Maaike: We live in a society that is incredibly changing due to digital transformation.
Bert: You have so much freedom and so much space, creative space in an online environment to shape the stories we want to tell in so many forms.
Anic in voice-over: This is Culture Shift, a podcast by DEN, the driving force behind digital transformation in the cultural sector. I am Anic van Damme and in this series, I delve into the world of digital transformation. Because if there is one thing we really cannot ignore, it is the growing importance of digital to make the sector future-proof. By keeping up with digital developments, you can reach your audience now and in the future.
Digital transformation, as the term suggests, requires a change, a shift within your organization and in the sector in general. Fortunately, there are already many museums, theaters, and pop venues showing what is possible. In this podcast, I visit those organizations and ask them about their successes and pitfalls. In addition, I talk to various experts who can tell me everything about the role of digital in culture. Because how do you reach a broader audience? And how can digital help you make an impact? You will hear all about it in Culture Shift!
In this episode, we will delve into what digital transformation actually entails. And how you, as a cultural institution, can use it to reach even more people. Someone who can tell us a lot about this is Bert Mennings from the Limburgs Museum. I am going to Venlo to talk to him about their digital strategy.
Anic: Hello, good morning.
Bert: Good morning, Bert Mennings, hello.
Anic: Hey Bert, what a super warm Limburg welcome here, complete with pie in your office here, super!
Bert: Yes, welcome to the Limburgs Museum, and that's of course always with pie. It's gooseberry, but it's also strawberry season, so you have a choice.
Anic in voice-over: Bert and I take a seat in his office to talk about the new positioning of the Limburgs Museum.
Bert: Well, I started four years ago as director of the Limburgs Museum, with a new positioning of the Limburgs Museum. We want to tell the stories of Limburg. Well, that's not so strange if you're called the Limburgs Museum, but then, how and what? How do you reach as many people as possible, because that's our goal.
Anic in voice-over: When you talk about reaching as many people as possible, you quickly come to digital. The Limburgs Museum is therefore undergoing an important digital transformation. Bert is going to tell me all about it shortly, but first, let's take a look at what digital transformation actually entails. That's why I invited Maaike Verberk to the studio. She is the director of DEN and knows everything about the importance of digital transformation in the cultural sector.
Maaike: We live in a society that is incredibly changing due to digital transformation. And especially due to the use of digital technologies. And you see that change everywhere around you. You can see that healthcare is changing, education, how people interact with each other. And if I then go back to what that means for a cultural organization, you can see that digital transformation for a cultural organization actually means a fundamental, different way of working. Different work processes, different skills of your employees, new business models, and you can take steps in that. So when you look at digital transformation, it’s not so much about: do I use digital technologies? But am I going to work in a different way, so that I can relate to that change in society.
Anic: So am I understanding you correctly that you're basically saying: digital transformation is primarily about people?
Maaike: Yes, that's right, it is, as we say, 10 percent about digital technology in an organization and 90 percent is about people, processes, culture, ways of interaction, and how people indeed embrace new ways of working. It's really 90-10, yes.
Anic in voice-over: Maaike points out that it affects all aspects of the organization. A digital strategy is therefore important and has a significant impact on your organization. Bert knows this better than anyone. He decided to launch a strategy where digital is one of the main pillars.
Bert: We have a very beautiful, large museum in Venlo. That’s the physical museum, and in addition, we opted for two other museums. And we call that the three-brand strategy at the Limburgs Museum. We also have a Limburgs Museum on location, where we travel, with temporary productions, but also with a permanent presence in various places throughout Limburg. And in addition, we conceived four years ago an online museum. That was the thought process. And why on location, throughout Limburg, and establish an online museum? That’s because we had the idealistic goal of reaching as many people as possible. So also people who cannot come to Venlo or do not want to yet, or just experience a barrier to participating in culture in a museum. In addition, also a commercial goal. What you want is to interest people online or on location, intrigue them with the story of Limburg, which they can also experience online or on location, but ultimately also come to the Limburgs Museum in Venlo.
Anic: So you actually hope for a kind of cross-pollination of interest.
Bert: Yes, so each museum in Venlo, on location, and online has exclusive content. So a destination in itself, but for the same target groups, based on the same themes. And in the third instance, we promote the other two museums in each museum. And it doesn’t matter which one it is, so that we can achieve a much higher reach in each museum. So that’s the strategy behind it.
Anic in voice-over: Maaike emphasizes how important that digital aspect is in your strategy for the future. We really can’t ignore digital anymore.
Maaike: If you just look outside the cultural sector, you see in the business world that it’s almost do or die there. You have to relate to that digitization and those digital techniques. Going back to the cultural sector, I don’t think it’s very different there. Of course, there’s not the law of the market, thankfully that it’s not there. At the same time, that society is what you relate to. You have that social relevance, which is of course also the core of a cultural organization. And well, I think you remain socially relevant if you indeed also really relate to that digital society.
Anic: There’s also a new policy framework. What role does policy play in this?
Maaike: Yes, well, at the moment, right, you also have policy reasons to move in that direction, because the policy framework from the Ministry of OCW, from the State Secretary, also very clearly literally states, that she believes that for the new arts plan period, the new cultural policy period starting in 2025, she believes that cultural institutions should be encouraged to write a digital strategy. So you see that there is also a push from policy to take steps in that direction.
Anic in voice-over: Cultural institutions are therefore encouraged by policy and trends in society to take digital more seriously, but the cultural audience is also evolving and demands change.
Maaike: That change is also very clearly visible in the cultural audience, and then you notice that an audience develops differently, especially young people. They don’t know a world without smartphones, where online and offline are completely intertwined.
Bert: You can now see this very precisely in the visitors, a large part of the older visitors has not returned. And that is of course an advantage in disguise, so to speak, of Corona, that the cultural sector has become aware that it is really necessary to connect younger generations to you. And then I look at the museum sector and think: yes, education, great, right, so the children, we do reach them. From 35, 40 for many museums also, but those intermediate generations, there are too few of them.
Anic in voice-over: From the changing visitor and new policy, there is therefore a push towards digital. You have to do something with it… and that is exactly what Bert believes can make an organization even stronger. He sees a lot of advantages in a digital museum.
Bert: You have so much freedom and you have so much space, creative space in an online environment to shape the stories we want to tell in so many forms.
Anic: Can you give an example, something you couldn’t do physically, but can do online?
Bert: What you can do online is that you are much more flexible. We just opened an exhibition, and you work on that for a year and a half, and then you open, and yes, then it’s there for seven months. It’s fixed.
Anic: Well, that’s different in online domains, digital domains.
Bert: Yes, then you can tell a new story every day. You can shape a new story every day. So it has much more flexibility, both in content, form, interaction, than in a physical museum. In a very traditional physical museum, you promote an exhibition, and that is then an exhibition conceived by a museum, and you then experience it from room one to the last room. Online you are much more flexible and can respond much more specifically to the interest of the visitor, and that is the ideal playground in the online environment.
Anic in voice-over: Digital offers many possibilities according to Bert. However, Maaike sees that many cultural organizations are still somewhat hesitant. They wonder if it is even possible to create the same experience online.
Maaike: Well, and I think we are seeing more and more possibilities and good examples that it is indeed possible. But what is important is that institutions remember that you don’t simply transfer something you normally do in a museum or on a stage or in a presentation institution one-to-one to a streaming platform or your website.
Anic: And why doesn’t it work if you transfer it one-to-one?
Maaike: It’s just a different medium. A theater or a museum is a different medium and requires a different connection between art and audience than digital. You can ask for interaction, you can deal with your audience very personally. It’s 24/7, it’s always there. You don’t have to wait until your audience enters your hall or your museum, so there are different building blocks that you can use in your business model.
I think, for example, that with digital you can actually also extend the experience. You as a visitor can already be informed about the performance you are going to see beforehand. In the past, and still, if you want to attend an introduction, you have to be in a theater 45 minutes before the performance starts and get a wonderful introduction that has been well thought out. Now you see that this increasingly disappears into a podcast, allowing you as a visitor to prepare already while on the tram to the theater or during the weekend.
Anic in voice-over: Bert is already experimenting a lot and has a lot of ambitions. But I’m actually curious where the Limburgs Museum currently stands with their digital museum?
Bert: We just launched a pilot, and that’s a first version. It’s a minimum viable product, that’s what it’s called, and there’s still a lot to be done. We want to test it now. We currently have 15 percent of all the plans we have. 15 percent, so 85 percent, not only in terms of content but especially in terms of functionalities, 85 percent still has to come. So it’s a very small slice of sausage that we now have live.
Anic in voice-over: A first version of the online museum was launched in March. This is a version with a few functions and stories, which will need to be greatly expanded in the future. This is how you make a seemingly mega project manageable. And that’s also exactly what Bert recommends.
Bert: Start small. Launch and ask for feedback. When I give a presentation, I ask everyone: grab your phone and type in our.limburgsmuseum.nl What do you see? What do you think of it? Last week at a meeting with museums in Krefeld, you immediately got the reaction: why is the second language English and not German? And that’s a very good point, that will come at some point.
Anic in voice-over: Even though it’s exciting to ask for feedback on something you’ve worked hard on and are very proud of, it’s still incredibly important for the Limburgs Museum. To ensure they get feedback from a broad group of people, they have created 6 personas that represent different groups of visitors.
Bert: We have defined different types of target groups based on motivation. So no longer on demographic characteristics, but on motivation, and there are now six of them. And we are going to test the product on that, and no idea what will come out of it.
Anic: So it’s, usually in organizations, that sometimes even has a name, right, the Janneke, the trailblazer?
Bert: Yes, yes, we have proud Tanja and recreational Ria and family Frank and community Sam. And that one is very interesting, because we are now focusing in the first launch on proud Tanja, a broad culture lover. But community Sam is very consciously chosen because he is about 30 and very active within a certain community. Just really engaged young people and very consciously, really a hardcore challenging target group for museums.
Anic in voice-over: The Limburgs Museum is already collecting feedback. For example, they have already found out that the navigation on the website needs to be improved for the next version. Audience research and asking for feedback is something Maaike also sees as very important.
Maaike: Go to your audience and ask them too, because audience data is often anonymous. But you also have options to simply survey your audience with a survey tool or any tool: “how did you find this?” And cultural institutions are also working on that. Festival Cement, which is developing a tool to measure the impact of their performances that they put on at a festival. Incredibly important!
Anic in voice-over: When you hear it all like this, a lot is involved in digital transformation. It’s not simply launching a website or a tool, but a long process with feedback and adjustments. I can imagine that you’re listening and thinking: I don’t even know where to start, it all sounds very big. So I ask Maaike how people should look at it?
Maaike: Digital transformation is indeed, often what we notice, that they look at it as a kind of mountain, so it sounds like that too. But it’s also just small steps you can take in that. It’s often also a cultural change. And in that cultural change, it’s also about, for example, looking around at what’s happening around me? What are other organizations working on? In the cultural sector, but certainly also outside of it, and can I do something with that? So a first step can also simply be having the conversation about it with each other.
Anic in voice-over: So you don’t have to see it as a mountain. You can make it small and manageable by making choices. That’s also what Bert recommends.
Bert: I see that we as a museum are also on all social media channels. Yes, should you want that? Because we have to post everywhere again, it all takes work. And then I think: yes, I see three likes somewhere, yes, and? Not interesting. Make choices: what do you focus on? And especially if you’re smaller. Actually choose where you see the most opportunities and what goal you want to achieve. But focus, choose something. And you don’t have certainty, so you choose something, and then it just has to prove whether it will be a success. But then you can adjust in the meantime. That’s why I want that minimal viable product tested now, then we can adjust. And if one person doesn’t like it, well, that’s still manageable, but if half the people say: “yes, we don’t want this, at least not like this.”
Anic: Yes, what do you do then?
Bert: Yes, then we’ll come up with a different product. Because yes, we are now at 15 percent, we still have 85 percent left.
Anic in voice-over: So make choices and use your visitor to adjust. This way, you can already start with a digital strategy with small steps. The management of an organization then plays an important role in initiating that transformation.
Maaike: Without leadership, an organization obviously will not transform. Because it must be supported by a strategy, by a vision. And it also has an incredible amount to do with a culture. These are, of course, all issues that apply at the leadership level.
Anic: So you need your leader, but when you are an employee of an organization and you are inspired in some way. You want to open that conversation, you actually want more. What would you advise someone who hears this but hasn’t necessarily got the leader on board yet?
Maaike: Everyone in an organization is an agent of change, so you are too. It’s within your power to initiate that change. And if you don’t do that immediately with your leader or your management team, you can also start with your team and your colleagues. Then you also go to a certain performance with colleagues, or you share articles. It’s still about starting small, and at some point, that conversation will expand.
Anic in voice-over: Make sure you get the organization on board so you can actively work on digital transformation. When you want to go for it, employees must be on board. To tell me more about this, Bert takes me to the newly opened exhibition about Louis XIV and William III.
Bert: We are now walking to the exhibition, the Sun King and Orange. It is now 350 years ago that Louis XIV himself conquered Maastricht, in just thirteen days, a record time. The question we ask in the exhibition: was Louis welcomed as an occupier or as a liberator? And is the Limburg identity now Dutch or rather French?
Anic: We’ll see.
Anic in voice-over: In the physical museum, you can learn everything about Louis XIV and William III, but they also added a storyline about the Siege of Maastricht online. He points me to a castle on a screen that is also used online.
Bert: The screen itself can be seen here in the exhibition, online the further deepening can be seen. The Valkenburg castle, for example, is depicted on the screen. But then we go much further into it online. You can delve much deeper and also much more into other perspectives, especially from Limburg itself, which can add content, take in other perspectives. So it’s much more variable and therefore, in our opinion, much more interesting.
Anic: Ultimately, it’s also a completely different mindset for your editorial team, I think, because what you have is no longer leading to process, but what you receive in terms of stories, how do they handle that?
Bert: Well, in the online museum, we started with the Maas as a subject. Mother Maas, so defining for Limburg. And there came a very nice submitted story from a fisherman who was fishing on a very dangerous spot on a pontoon in the Maas and a very nice story with it, how he himself then experiences the Maas at such a moment. A curator responded to that and said: we have a very beautiful banner in our collection from a fishing association in Limburg. And because of that fisherman’s story, that collection piece, so to speak, has come out of the depot online and placed in the online museum with connections made there, and we are now working on a relay form to get a whole stream of stories going among fishermen. What is your favorite spot on the Maas?
Anic: What do you notice about your curator, does he/she enjoy these kinds of things? Or is it more of a burden, an extra thing?
Bert: Yes, they really enjoy it, because oh yes, we have something very beautiful that is never on display. Because only 10 percent of all collections in the Netherlands are on display. So 90 percent is not. Well, some you also don’t want to show, but a lot you do. And that’s what curators want, they manage it for posterity, but especially also for the public, to enjoy it again.
Anic in voice-over: Organizations are proud of their collection and want to show the unique objects to their visitors. It’s, of course, nice to see that they are so proud of their collection, but Maaike sees that this sometimes also gets in the way of collaboration and progress.
Maaike: The unique character, that’s a reason why they often think: yes, you know, but I am also unique in my story and then you have less tendency to collaborate. But yes, it is crucial if you want to take these steps because that story of yours remains unique. But the collaboration, how you get that story to the public, you can take steps in that.
Anic in voice-over: Collaboration is essential when you start working with digital. Together you can achieve much more and this way not everyone has to reinvent the wheel.
Maaike: We have, of course, in this podcast also the example of the Limburgs Museum, where it is very clear that one museum has taken the initiative to collect the stories of an entire province in the online museum. And that really requires work and persuasion to tell other collection-managing organizations that that story also resonates online.
Bert: Sometimes Limburgers are too kind to each other and others because we want to maintain relationships. The downside of this is that there is a very strong urge in Limburg to do things together.
Anic in voice-over: In Limburg, Bert notices that organizations actually like to seek each other out. That’s why they are also working hard to collaborate even more closely in the future.
Bert: The second very important component of that 85 percent is that we want to connect the collection, the digitized collection of ourselves and all partners in Limburg with each other via linked open data. That is a national digital heritage strategy, and we as a province are the first to actually apply it now. So then you’re talking about a national term register, with which you can tag collection pieces of yourself. Based on that, via linked open data, all collection pieces, so all stories, you could say, are linked to each other in a sustainable way. So that they are findable forever and always. Well, we are ahead of that, with all the collaboration partners we have, but also that we are now going to apply it. And that requires blood, sweat, and tears because I always say: we build the online museum shell just making sure there are sockets. And that actually all partners with their collections, that they have to make sure they have the right plug to just plug it in and that it is then connected to each other.
Anic in voice-over: And when we talk about collaboration, you can also look beyond just other cultural organizations. Companies can also be very interesting partners.
Bert: For example, we soon have a fundraising dinner with the business community of Limburg. And the funny thing is: if you tell entrepreneurs about the online museum and its innovation, their eyes start to sparkle. They find it interesting. And so also to connect with it. If you appeal to entrepreneurs on entrepreneurship, yes, then you have a connection. And how you can then realize things together. And that can be in an exchange of money, but it can also be in bartering.
Maaike: I certainly think that the opportunities now also lie mainly in broadening your network as an organization in this. You can collaborate, in fact, you must collaborate. With technology companies, drawing knowledge from the gaming industry, and I certainly think that we as cultural organizations have creativity, stories, knowledge, and a social role, which other companies are also waiting for.
Anic in voice-over: Besides forming partnerships with companies, there are of course other ways to raise money. Whether you are a small or a large organization. As Bert says: there is always money for a good plan. For example, you can go to Cultuurloket DigitALL, for development and project contributions. And at Werktuig PPO, you can get a reimbursement for training and education in the field of digital transformation. Ultimately, of course, you want to consistently allocate money for digital transformation, but these project-based contributions can be a nice way to experiment before you develop a strategy.
Anic in voice-over: When you want to start with digital, Maaike has a very good tip.
Maaike: What I think is very nice to mention now is that we very recently introduced a Digital Transformation Scan. That is a questionnaire where you actually have a scan of your entire organization. And from that follows: where am I in that process of digital transformation? What is actually my starting point for my next step? I have a blind spot there, I’m going to take steps there, or hey, but I’m good at that, I’m going to improve even more there so that it becomes my specialty in that digital transformation and in that innovation and agility.
Anic in voice-over: You can find the scan on den.nl and it’s a great way to discover where you stand. From this starting point, you can see what you want to focus on. So you can get started with digital transformation with good management, fine collaborations, and useful feedback.
Also listen to the other episodes in this podcast. In the next episode of Culture Shift, we will talk about digital accessibility and inclusion. Because how can you use digital tools to make your organization and activities more accessible? To find out, I will visit Willemijn Maas, business director of the Nederlands Dans Theater.
Also read the transcripts of the other episodes
- The Audience of the Future
- New Creation and Experience
- What is Digital Transformation?
- Digital Accessibility and Inclusion
- Impact Thinking, Steering, and Measuring
