What is the DEN Community?
The DEN Community is an online community and meeting place for cultural professionals in the Netherlands working on digital issues in the cultural sector. Not a crowded forum and no mandatory expertise, but a substantive and accessible space where you:
- can ask questions about ongoing or upcoming digital projects
- share experiences and practical examples
- see how other institutions tackle similar challenges
- think together about choices, opportunities, and dilemmas
The conversations in the community arise from the members themselves. Colleagues in the sector respond to each other, share experiences, and provide input. Additionally, DEN advisors read along and respond where it helps. They bring expertise in areas such as AI, data-driven work, cybersecurity, accessibility, and change management, think along about issues, and help connect people or themes when needed. The community grows through the contributions of the members themselves.
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Who is the DEN Community for?
The DEN Community is for:
- professionals in museums, venues, libraries, archives, and other cultural institutions
- advisors and project leaders working on digital issues
- communication staff, marketers, and education staff
- policymakers and managers who want to move digitally
You don’t have to be a digital expert. Quite the opposite.
What can you do in the DEN Community?
Ask your questions
Are you stuck on a digital issue? Chances are others are dealing with it too. In the community, you can present your question to colleagues in the sector. For example: “Who has researched or has experience with providing a sign language interpreter/NGT for (exhibition) videos using AI?”
Share experiences
What worked for you and what didn’t? By sharing practical experiences, we help each other move forward. For example, Jiska Jacobs (TivoliVredenburg) shared a practical set of 10 AI guidelines in the community that they use to provide staff with guidance on responsibly deploying AI. This sparked recognition, questions, and follow-up responses from other institutions.
Think together
Not every question has an immediate answer. The community is also a place to explore together and gather perspectives. For example, core team member Wilja Jurg (director of Tetem) announced on the community that Tetem is quitting Big Tech and switching from Microsoft to Nextcloud. A decision that immediately led to substantive questions, exchange of considerations, and interest from other organizations.
Stay involved
Discussions align with themes from the DEN Academy, workshops, webinars, and current developments in the sector.
Join the DEN Community
Do you want to ask questions about your digital projects? Learn how other cultural institutions approach it? Meet colleagues working on the same themes? Then we invite you to join.
Why a community from DEN?
DEN is the knowledge institute for digital issues and digital transformation in the cultural sector. In our workshops, training sessions, and webinars, we have been hearing the same question for years: “Where can we continue the conversation after this?”
The DEN Community was created from that need. A place where learning doesn’t stop after a session, but where you:
- can bring questions from workshops and webinars
- can test experiences with colleagues in the sector
- can stay in touch with people working on similar projects
DEN is involved as a knowledge partner: we read along, provide substantive input where it helps, and connect people or themes when there is a need. Underlying many of these conversations is what is often called digital transformation — but in practice, it’s mostly about concrete digital choices and projects you’re working on today.
Building together
The DEN Community is deliberately set up as a place that grows together with the sector. In addition to DEN, there is a core team of cultural professionals from various disciplines and organizations. They think along about the direction of the community and ensure that themes align with what is happening in practice. Your contribution — a question, response, or example — can be the starting point for a conversation that others build on.
You don’t have to wait for the conversation to already be there; you can start it yourself!
Upcoming DEN Community events
In addition to online conversations, we also organize community events where we dive deeper together. The next DEN community event will take place on June 18. During this Community meet-up, cultural professionals will discuss digital projects. What challenges do you face when setting up a digital project? Learn from colleagues and exchange knowledge during this interactive afternoon. As a member of the DEN Community, you’ll automatically stay informed and can participate in these meetings.
