The holy trinity: The story, The Ecosystem and The Museum Organization

Or: Why I believe in expanding the exhibition into an overall museum experience

The brand new book Museums and the Challenge of Change has been published at a time when museums are perhaps more than ever discussing the need for responsiveness, digital competencies and social impact. I have just started reading it and am immediately struck by the relevant and urgent approach to the topic. A main focus of the book is participation and inclusion, which is considered an important part of the solution for museums responding to the challenge of change. Several other keys to solutions are addressed in the book such as relevant digital competences, responsiveness, building trust and becoming team-driven.

This blog post was intended to address a fraction of the problems museums face in a changing world, and will do so. But I anticipate returning to the broader challenge in upcoming posts as it is impacting my work in the museum sector on a daily basis. The topic of this post is to touch upon the need for shaping and defining the online presence of museums, as it impacts the museum business in fundamental ways. This I have written about before, for example discussing the term or definition of online exhibitions.

Identifying and designing value creation online, and defining the museum business online is also a part of the solution for museums facing change. Even though museums are increasing their online presence in the midst of the covid-19 pandemic, museums still have not been pushed far enough along the digital pathway, as most efforts are not firmly based in the museum’s vision and mission and aren’t shaped by a long term strategic goal. Many initiatives still focus on replicating a physical museum experience, such as using Google Street view in a physical exhibition, delivering online guided tours of physical exhibitions or live streamed talks and lectures.

Without having actual statistics at hand I assume that initiatives in social media have increased during the pandemic, where museums are exploring interaction with the online audience. Though by a quick glance at for example Facebook it is easy to conclude that surprisingly many museums stick to single packaging of collections by using hashtags such as #OnThisDay or #DidYouKnow with a, not so surprisingly, low level of interaction. The most innovative examples, so far, of increasing online presence by museums (without a big budget) is, IMHO, about bringing program activities online but with a twist, making the most of what online can offer. There are plenty of great examples such as competitions, art and artist talks, training programmes and book clubs.

The need for a strategic approach to the online business of museums is urgent not only to help museums shape long term goals, but also to support organizations adapting to and developing new work methods and new formats for the museum experience.

Finding solutions

Besides anchoring online efforts in the museum’s vision and mission, more specifically I would like to add to the list of solutions to the challenges museums face:

• Mastering multidimensional storytelling
• Mastering multiple formats and channels — the public ecosystem of touchpoints museums have at hand (hybrid experiences)
• Evolving and scaling these efforts from existing successful formats such as exhibitions, education and program activities.

These conclusions come from working on a series of pilot projects last fall, with the very helpful support of creative director Johan Belin, Dinahmoe, who shared his experiences from many years of producing multidimensional and interactive content and experiences. One central point of focus was how do we tell stories across multiple channels, multiple pieces of content and how do we connect the bits and pieces to a magic universe?

Storytelling — the foundation of museum experiences

Storytelling is at the core of every exhibition in at least three different ways:

• Often as an explicit story that unfolds along the visit, such as the local history of a place, the story of trains, or dinosaurs, or the story of fashion.
• It is also always present as the structure of the visitor experience, a narrative that shapes the journey throughout the museum visit. By identifying this narrative, through visitor journey mapping, the content story can be developed in relevant ways and directions, and the right content and experience can be delivered at the right touch point.
• And as a third aspect of exhibitions the visitor’s own story is also something to account for, the choices made along the way throughout the museum experience.

Bringing a broader perspective to the table, the content story and the visitor journey will always stretch across multiple channels and formats, and ideally allow the visitor to move in multiple directions.

And whether we use the term museum experience for this multidimensional approach, or if we expand the term exhibition to encompass multiple channels, I leave unsaid at this point (wishing for some comments and opinions).

The point is that delivering experiences that start the visitor on a journey into the universe of the museum requires rethinking organizations and skills, and perhaps even job titles. The museum experience is at the crossroads of telling great and engaging stories, letting the story evolve throughout an ecosystem of multiple touchpoints and channels, and strong organizations capable of delivering new experiences and engaging with the audiences along their journeys into the magic of the museum universe.

Mastering the multidimensional museum

This text is a first step to follow up on my earlier blog post Approaching the distributed museum, where I discussed the possibilities of creating a distributed museum (another term that needs to be discussed, is it distributed or multidimensional?). There I asked a few questions, and I will attempt to respond to two of them here:

Q: What is the “glue” that ties the pieces, unique social media posts, blog posts, film, podcasts, together to a meaningful experience?
A: A strategic approach to content that enables the visitor to move in multiple directions across content channels and formats. The glue is possible to achieve by starting with the overall vision and story, not the single pieces of content (which is how we use social media most often today), and connecting the dots.

Q: How can we connect existing pieces of content to the development of a new exhibition — i.e. when we started at the wrong end, not with the overall story?
A: Ideally no content should be produced before the overall narrative is in place. But in this case we can look at emphasizing the museum and the exhibition as a hub or center of the universe. All pieces of content and experiences need to be connected to facilitate and create movement along the visitor journey, which can evolve in multiple directions. We have to identify channels and touchpoints and plan for a strategic distribution of existing content as well as complement with new pieces of content. New pieces of content should ideally be developed from existing to make sure the dots are connected already, elaborate on details, explore nearby places etc.

Summary

As museums face multiple challenges in a changing world, there are several areas where problem solving is now becoming more tangible. Multidimensional storytelling and an ecosystems approach are two such tangible solutions. Building organizations that can support this is a third.

The fact that solutions may affect the very definition of what a museum is, is not new as we all know, and this impact is inevitable. However if we at the same time build on what are the current unique selling points and characteristics of a museum, we may more rapidly become better at facing the many challenges.

And this reminds me of a recent talk by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett, who points out that the challenges coming with a rapidly changing society is something that many sectors and organisations face, but that museums are actually in a unique position to find and deliver solutions. A very positive and encouraging thought.