The culture that changes the culture
I’m writing on a different topic from the one I originally had planned this week. My thoughtfully curated content plan (aka scribbled bullet list in my Moleskine) was thrown a curveball by this splendid post written by Alex Waterston.
I’ve found that since I started writing >this newsletter< on a regular basis, when an idea pops or creeps or is chucked into my head it can dominate my thinking process, and on this occasion I’ve become absorbed by Alex’s words and other people’s reactions to them.
Incidentally, Alex is literally a curveball in human form, which his writing captures very nicely – part of the joy of riffing off him. I’ve attempted to pen this as a companion piece to his thoughtful words.
His reminiscences were about Culture Hack Scotland, an event (a happening?) which occurred three times between 2011 and 2013. CHS took the still relatively novel concept of a hackday/hackathon and allowed technologists, artists, designers, and storytellers to get creative with datasets sourced from across the Scottish arts and culture scene.
I *think* all three CHS took place over a 48-hour period, and within that timeframe the objective was to create a product of some description. Products could be apps or websites through to physical pieces of art or games – it didn’t matter how scratchy or esoteric they were, the one connecting factor was they needed to utilise the cultural data in some way.
My involvement was as a bit player at best, I helped get National Museums Scotland (NMS) – my employer at the time – to contribute data about its collections, and was an active cheerleader both inside and outside my organisation. I like to think that having a big Scottish cultural institution on board helped build some momentum, and hopefully NMS’s involvement from the outset helped persuade others to pitch in over time.
The project Alex wrote about is the collaboration he and Jen Davies conceived during the first CHS, summed up beautifully in this manual retweet (remember them?):
The end product, Steal It!, was a mobile game where you played a robber collecting virtual swag by ‘stealing’ objects located in various places around Edinburgh. Each object was allocated an arbitrary monetary value and the aim was to make the most money you could. It was an elegant mash-up of two datasets – NMS’s collections data, and Edinburgh Festival Fringe’s venue location data – with a simple and fun gaming concept layered on top.
What Alex and Jen probably didn’t know at the time was that it also addressed a problem that museums have struggled with consistently: it’s really difficult to create experiences – digital or otherwise – based in big complicated spaces over multiple floors (i.e. pretty much every museum, gallery or library).
That’s why the majority of digital maps are, basically, shit. (sidenote: I was soooo dismayed to arrive at Disneyland Paris this summer and be forced into using their proprietary app/map combo, an almost phone-smashingly bad experience). By freeing Steal It! from a fixed location, and baking in the Google Maps API, it allowed the gameplay to flow freely using an interface people were already familiar with.
Other experiences of this genre include Museum of London’s Streetmuseum - now sadly defunct but in its time rightly lauded - or Zombies Run! where the gameplay isn’t bound by a static physical location.
I digress.
If you’ve read Alex’s post, he mentions Steal It!’s reception – it went down an absolute storm at CHS itself, winning the prize as one of the best products developed during the hack.
Within National Museums Scotland, not so much 🤣 I remember feeling simultaneous elation when I found out about this incredibly fun and inventive use of our data, and having an “oh fuck” pit-of-stomach dread that the theme of the game might not go down so well…
Stolen or missing objects aren’t generally a topic that museums want to shine a light on, as recent stories from the British Museum and Glasgow Museums highlight, so it was never going to be a straightforward sell.
As the Head of Digital in NMS, I knew there was an opportunity to build on the groundswell of enthusiasm, and a chance to take forward a genuinely innovative product. But I didn’t get to make that call. While I remain convinced that people are capable of understanding Steal It! wasn’t an invitation/tacit approval to actually steal objects, in a command-and-control structure where people heard the word ‘steal’ and panicked about the perceived Board of Trustees reaction and invented newspaper headlines it quickly became a no-go.
And that’s fair enough. I know I was a little belligerent at the time, but with hindsight it was an important lesson in getting the right foundations in place. Anyone who’s been in a change or transformation role within a big organisation knows it’s nearly impossible to pivot on the spot, and changing culture is about building trust, empathy, and understanding built up over time. So maybe stolen museum objects wasn’t quite the right concept to thrust us into the mobile gaming space.
It’s worth also noting that Steal It! tapped into the inherent hierarchy that’s still, sadly, an issue within some cultural institutions. If your route to market isn’t a peer-reviewed research paper or academic tome, then it’s all too easy to be accused of dumbing down, and sidelined accordingly. As if there’s only a specific lens through which to view culture, one means to learn and absorb information.
Alex and Jen very graciously took on board feedback, and in their own time met with me and my team to discuss if there was a way of advancing the project. We came up with the watered-down title of Collect It! and Jen even created some refreshed artwork along that theme. But the name change knocked the wind out of our sails – losing the ‘steal’ USP meant we were building just another museum collections app.
But let’s focus on the positives. As various comments on LinkedIn have made clear over the last week or so, Culture Hack Scotland’s legacy goes far beyond the outputs of three weekends in the early 2010s.
I thought I’d list off a few of the things that have resonated with me in my professional life as a result of CHS. Again, I don’t want to overstate my involvement, but there are definitely aspects that have shaped my thinking to this day.
I’m also aware that some of this may read as rose-tinted nostalgia (which is basically my MO when I write this newsletter), but my goodness it’s been nice to take some time out and think about the long-lasting impact of stuff.
It was a catalyst for change within my organisation
When Rohan Gunatillake first approached me about NMS contributing our data to Culture Hack, it was simply not something we did. The whole concept of opening up our collections data for public consumption hadn’t been a priority, but Rohan’s encouragement helped pivot thinking within the organisation – and I can draw a line between those early, tentative manoeuvres to the point where now nearly 800,000 searchable records are available online.
Likewise, it provided us with the knowledge and confidence to experiment further in the mobile space, Steal It! was a first step towards building the most popular museum app we ever released, Museum Explorer (another collaboration with Alex), and the thrills and spills of Capture the Museum – worthy of a separate post all of its own.
It gave me tangible insights about setting the conditions for success
I too often end up moaning about the framing of innovation, but with the right parameters innovation can deservedly thrive. CHS helped me get to grips with how to turn novel ideas into sustainable products: what does it take to create, sustain, and scale the output of a brilliant idea?
And just because we couldn’t get Steal It! over the line, doesn’t mean other organisations weren’t able to turn their hacks into real-world products, as this example from the Edinburgh International Book Festival brilliantly illustrates.
There’s an important point about funding here, pertinent to all digital development. Whether it’s about hedging your bets on hackdays, accelerator programmes, or specific innovation pots, if there’s to be an onward plan for how stuff gets honed, improved, and scaled beyond the inital burst of energy then it needs to be accounted for.
It’s relatively easy to create a glorious one-off, more difficult to convert it to a going concern.
It showed – in real time – the value of mixing disciplines and talents
Too often projects get constrained by the parameters they exist within, and I still raise an eyebrow at how much product development seems to have been conceived and delivered in its own vacuum. Websites, apps, campaigns, and now (sigh) AI tools that don’t seem to take into consideration market trends, consumer habits, whether or not something similar or better already exists, or even a whiff of a service design approach.
Part of the joy of CHS was it mixed things up from the outset, encouraging people who had never met before to work together. This mixing made for unusual collaborations, and the collective spirit created its own energy as well as multiple people to bounce ideas off.
While I’m not suggesting for a second that this is a substitute for robust user research and testing, the diverse array of viewpoints helped generate ideas that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. Designs got tweaked, code got rewritten, and concepts got stress-tested as part of the natural flow.
In museum terms, a tangible lesson for us was to bring staff into the mix who wouldn’t automatically have been part of project teams. If you’re trying to really understand your audience’s wants and needs, you’d do well to consult café workers and visitor services staff.
If you feed them, they will come
My tongue is somewhat in my cheek as I write this. There was some rightful pushback about hackathons that seemed to operate by slinging a few pizzas at some devs and expecting the next Candy Crush to appear a day later.
However the care and consideration which organisers Rohan, Suzy and Erin took was second-to-none, and there was clearly an enormous amount of paddling going on below the surface to help things roll out smoothly. From the physical locations, to the food on offer, to the solid WiFi, to the mix of workspaces, to the tech tutorials on offer, to coffee made from actual beans – subtle details made the difference and rewarded the efforts participants were putting in.
It goes back to conditions for success, if you make people feel like their presence and contribution is appreciated, you’re far more likely to get the best out of them.
And who wouldn’t want that?
Further reading
There are a bunch of people who have been writing newsletters about the intersection between culture and digital tools & technology for far longer, and in much better prose, than me.
Here are some delightful links to keep up to speed with all things digital and culture.
🚀 Old Internet People
Martha Henson’s newsletter brings her finely-honed experience from delivering amazing projects in and around lots of high-profile organisations to the fore. And her writing is v funny.
🚀 Ash Mann’s Substack
Ash has been very kind in linking to me with some of his recent writing, and his prolific musings are full of great links to articles and observations from his own experience of working within organisations and now as Executive Director at Substrakt. He’s also the only other person I know who likes The Slow Show, which begs the question: “why don’t more people like The Slow Show?”
🚀 Cultural Content
Georgina Brooke, another National Museums Scotland alumni (although we never overlapped), writes lots of helpful, hands-on advice and brings in a multitude of different voices to her popular newsletter.
🚀 Or So Ben Thought
Ben Templeton’s reflections on the sector, and particularly around his vast experience of producing playful experiences for museums and cultural venues is brilliant creative fodder. And he once made me hit a lemon with a wooden spoon in NMS’s grand gallery.
🚀 Cultural Digital
Chris Unitt’s long-standing newsletter is a fantastic resource for news about projects, partnerships, jobs, and creative + interesting work that’s happening across the sector.
🚀 Fresh & New
I couldn’t finish off without mentioning the granddaddy of all culture/digital newsletters. Seb Chan has been providing insights and inspiration in this space for many a year; essential reading.
🙌 Well done for making it to the end. Such patience, such commitment.