“Creating a Digital Strategy”Presentation to the Association for Cultural Enterprises, May 2016

INTRODUCTION

Today’s talk

Our work & background

Why create a digital strategy… and what does that even mean?

A suggested process & formats/outputs

Typical themes to emerge

Caveats

Some thoughts on current trends in digital and culture

Parting thoughts

Simon Hopkinsarts, music and technology geek and strategist

• 10 years in the record industry• Moved into digital media 1997• 5 years as BBC’s Head of Music Interactive• 6 years in independent digital media production• Independent consultant for 8 years• Musician, composer, digital label head, blogger and life-long

music student• Passionate about young people and tech, impact of digital on

arts and culture

Broad and deep experience

• What we do:• From high level digital strategy to detailed specifications for a

new website • “Critical friend” strategic review • Capacity building• Training and mentoring • Advisory

• For a wide variety of clients: • Arts organisations • Corporates and startups• Local and national government

CONTEXT

A whole world of ambiguity… and this is a personal, subjective take

What we do we mean by “digital”?

Does “social” = “digital”?

Do we need digital strategy at all?

The pace of change is staggering…

PROCESS

1. ESTABLISH

There must be clarity from the start of the process:• Schedule (interviews, meetings, deadlines etc)• Project scope• Deliverables• Costs and payment schedule• Contingencies, key contacts

Summarise in a scope of work document

Above all, ensure widespread awareness of the project

Remember: this will be an iterative process

2. ENQUIRE

• One-on-one interviews: all levels, open questions and conversations, confidential (ie. Nothing attributed)

• Individuals drawn from• Strategic/commercial (inc PR, marketing, sales, comms)• Programming• Learning/outreach• Operations (inc HR, finance, IT)• Partners/potential partners• Audience• External stakeholders/commentators• Board

Some indicative questions

• Purpose What is the your organisation for and how does digital contribute?

• Bums on seats How can you cater for an audience that never steps foot through the door – and do you want to?

• Context Where does your digital work sit – locally, nationally, internationally?

• Income Beyond ticketing, where else can digital activity generate revenue?

• Priorities What are the most appropriate content, services and distribution channels for you?

• Partnership Who could you be working with on digital projects – and what benefit would this deliver?

• Resource What human, financial and technical resources do you need to deliver relevant digital content and services?

• But mostly… what are the hidden organisational and digital drivers?

3. EXPLORE

Use workshops to unpack the findings from the interviews

2-3 x workshops, c 10 attendees, c 3 hours

Keep them fun, fast, highly interactive

Benefits:• Test your findings• Create buy in• Collaborative exploration has a different “texture” to private interviews –

but can be just as revealing

No set topics for these workshops, but we would recommend generally starting with…

WORKSHOP: UNDERSTANDING YOUR AUDIENCE

What do you know about your audience and their digital life?

Persona exercises exploring• A range of users/audience members• Their relationship with your organisation• Their use of media and technology• Imagined user journeys

Why?Test your assumptions Make this stuff real (this in not market research!)

4. REPORT

Exec summary:• Background and process• Overall findings• 3-5 (and no more!) key themes/priorities• Success measures

Deeper exploration of themes – but don’t overdo it!

Appendices:• Personas• User journeys• Interviewees, workshop attendees

In general: 30 pages max!

THEMES

Team, structure, management

Skills, training, awareness raising

Digital first (or digital only) creative projects

Content: blogs, podcasts, streaming video

New/appropriate platforms: web, mobile, social

Routes to commercialisation

External partnerships

Embedding, APIs etc

Innovation

Measurement, support and review

CAVEATS

No-one’s getting this right across the board (although there are some fine UK exemplars)

There is no consensus on where “digital” sits (Learning? Marketing? It’s own dept?)…

... nor how much “status” it has

There’s still a lot of retrofitting

The future is uncertain, so long term planning, while essential, is a hostage to fortune

Beware of fads and bandwagons!

TRENDS

The Creative Industries and tech: opportunities

Cloud-based solutions, SaaS

Metadata, ontologies, semantic web, discovery

Content (streaming, podcasts, apps, video, MOOCs)

Resource sharing

The Creative Industries and tech: pitfalls

Platform & service proliferation

Overwhelm, FOMO

“Fewer, bigger, better” vs “Doing more for less”

Massively uncertain future and wrong bets

Fragmented audiences

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