From a Digital Marketing & Business MBA to Museovation (#2)
Here is the second part of the transcript of my long interview by Chloé Louis, herself crazy about art, museums and heritage. Due to our common interest in digital transformation, we discussed about my journey from a Digital Marketing & Business MBA to the foundation of Museovation dealing with digital transformation in museums (part I ), taking into account differences of perspective on that matter between French museums and others. In the second part of this interview, you will find my views on what is at stake in open innovation for the cultural field with some brief examples on Google Arts, Startups’ incubators and video games industry. I hope you will find some food for thoughts and that you would be happy to engage in conversation on the different topics covered.
Your thesis is quite logically on the digitalization of museums. Can you tell us more about that?
The original title of my thesis was: IRL museums v URL museums, warring brothers or Siamese brothers? Then, a sub heading quickly imposed itself: The stakes of open innovation in museums. This dividing approach comes exactly from the way I tackled my research.
The more I got into my research, the more I came to realize how crucial the question of open innovation in museums was (i.e. the relationship that the IRL museum has with all these new cultural actors).
Today, these actors who have their own agenda regularly knock at the door of museums. Do these agendas fit them? Nothing is less certain. At one moment or another, is the value that these actors seek in museums economically returned to them? Indeed, the stakes do not boil down to a worldwide visibility of collections (even if it’s crucial nowadays). There is also a financial issue at a time when subsidies are shrinking in museums.
The case of Google Arts and Culture
Let’s take a concrete example. Google Arts and Culture knocks at the door of a museum. From a museum point of view, one should say “what a godsend!”. Google Arts and Culture is a global qualitative platform which puts tools freely at disposal so that museums can use them to digitalize their collections in high definition. Something museums cannot afford to pay for. Thanks to this digitalizing process, museums can develop a more qualitative communication and bring visitors better knowledge of their collections.
However, that is not so simple. This is that aspect I was interested in. I wanted to analyze Google Arts and Culture agenda and understand whether it was most relevant for Google Arts and Culture or the museum. When one goes deep into the subject, he quickly come to realize that Google Arts and Culture was first devised to offset other problems (tax problems among others) which affected the parent company Google. Art, we all know is a fantastic form of soft power which enables to give a positive image of an action carried out by country or a company.
We have to deal with the same question of soft power with the Chinese equivalent of Google Arts and Culture, Baidu Baike, which in France cooperates with the Château de Fontainebleau. It also wants to spread over Europe to counterbalance the rather aggressive economic program of the Silk Roads, also known as the “One Belt, One Road” initiative. It has already conquered a large part of Spain with Gaudi work of arts and Portugal.
Another problem about Google Arts and Culture lies in the fact that the platforms sucks up any visitors’ data from the website of the different museums which have joined it. It then becomes more difficult for a museum to get detailed data about its own visitors since the latter check information about its collections not on its website but on Google Arts and Culture’s one. How can visitors’ information be then purposely reactivated for crowdfunding when museums want to acquire new pieces of art or when they want to boost sales at their shop or simply want to coax visitors into coming back to the museum? So, there is therefore a loss of online data-clients due to the shift of the consultation source.
So, a lot of questions remain to be considered by museums, which, by the way, are in urgent need of financial supports to carry on with their digital transformation. It then becomes essential to know about the other side of the picture, to be better informed before entering negotiations with these new very seducing and powerful actors. It’s a business-minded speech, implying commercial negotiations that museums find it hard to tackle. It is not part and parcel of their culture.
The impact of cultural startups on the museum world
There are also a lot of questions related to the economy of start-ups with the creation of incubators inside cultural institutions such as the incubator of the Centre des Monuments Nationaux (CMN) in France (The Heritage Incubator), and more precisely the ones related to opening up data for example. The cultural sector is entitled in France not to open up all its data which are referred to as’ cultural exception’ as it is provided for in article 11 of the CADA law dating back from July 17th, 1978. And yet when you work with start-ups it is imperative.
When economic development is at stake there are two ways for museums to collaborate with the start-ups they incubate.
The first model consists for the museums into sharing their data with some start-ups who want to work with them in exchange of which, they benefit from a solution adapted to their ecosystem. Yet, if the start-up takes off, thanks, among others, to the data provided by the museum, the latter will not be allowed to get a share in the turnover of the start-up and will make a limited long term profit out of it, while having taken all the risks at the beginning.
Another model made obvious in New Zealand inside the Ta Papa Tongarewa Museum, consists for the museums into systematically taking a percentage of the turnover of the start-ups they have helped to launch. This can be a source of recurrent income for the museum when it works. It all boils down to entering an economic process very far from the French museum world, which by the way, rarely owns in house the qualified people who can manage that kind of situation.
These questions are totally new and represent business stakes, museums are not used to. Currently there is not even a model of a contract they could rely on. These contracts are in any case difficult to work out, knowing they have to go through different tutelary services such as the Ministry of Culture and local councils.
Moreover, currently when a start-up begins in the cultural field, it cannot objectively live on the cultural market alone. Museums know about that and acknowledge it. They have then to accept that these start-ups canvass other sectors if they choose to develop on their own market only. There can then either be a conflict of branding or of values which can turn out to be problematic for the actors of culture. Even though it is not on the same scale, just keep in mind the Sacklers’ problem recently faced by different museums throughout the world.
Launching start-ups in the cultural field is a very recent phenomenon. It is crucial to know how it will evolve and to draw the right lessons. The Heritage Incubator from the CMN shares a lot about its experience. That is paramount because it will change the economic visions of the French cultural world. Moreover, this incubator sounds like inspiring others. The Grand Palais-RMN is actually creating its own with the help of Fisheye. That will be captivating to follow.
The Video Games and Cultural Heritage
I have also been interested in creative industry and precisely in video games which put the emphasis on story telling in the relation they develop with museums. What is tricky is to notice that many of them, such as Ubisoft for instance which has launched the series Assassin’ s Creed, hardly requires the knowledge of the professionals from the museum world or the one of cultural and historical heritage. Thus, simply because curators very rarely want to work with them, and if so, are not endowed with the requisite flexibility to fit the economic purposes characteristic of the video games sector. Ubisoft, as others, then works with historians who make sure that what is created by the different developers is coherent and as close as possible to the historical truth.
However, what is new and much more disturbing, as far as the missions of museums is concerned, is to notice to what extent video games have become a cultural and educational powerful reference for the young generations, to the point that museums themselves are using the video games’ images as a background for their own exhibitions (Montréal Pointes-à-Callière - Exhibition on Egyptian Queens) or ask for the VR version of Notre Dame after the fire.
“So it was after receiving a shower of positive opinions about Steam that Assassin’s Creed Unity was downloaded more than three million times, and as the Hollywood Reporter states, this milestone was reached just days after Ubisoft’s announcement, demonstrating the support and solidarity of the players”- Benjamin/Millenium Blog-April 29th 19
This new role has lent wings to Ubisoft teams who went even further. To meet the needs of Assassins’ Creeds Origins which took place in the Ancient Egypt, they had to transcribe specific hieroglyphs for the sake of historical coherence. A substantive work was finally carried out. That led them to create the first worldwide platform translating hieroglyphs, in partnership with …Google!
So, we have two private major actors who for the first time have taken over the mission belonging to museums, without the latter taking part in it. Yet, today, Egyptologists themselves work with this platform. What will it come of it, if from one day to the next, Ubisoft or Google decide to close it down? No state actor is an active participant in the project so as to guaranty its sustainability.
While I was writing my thesis, I tried to draw up a series of questions a museum should ask itself before negotiating with a new actor from the digital world. Collaborating is crucial, it is in everyone’ s interest, specially museums. That is something I have also learnt from the “Test and Learn” mantra of my MBA. But museums (and specially the medium size or small ones) have to be aware of the consequences and the stakes of every collaboration so as not to be trapped or deceived.
To finish with and because it’s the tradition at the DMB, what is your hashtag?
#Museovation of course, it is first the name of my company, but it is a slogan of digital transformation for museums: « Let’s be Museovation » (museum + innovation).
This is also under this hashtag you will be able to follow this new project on Instagram, Facebook or under @ElisaGravil on Twitter.
