Arts Council England have published new research mapping the online presences of all of the English regularly funded organisations (RFOs). As part of ACE’s new corporate priority strand, “digital opportunity“, the research interestingly looks at what kind of marketing organisations are doing online, and to what level they provide public service content online. The research is available for download via ACE’s website, or if you’d prefer not to download it, can be read online at AmbITion’s website.

I’m pleased that the research has looked at activity on social networking sites, such as Myspace and Facebook, as well as just RFO’s websites, and it introduces the definition of a “multi-platform cultural institution” as being one that offers cultural participation online as well as in venue. Measuring an organisations’ website stats, and measuring what can be done on a destination website is no longer a good enough measure of an arts organisations’ online capability, capacity and most importantly – impact. It certainly isn’t a measure of how effective online participation is with the organisation, or a measure of how participative, open and effective that organisation is online.

For example, Festivals Edinburgh are pulling together a whole load of user generated content through social media feeds into their new website, but obviously their webpresence this summer will be far greater, with new iPhone apps being created, and participation happening and content being available via social networks as well as online TV channels like edfest.tv.
Content, participation opportunities and interaction opportunities that Festivals Edinburgh is offering is via their own channels and via channels they have developed in collaboration and partnership. Having content smashed up and out there in many different places is a far better strategy than trying to persuade audience to come to you – that’s a push strategy, and we live in a pull world.

Similarly the new National Theatre Wales, whose digital strategy I developed through my other company envirodigital, has a webpresence strategy, rather than a website strategy. This encompasses the online social network (developed first); a destination website (currently in development, with limited functions as we want the engaging to happen through the social tools); and a wider webpresence (NTW going to wherever their fans might be – facebook, twitter, flickr, blip.tv, other online fora, etc.). Their crowd and content is in the cloud (on the internet), and it would be ludicrous to suggest to them that they should only have interaction with NTW where NTW says they should. That would be like saying: the only way to interact with theatre is to attend a theatre. And that would be a tricky line for a virtual organisation . NTW have set up an online ecosytem, not an egosystem.

The Arts Council England’s research provides a solid baseline, hitherto not available, for the sector to measure itself against.

I think the research shows that the sector still needs help, support and guidance around digital development, as they try to develop operationally and innovate new online business models; at the same time as trying to build understanding and expertise around IP, and contracts with artists and venues that would enable them to be able to actually create digital work legally and so make it available as public service content. These are the issues that the AmbITion project has been piloting approaches to overcome, and our roadshows and regional online networks have proved that the sector desires this support (eg. is Yorkshire region’s online network – see getambition.com for links to the network in your region).

The AmbITion project has been a pilot, but a successful pilot. As a project, our funding in England comes to an end in October 2009. I think that this research shows that the timing of that is wrong. Arts organisations obviously have a hunger as well as a need to develop digitally, but lack the skills to do so, and so still need support of a project like AmbITion. (AmbITion wasn’t built to need to last forever, and should be an intervention at a certain point in time. However, I think that time is still now, and will probably be for a few more years. We only have a small number of digitally expert organisations currently, some of the AmbITion organisations will add to this list over the next year or so having spent the last two years rapidly developing.)

I call for those digitally expert organisations, many of whom are London-based, to really help the less so by making available case studies and framework contracts, and sharing resources and learning: currently this can be done through AmbITion’s regional networks (London’s here), and via the website.

I would also call for the definition of “online presence” to be reviewed annually as the digital landscape changes rapidly. Already, it should be broadened to content arts organisations make available through new and additional online channels, such as ning, and through new collaborations such as 4iP funded projects, where the arts organisations involved may not be the lead branding, but their content may be an important element of the public service offering.

I finally call for more support – for capital and for supporting learning and sharing. RFOs are in the middle of a journey of digital development, but are also still in the middle of getting digital, and getting more digital. Arts Council England summarises:

that there may be opportunities for regularly funded organisations to do more to:
– exploit online’s potential for participation and collaboration
– explore the relationship between online and offline
– increase the quality, reach and impact of the public service content currently being provided
But more work is required to understand the resources and support needed to make this happen.

What do you think? What types of support do you think would be useful?