after you have done the research

I was alerted recently of the importance of the virtues of having a well-organised system for reporting research findings, and making it available throughout the organisation.

I saw a summative exhibition evaluation report produced by one organisation that was so short in its shortcomings that it highlighted many things we take for granted. It fell short due to poor resourcing in terms of staff skills and time, and lack of useful software for data handling.

The 'report' consisted of a spreadsheet with summary data and graphs (mostly pie charts) with all kinds of errors. As a result, some of the data was misinterpreted when drawing conclusions for the specific exhibition. But even more important, there was no attempt to dig a bit deeper and look at audience sub-groups (teens vs adults; men vs women; people with children vs those without, etc.). And most limiting of all, there was no opportunity to compare the audience profile of this exhibition with other exhibitions, or with general visitors. And no opportunity to compare audience responses to various exhibitions or programs.

Seeing this, I see the role audience research can play in supporting organisational learning, not just day to day reporting.

What is needed for organisational learning? At least some of the following things:

• dedicated audience research specialist who champions the information and fosters use throughout the organisation
• good filing system that allows staff to identify past research and access it; this might be a catalogue with key words as well as titles, topics and dates
  
• standard report guidelines or templates that establish professional reporting
  
• reports include comparative data where relevant.

I picture a simple library of resources that builds over time.

Lynda has done a great job at the Australian Museum of establishing and fostering just this kind of resource. Maybe she can add some other points about her experiences in setting up systems that make research findings available across the organisation.

Gillian

Musings on organisational change and Gordon Ramsay

Been thinking a bit about this recently after Elaine Gurian sent me something to read, and as we have just completed our corporate planning cycle. Now, I do need to confess that I've become even more addicted to Gordon Ramsay and thinking about his approach to change management (knowing that I've now probably alienated half my readership – sorry 'bout that!) and I think there are many lessons for organisational change buried among the F words! Here's some of my thoughts.

It's about the customer – I lamented in the provocative paper at the Museum Australia Futures Forum about the lack of attention to the needs of visitors, particularly to the physical and showed examples of photographs taken by Benjamin Gilman in 1916 and of visitors to museums in 2006! Our users/stakeholders/visitors (whoever they may be and wherever they are) need to be at our core. Although this is in no way a new idea I believe we still constantly need to be reminded of it.

Get out there and sell yourself to your local constituents – after all, they're the ones with the potential to be your most loyal customers and your best advocates.

Be passionate about what you do – many examples I've seen in Ramsay's shows where he really does force both owners and staff to question their passion and commitment. I remember one study we did back in around 1998 where we found that staff on project teams who were most passionate about what they were doing, engaged and interested produced exhibitions that had better learning outcomes for visitors. Something for us all to ponder on I think.

Taste your food constantly and eat in your own restaurant – how many times do we get out on the floor and taste our products? How many times do we go to our websites and other online content areas and see what people are doing and how they feel about it?

Keep it simple – Ramsay attempts to overhaul menus using a clever combination of simple, seasonal ingredients that make sense within that particular location. From my doctoral work I found that visitors wanted to get both simple and interesting facts they can tell others at a dinner party and/or a deeply moving experience that changes the way they see themselves and their world. Keping a focus on the museum's strengths in terms of content, collections and knowledge - sticking to the knitting - is the competitive advantage we have.

Have high standards for back-of-house – we all want to eat in a restaurant with a clean kitchen, but how much do we really notice what's going on in our public spaces (both physical and virtual)? I'm not only thinking about physical issues here, but high standards in things like data management, collection processes and database systems. This was one of the key lessons I took from this year's Museums and the Web conference especially in relation to online collection access and sharing across our institutions.

Be bold and take risks – how many times does Ramsey challenge the staff (especially the younger and less experienced ones I noticed) to take a risk and try something different? The key point for us in museums is to take risks and be prepared to fail sometimes and be pleasantly surprised at other times. Our work around controversial and challenging topics has shown that visitors want museums to be more challenging and provocative, and can be very forgiving too.

Just as Mal Booth drew on lessons from chamber orchestras in his provocative paper at the Futures Forum and what that means for digitisation in museums, a deeper lesson from that example I think is about creating harmony – bringing all the ingredients (or players) together to share a common purpose. As Elaine reminds us it was Stephen Weil in 1999 who talked about museums not "being about something but being for someone".

There are further ideas about organisational change and museums in relation to implementing Web 2.0 from a paper called Museum 3.0: organisational change and social media I gave at the Social Media and Cultural Communication Conference held in February this year for those that may be vaguely interested.

Organisational change, Web 2.0, etc etc

As many of you know, I have been posting and thinking lots about this issue.
Having had a lovely, three-continent conversation with Martin Stewart Weeks and Paul Johnston from Cisco tonight, we got talking about how we deal with this thorny issue. Paul and Martin pointed me to this wonderful paper The Neuroscience of Leadership:
“Why do people resist change so stubbornly, even when it’s in their own interest?” wonder CEOs like Mike. Changing the way others go about their work is harder than he has expected. New advances in neuroscience provide insight into why change can be so difficult, and there are several key findings." and so it continues. Well worth a read.
Me? I'm still wondering if we should take the Gordon Ramsay approach to organisational change - for those of you on Facebook check out this post. For those of you that aren't - tune in, 9.30pm EST Thursdays (warning - its addictive!!).

Knowledge Workers

I'm really interested in the knowledge society and what that means for museums and organisational change. I have been re-visiting my Peter Drucker texts and been re-inspired by that man's foresight and genius! Susan Groundwater-Smith also put me onto this useful piece of work by Gurteen (2006) who suggested the following attributes of a knowledge worker:

• connect people with people
  
• connect people with ideas
  
• are good networkers
  
• do not follow the rules
  
• have strong communication skills
  
• like people
  
• feel good about themselves
  
• motivate others
  
• are catalysts
  
• ask for help
  
• demonstrate integrity
  
• are self reliant
  
• open to share
  
• are not afraid
  
• are goal oriented
  
• are able to identify critical knowledge
  
• add value to the organisation
  
• have strong subject expertise in a specific area
  
• network for results
  
• trustworthy - can be trusted and trusts others
  
• make decisions
  
• are not insular
  
• do not conform
  
• push the boundaries
  
• assume authority - ask for forgiveness, not permission
  
• strong belief in the value of knowledge sharing
  
• are informal active leaders
  
• take a holistic view
  
• are catalysts, facilitators and triggers
  
• good listeners - they listen first
  
• do not need praise
  
• see the wider picture
  
• work well with others
  
• do not have a 'knowledge is power' attitude
  
• walk the talk
  
• prepared to experiment with technology
  
• playful
  
• take calculated risks
  

The Gurteen Knowledge Website is useful too.