sector bodies in the UK and US: the American Alliance of Museums with the UK's Museums Association, and the Museum Computer Network (US) with the Museums Computer Group (UK).
At the core of the project is a transatlantic partnership of cultural organisations, with digital leads across the Smithsonian Institution partnering with their counterparts in the Science Museum Group, Victoria and Albert Museum, Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales, and National Museums Scotland.
Driving this practice-based research of '3 by 3', are '3' researchers following '3' key themes (on 'empathy', 'precarity', 'equity'), through a series of live interventions within the working environments of the partner museums. Real-world tests of new approaches to leading digital change.
As well as producing a series of practitioner-facing resources, a new reflective podcast series for the sector, and the synthesis of its findings into a cohesive 'Framework for New Digital Leadership in Museums', '3 by 3' will also partner with its policy-making and industry collaborators (that include Arts Council England, the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Culture24) to produce a 'Sector White Paper', setting out the challenges and opportunities for UK and US organisations as they lead digital change (empathetically and equitably) in these times of individual and institutional precarity.
Irrespective of the focus on 'technology' (on hardware and software, standards and systems, products and platforms), it will, in fact, always be the leaders and curators, partners and stakeholders, who enable the digital capability of museums.
And yet, the lived professional experience of individuals inside the organisation, in the workforce, around digital change is little understood, much overlooked, and frequently generalised upon. Plainly put: the very dimension that we now know is fundamental to digital change in the museum, is that about which - in our scholarship and practice - we know the least.
Moreover, at a time when museums are not only attempting to understand new forms of visitor participation and digital experience, but are doing so within a moment of both institutional and individual precarity, this need to understand the human (and not just the technical) dimension of museum digital change, becomes crucial.
And so, it is to this issue - and this gap in our knowledge of museum digital maturity - that this project looks.
'3 by 3' is an 18-month, multi-partner, transatlantic research collaboration, bringing together cultural institutions, academics and professional bodies to open new directions for leading empathetic and equitable digital change in museums at a time of institutional and individual precarity.
The project asks what new models of 'empathic leadership' might be needed to enable the holistic institutional adoption of (and adaption to) digital, as well as which inequalities exist in the landscape of digital change in museums, and how can these be confronted. In doing so, '3 by 3' attempts to initiate a retelling of what successful digital leadership in museums looks like - in human and not just business and technological terms.
This research confronts and articulates a new set of questions on equity, inclusion and diversity within the digital workforce, workplace and culture of museum digital change, re-locating museum technology as a socially purposeful subject and set of practices. In this way, the project is leading an 'emotional turn' in museum computing and digital heritage, characterised by a new sensibility to the emotional labour, affective practices and personal storytelling underpinning digital work in museums.
Led by the University of Leicester and Southern University New Orleans (and supported by Harvard University and Johns Hopkins University), '3 by 3' is a unique research collaboration, bringing together the leading sector bodies in the UK and US: the American Alliance of Museums with the UK's Museums Association, and the Museum Computer Network (US) with the Museums Computer Group (UK).
At the core of the project is a transatlantic partnership of cultural organisations, with digital leads across the Smithsonian Institution partnering with their counterparts in the Science Museum Group, Victoria and Albert Museum, Amgueddfa Cymru - National Museum Wales, and National Museums Scotland.
Driving this practice-based research of '3 by 3', are '3' researchers following '3' key themes (on 'empathy', 'precarity', 'equity'), through a series of live interventions within the working environments of the partner museums. Real-world tests of new approaches to leading digital change.
As well as producing a series of practitioner-facing resources, a new reflective podcast series for the sector, and the synthesis of its findings into a cohesive 'Framework for New Digital Leadership in Museums', '3 by 3' will also partner with its policy-making and industry collaborators (that include Arts Council England, the National Lottery Heritage Fund and Culture24) to produce a 'Sector White Paper', setting out the challenges and opportunities for UK and US organisations as they lead digital change (empathetically and equitably) in these times of individual and institutional precarity.
Organisations
| Description | 1) A NEW 'PERIODIC TABLE OF SKILLS' One "track" of the project investigated the development of digital skills in the museum workplace. Previous work by the 'One by One' team (in projects AH/P014038/1 and AH/T013192/1) has shown the extent to which museums struggle to formalize the development of digital skills within their workforce, even lacking clarity on the definition of "digital skills" in a museum context. This latest project (AH/V009710/1) considers how we might close this gap between identifying skills and ensuring that the right skills are performed at the right time. The project's researchers employed a series of prompts and exercises (such as audience experience mapping) with project museums to delve deeper into the communication, collaboration, and digital skills development areas that would enable digital transformation. These activities were occasionally offered to the entire research cohort to complete together; otherwise, research partners conducted these activities with their respective museum teams. The prompts and exercises revealed opportunities for museums to achieve greater digital impact as they thoughtfully consider how digital is understood, used, managed, and created across their organization. Following this fieldwork, 18 monthly book club study sessions, and the close review of over 250 museum digital job descriptions, the project created a new framework for identifying and articulating digital skills for museum workers. The new framework shows the combinations of technical, business, and emotional skills that together comprise digital skill in the museum. Conceptually similar to the Periodic Table of Elements, the Periodic Table of Skills (PToS) is a framework to help museums understand and identify patterns and connections between skills while also acknowledging the human and emotional dimension to digital capability. The PToS currently has 207 skills across seven dimensions. These skills include foundational digital literacies, such as "to understand risks and threats in digital environments," and emotional skills, such as being "inclusive" and "self-aware." The elements listed in the PToS are meant to be considered in combination with each other and their organization's unique context and characteristics (i.e., domain-specific knowledge and technologies within the organization's digital ecosystem). Doing so showcases the depth and breadth of digital capabilities such as "online community management" and "data management" and indicates the level of mastery needed within the organization. This is much-needed clarity. After all, how can we develop skills if we are not clear what those skills are or how they are used in different combinations to achieve specific outputs and outcomes? 2) INSIGHT INTO THE HIDDEN EMOTIONALITY OF DIGITAL WORK Complementing this new framing of digital skills and capabilities, the project's second research track focused on the everyday digital practices and behaviours across an organization and its workforce. A year-long study by the Science Museum Group (SMG)-five UK science and technology museums-culminated in the October 2022 launch of The Hidden Constellation, a research podcast profiling the new, hidden, distributed, legacy, and collective forms of digital work taking place across this group. The premise of The Hidden Constellation is that emergent forms of digital labour in museums make up a constellation that when plotted and connected reveal a pattern of work that is as complex, overlapping, or hierarchical as more familiar and visible kinds of museum labour. Often intangible, location-specific, under-valued, or under-articulated, this new constellation operates and agitates alongside other, more traditional forms of curatorial, conservation, and collections management work in the museum. Moreover, new forms of digital curatorship, digital content generation, hybrid working models, and the increasing role of data analytics are influencing, and sometimes reinforcing and even disrupting, previous modes of power, knowledge, and expertise within the museum. Digital work in museums, as well as digital volunteering, digital storytelling, and other forms of digital participation, are giving rise to new, virtual, and hybrid opportunities for empathetic and supportive dialogue. This is pushing at existing institutional boundary lines; propelling play and experimentation; and-most significantly-inviting more people to the conversation. This research has found that emergent practices of digital labour-in already digitally confident museum spaces such as Science Museum Group, at least-are collaborative, open-sourced, and radically transparent, involving a kind of maker culture or do-it-ourselves ethic. The project has evidenced how where is an inherent emotionality to the "new power" philosophy-to borrow from Henry Timms and Jeremy Heimans' 2018 book of the same name-behind much of the digital labour at Science Museum Group. It is quietly disrupting some of the more formal "old power" principles-the more managerial, exclusive aspects that are premised on an unwavering belief in the expertise of curators and on the long-term affiliation and loyalty of established audiences-that are foundational in many of today's museums. This research found that emergent digital labour involves intentional, purposeful, and effort-based actions of all who undertake it: in other words, it involves emotional labour. Often overused, this concept remains useful in the study of museums' digital transformation work because it encompasses the need for analytical and intuitive skills, the understanding of various individual aspirations, and the well-honed interpersonal and negotiating skills required to broker digital change. However, this research has shown that, while emotional labour can enter museum technology discourse in productive ways, it can also be the source of exhausting, exploitative practices. The team's research has found that, rather than uncritically accepting changes to museum working practices brought about through technological change, we must begin to question how digital labour is shifting experiences of work, including new kinds of under-articulated and hidden digital work now commonplace, such as in the realms of social media community management and content generation, museum documentation, and archival work. At the same time, we need to remain aware of how the emotional aspects of new forms of digital work in museums are precisely what is enabling emergent kinds of curatorship, programming, expertise, and participation. |
| Exploitation Route | The project's 'Periodic Table of Skills' has the potential now to help individuals, teams, and organizations embed digital literacy into all job roles and functions; develop right-size job descriptions, professional development, and performance plans; and improve employee experience. Both projects evidence an "emotional turn" in museum technology. They highlight the importance of emotions and the subjectively experienced feelings that underpin digital transformation work in museums. Crucially, this research will help others to tell a story of museum digitalization in human, and not just business and technological, terms. |
| Sectors | Digital/Communication/Information Technologies (including Software),Culture, Heritage, Museums and Collections |
| Description | [Invited keynote] Ross Parry & Vince Dziekan, 'Critical Digital: Museums and their Postdigital Circumstance', presented online to Art Museums & Digital Cultures International Conference, Lisbon (Portugal), 22 April 2021. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This online keynote to an international conference reflected upon a series of shifts in the way museum technology is being researched today. During the "digital era", the modus operandi of museums - how museums, their collections and the cultural values they exhibit are understood and activated - has been challenged. The digital transformation that has occurred over the past quarter of a century has unfolded as a series of continuous disruptions, each characterised by their modern, postmodern and metamodern contexts. Given the tumultuous experience of cultural organisations across the world due to the coronavirus pandemic, this paper served as an initial platform for re-evaluating just how critical the relationship between museums and digital technology is today. It reflected on how these exceptional circumstances might be reasoned within the continually evolving relationship between art, museums and the socio-cultural and technological conditions under which they coexist. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://museumdigitalcultures.weebly.com/programme.html |
| Description | [Invited keynote] Ross Parry, 'Our Digital Maturity: Why Now is the Time for Empathy, Equity and Community in Museum Technology', presented online to El I Congreso Internacional de Museos y Estrategias Digitales (CIMED21), Valencia (Spain), 25 March 2021. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This presentation reflected on the emergence of "One by One", a project (now in its third 'edition' as '3 by 3') that pursues the growing international collaboration of different cultural institutions, professional bodies, government agencies, academics and commercial organizations to help museums and galleries around the world to build the necessary digital trust. The presentation shared the anatomy of this transferable and scalable industry partnership model to lead digital change, and in particular the 'emotional turn' in museum technology, as well as the (still overdue) approach to workplace equity issues, within of the museum's digital technology. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://remed.webs.upv.es/congreso/programa/ |
| Description | [invited keynote] Ross Parry, 'Building a Digital Commons: Museums, open collaboration and the goal of societal impact', presented online to Vores museums afslutningskonference, Copenhagen (Denmark), 12 May 2021. |
| Form Of Engagement Activity | A talk or presentation |
| Part Of Official Scheme? | No |
| Geographic Reach | International |
| Primary Audience | Professional Practitioners |
| Results and Impact | This keynote presentation drew upon the on-going work of the 'One by One' research initiative (and specifically its current 'edition' as '3 by 3') to reflect upon the extent to which our research into museums and technology will always be collaborative. From cultural technologists to digital creatives, information scientists to museologists, commercial partners to audience advocates it takes a community to drive scholarship in this field. Our challenge, however, has always been bringing this community together. Finding ways to work collectively when we are distributed, participating asynchronously, in different settings, and with different expectations, capacities and capabilities for engagement. And so, it's time for a 'Digital Commons'. |
| Year(s) Of Engagement Activity | 2021 |
| URL | https://www.conferencemanager.dk/voresmuseum/conference |