Filed under: Organisational Development
Having spent the last few months working with Museum, Library and Archive organisations, the knowledge and passion for the management of collections and services I’ve come across means I’m clear about how little I know. So much for me.
As far as the institutions go, they are amazing in their comfort zones of objects, records and baby-rhyme-times but they get seriously weak when it comes to communicating that offer and know less about their customers than your average cornershop. This really bothers me. Not one to shy from a big metaphor when I feel one is needed – I’m calling for a Copernican Revolution – a shift in knowledge that changes the centre of our solar-system.
Let’s recognise collections and services for what they are: mere satellites of the big hot ball at the epicentre of cultural value – the public. By shirking off the limits of ‘customer focus’ through developing data capture and making applied use of market intelligence, our sector could lead in making collections and services conduits for creating new data, information and knowledge about persons and the public. Creating institutions which use this knowledge to drive missions, create viable businesses and enliven advocacy would revolutionise the standing of the cultural sector.
Filed under: Uncategorized
Hello and welcome to 2007 and amh‘s first blog. The idea of this page is to keep anyone interested in the work of amh updated on what we are doing and thinking about. Postings will come from different members of staff discussing projects or ideas they are currently developing. We don’t expect this site to be too formal an area (ties will not be necessary) but instead somewhere for amh to explore ideas with a wider world and from time to time if the feeling takes you hopefully get you the readers feedback too.We have some exciting challenges for 2007 and as just a quick taster here are a few of the questions we’ll be answering with our work:
How can we help all cultural organisations become more customer focused throughout the whole of their organisation? And what tools do we need to help this happen? How do the public really engage in public art? How do we help museums to capture customer data in a way that allows them to develop a greater understanding of who their customers really are and them communicate with them better? What tools can we use to help local authorities better understand the cultural needs of their local communities?
Well that should keep us busy until at least April! We hope you enjoy the blog, please send us any comments and thoughts you have to make it better and more useful and of course if you can answer any of our questions we would love to hear from you.
