The culture industries were growing rapidly and provided a good number of new jobs before Covid-19 in 2020 and onwards. The pandemic hit these industries hard, but showed, at the same time, the great importance of culture as one of the building blocks of a civilised society. The need for consumption of culture did not disappear during lockdowns, quite the contrary.
The sector needs, now and in the future, professionals who work with expertise and passion. They need leadership that copes with both the soon-to-be retired generation of professionals as well as millennials. Most importantly, they need leaders who have cultural understanding of the institutions that they work for and can take over the intellectual ownership of the organisation.
I usually describe the museum’s activities by starting with the public. Without the public the institution would be only a warehouse that would store objects just for the sake of it. Museums collect, research, communicate and organise
exhibitions and events for the public. They interpret the contents and encourage debates that invite different perspectives. But it is the people who make the museum. Every visitor and their individual needs must be respected, as John Falk and Lynn Dierking have demonstrated (Falk & Dierking 2018).
Running museums, developing collections, producing exhibitions and events, funding the work and responding to the needs of the audience create an ongoing need for analysis. Questions that help museums to identify areas for development are many, but one must invest time in thinking them through.
In the following, I present a short (and not comprehensive) list that can serve as a beginning for internal development. The questions might form the begin- ning for strategic work that will eventually support the annual action plans and delegation of different tasks on a team level, as well as on an individual level.
Collections
• Profile of the collection: what are the strengths? What are the weaknesses?
• Development potential: what to acquire and why?
• Use of the collection: how is the collection used and how should this be developed onsite and online?
Exhibitions and events
• Profile and quality of exhibitions and events: what are the criteria behind the decisions?
• Collaboration & production models: are the ways of working efficient?
Could something be done in a better way or differently?
• Partners: which are the most important strategic partners and why?
Research
• Research policy: what does your museum research and why? What must be achieved? Examples: provenance and restitution research, colonial histories, gender studies, etc.
• Partners: who are the most important strategic partners and why?
• New competencies: are practices in place that ensure scholars can start working?
Education and communication
• Target groups and segments: who does your museum invest in?
• Visitor experiences: what kind of ambition level does your museum rep- resent? What is the customer promise onsite and online?
• New methods: how do you work with your audiences?
• Hybrid strategies: how do you disseminate information and create expe- riences on various platforms?
Public debate and society
• Museum’s voice: how does your museum use it? What are the most im- portant arenas?
• Clear strategy and key messages: what are the most important messages that you want to deliver in all circumstances?
• Museum as a medium: what kinds of channels does your museum use to communicate the most important issues? Can they be developed further?
When working with internal development and strategies, one should be aware of the constant need for analysis. One should be ready to define and re-define the work in relation to the needs of the audiences and society. Some changes are there for a short term only, whereas the others might have long-term effects that require, for example, new competences from the museum as an organisa- tion. These changes are typically related to the ways of working, utilising new technologies, writing and rewriting histories, positioning the museum in society and taking responsibility.
Probably one of the biggest differences is related to the concept of a museum:
from a place that shows everything at one spot to a concept combining onsite and online presence and services. In the 16th century the earliest collections showed more or less everything that was included in the collection to those very few who had the possibility for exclusive visits. When collections grew, some objects were stored, and this created categories within a collection.
During the 18th century, when the public was gradually allowed to visit collec- tions, a whole new set of rules and regulations was required – a code of museum behaviour. We have seen excellent examples of this, starting from Neikelius’ pub- lication in 1727, where he gently guides the visitors to behave well and encourages visitors to deepen their knowledge by acquiring the collection catalogue for any further studies (Schulz 1994). Then, as we remember, museums were gradually opened all across Europe in the 19th century. Ways of displaying collections were formulated and canonical representations were established (Giebelhausen 2020).
Collections grew in size, as did expertise in managing them. The biggest changes of the 20th century were related to the notion that museums needed to be able to use the same tools as any other industries: communication, marketing, audience development and a widening of the economic palette from one source only to a sustainable selection of several external sources of income.
To become a museum with an exciting onsite and online personality and presence requires proper policies for securing funding and investing in people with the right competencies. It requires passion for collections and research, ambition to explore the needs of the audiences and honesty and transparency in com- munication. A museum must not be afraid of taking risks or making mistakes.
Working at a museum is people’s business. Objects do not have feelings or talk back, but people do. We cannot say yet how jobs will change in the future.
What we know for sure is that we will all need many skills and capacities in order to make better museums for people. Even if the work changes, our need to encounter authentic and original objects will not disappear. Therefore, in
the future, we will also need platforms for these kinds of genuine encounters.
They will be challenged and re-challenged, which will keep the cycle of change active. From a leadership perspective the requirements can be put very simply:
you need to know what you are talking about. And you need to be really good at and ambitious with what you do.
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