Digital Careers at a Crossroads: Next Steps, New Paths
•Télécharger en tant que PPTX, PDF•
0 j'aime•323 vues
Hi everyone! Welcome to the slides for Digital Careers at a Crossroads: Next Steps and New Paths. Elissa, Max, and Chad presented this talk at the Museum Computer Network’s 2016 conference in New Orleans. This was an exploratory session, meant to pose questions and problems, but we don’t have the answers just yet. Maybe you do, though, and if you do, feel free to reach out to us on Twitter.
Recommandé
Recommandé
Contenu connexe
En vedette
En vedette (14)
Similaire à Digital Careers at a Crossroads: Next Steps, New Paths
Similaire à Digital Careers at a Crossroads: Next Steps, New Paths (20)
Dernier
Dernier (20)
Digital Careers at a Crossroads: Next Steps, New Paths
- 1. Digital Careers at a Crossroads: Next Steps and New Paths Elissa Frankle, US Holocaust Memorial Museum @museums365 Chad Weinard, Independent Museum Technologist @caw_ Max Evjen, Michigan State University Museum @cantus94 #nextmusejobs
- 2. Where are we now? #nextmusejobs
- 5. Everybody in the pool. #nextmusejobs
- 11. What else is working? What other advantages do you see? 5-minute breakout time: #nextmusejobs
- 12. What are the challenges? #nextmusejobs
- 15. What are the other challenges to creating a digital career in museums? What other problems do you see? 5-minute breakout time: #nextmusejobs
- 16. What is the future? #nextmusejobs
- 18. It’s not about us. (Newsflash: it never was.) #nextmusejobs
- 20. How do we get there? #nextmusejobs
- 21. Front-line staff: share your work. #nextmusejobs
- 22. Managers: listen out, talk up. #nextmusejobs
- 23. Managers: digital knowledge is a must-have. #nextmusejobs
- 24. Everybody: we ALL must lead. Leadership Management Change Consistency YOUR JOB #nextmusejobs
- 25. Everyone: rely on this community! #nextmusejobs
- 26. Questions? Elissa Frankle Digital Projects Coordinator, Digital Learning and New Media US Holocaust Memorial Museum @museums365 Chad Weinard Independent Museum Technologist @caw_ Max Evjen Exhibitions Technology Specialist Michigan State University Museum @cantus94 #nextmusejobs
Notes de l'éditeur
- Hi everyone! Welcome to the slides for Digital Careers at a Crossroads: Next Steps and New Paths. Elissa, Max, and Chad presented this talk at the Museum Computer Network’s 2016 conference in New Orleans. This was an exploratory session, meant to pose questions and problems, but we don’t have the answers just yet. Maybe you do, though, and if you do, feel free to reach out to us on Twitter.
- Chad Digital careers are evolving slowly. For Social media managers: role started internally, ambitious educator, curatorial assistant, technologist. Became professionalized. As the first generation moved on, the museum hired from the outside, usually junior marketing/pr Web/digital team is still largely project based, moving from one launch to the next, with content updates in between. Often folded into marketing/communications. IT team is still its own separate silo. It’s service-oriented, maintenance-focused, desktop, network, hardware roots Leadership level is opening slowly: digital skills are rare at the executive level. Chief Digital roles are being filled, sometimes from social media, sometimes from UX, sometimes from musetech. Often chief digital roles are going to those from outside the museum sector.
- This chart is the antidote to the snowflake and networked org charts we saw during the keynote yesterday. Hierarchy still rules the day for museums. Digital is typically an add-on to existing departments and org structure. Digital professionals are working across silos, trying to create horizontal paths through deep verticals. CHAD
- In most museums, digital hasn’t really changed business as usual. Museums add digital projects when an exhibition or marketing budget allows. When they add digital, though, they rarely subtract other programs. When digital workers do advocate for organizational change, and they certainly do, they boldly take on new initiatives--organizing computer clubs, informal learning, cross-departmental working groups, strategy projects--initiatives that are above their pay grade, above and beyond their job description, and unsupported by leadership. CHAD
- departments get their own platforms (membership, development, collections) without necessarily understanding the maintenance work required to keep up a digital tool or platform. Requires a healthy dose of “chepticism”: being the cheerleader for the anxious and the skeptic for the over-eager. ELISSA
- Digital pro can be isolated, pigeonholed, unsupported, pushing against immovable structure/culture. (being left alone can also be good) ELISSA
- But, Digital is growing - that’s clear to anybody here. MAX
- Digital professional roles require individuals adept at spanning silos, so organizations can make faster decisions. They spread institutional knowledge and inherently flatten hierarchy. But I’m not going to blue sky you all considering the fact that many if not most museums are defined by traditional top down org structures, so yes, if you don’t have support from your managers you will experience roadblocks, shall we say? More on that later. But the spread of institutional knowledge cannot be overlooked. (MAX)
- Digital is also forcing organizations to have more of an audience focus. When we talk about our engagement efforts around digital whether it be through social media, digital interactives in exhibits, websites, or even digital asset management - we are talking about what our audience wants, and if we are not we should be. (MAX)
- And a great thing is we are seeing a number of superheroes out there with mix of skills well matched to the digital future in museums (look, they can do cosplay and command their social media dashboard!). Some of you know these people, many of you are these people! And it’s not just about social media, so don’t you all think this doesn’t apply to you. YOU ARE ROCKSTARS! (MAX)
- Break for Discussion (5 minutes) Report Out (take 2 raised hands) Some of the ideas shared were: The “can-do” attitude that develops in digital departments Museum tech people can approach problems from many different perspectives Changes get made faster Digital gets people to the collection Digital people know how to work across silos
- This section is lovingly called “Elissa’s Rant on the State of Museum Digital Careers.” (We do not recommend eating your laptop.)
- Lack of definition: what does the next step look like to advance? There’s no clear path forward. Lack of standardization: what does my job title mean at another institution? Will anyone look at the work I’ve done and understand the fifteen different hats we may have to wear? Jobs expand or contract based on what’s happening at the top, by people who may or may not understand our work. Lack of trust; focus on personal opinion over data-driven decisions. Expertise isn’t always valued, and staff aren’t always trusted to create and manage work based on best practices and data. For instance, when social media managers leave the museum, it’s often because there is no next step up from a social media role there. The people who are hired to replace them usually come from outside the field: people who are tool experts, rather than content experts. There’s a misperception and undervaluing of homegrown expertise.
- This is the crux of the conversation: museum people in digital roles hit a ceiling. When people leave, or promotions are possible, museums rarely hire from within the institution or the field, instead choosing to reach to outside fields. This means that museum digital people have to leave the field in order to move forward: moving to adjacent fields (design thinking, UX design, etc.), or to consulting roles. There’s tremendous brain drain, and often the only way forward seems to be out. To me, this has become a trajectory that happens *to* us, not something museum digital people are able to own or control.
- Break for Discussion (5 minutes) Report Out (take 2 raised hands) Here’s what the audience told us: -There’s an imbalance of skills: skill hoarding by tech people, and skill erosion at the top. -Where can we go next? At big institutions, we have to be specialists; at small institutions we have to be generalists. How can we transfer our skills? Do we have to leave the country? -Transitory role of the digital director: are we designing ourselves out of jobs? (Chad: this would assume that technological change will slow at some point.)
- Digital is everywhere. It’s not the property of a single division; it is everything we do. Digital transforms workflows, opens communication, flattens hierarchy, permeates decision-making. The truth is, Museums are already digital organizations. When museum workers get back from their meetings, go to their desk, they very often turn first to a glowing screen, keyboard and mouse. Museums are digital, they’re just bad at it. A museum that’s good at digital does what it does better. Museums need a digital mindset across the organization.
- Users/participants are central to everyone. We stop patting ourselves on the back and start listening every day. Our users, our participants, our humans become vital to our work, and relationships we cultivate with communities are respected and made central to advancement. (ELISSA)
- Leaders must express the value of digital staff to the rest of the organization, preferably before they bring digital staff on board. When the organization understands the need, they are ready for the change that these roles bring. Leaders must also supervise front-line digital staff grow into leaders. Supervision is for personal growth, so think about how you can best provide the mentoring, training, and opportunities for digital staff to grow. (MAX)
- How do we get there? We don’t know. But here are some thoughts.
- How do we get there? Front-line staff: Be good advocates for yourselves and your work. Rather than living in the often mushy place of “empathy” and “being good to our users,” we can rely on data and numbers from user testing that may speak better to people at the top. It keeps our expertise riding above the world of opinion and conjecture. There is tremendous power in the nodes on the outer edges of a networked system. Talk to and learn from fellow staff people. Start a groundswell. (ELISSA)
- Managers need to listen out and talk up. Listen to people with digital experience; digital workers have expertise beyond tools and frameworks. In fact, because digital workers have had to work between silos, develop alternate workflows, new communication channels, build consensus without authority and experiment--they may be best positioned to help you approach organizational change. And talk up: express the value of digital work AND digital staff. Make the case for your digital teams. Tell leaders what they do and why it’s important. Then tell them again and again. Don’t make digital workers have to justify themselves to others in the organization. (CHAD)
- Hire for digital skills. Provide training and support for those on staff who don’t have digital skills. If your digital workers are providing that training (and they are), make that part of their job description. Not understanding Twitter doesn’t cut it anymore. It’s like saying you don’t understand budgeting. Social is a core museum system. Managers, walk the walk. Get involved with digital tools and workflows yourself and let others know it.(CHAD)
- How do we get there? Everybody: Everyone must lead in an organization. All roles exist on a continuum of leadership and management Lead for Change Manage for Consistency Your job will sit somewhere on this continuum. If you are a Director, you might be closer to the leadership side, but you still will have to produce consistency to some degree. If you are front line digital staff your role will likely be closer to the management side, but you must still at some point to produce change within the organization. Therein lies your opportunity, find your direction, back it up with data, and set forth your vision for change across the organization. By understanding your role in terms of leadership and management, you promote “Yes, and” cultures. (MAX)
- How do we get there? Rely on this community! This is an amazing group of individuals who are all committed to the success of our organization’s digital efforts to engage our many audiences. Get connected and cultivate relationships. And in the spirit of relying on this community, we’d like to ask, what do you think are the solutions? We provided some ideas, but surely those are not the only best ideas to crack this nut. (MAX)