Digital Works Podcast
Talking about all the different things that 'digital' means in the arts, culture and heritage sectors. Tales of success and failure, interrogating the shiny new things and looking at what works (or not) and why, Interviews with digital folks working across the sector and beyond, in-house, consultants, funders, and more.
Digital Works Podcast
Episode 026 - Nick Sherrard (Label Ventures) on experimentation and innovation, risk models, new approaches to partnership, and why some organisations might deserve to die
A conversation with Nick Sherrard about experimentation and innovation. Nick is a Partner at Label Ventures, which is a venture studio in Edinburgh. Nick has held a number innovation and strategy-focused roles in the commercial sector as well as production and administration-focused roles in the cultural sector. We talk about risk models, nurturing a culture of innovation, new approaches to partnership and funding, and why some organisations might deserve to die.
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Speaker 2:Hello and welcome to the Digital Works podcast, the podcast about digital stuff in the cultural sector. My name's Ash, and in today's episode, episode number 26, we have a conversation with Nick Sherrard . Nick is a partner at Label Ventures, which is a venture studio based in Edinburgh, but prior to that, Nick spent over a decade working in a variety of production and administration focused roles in the cultural sector. Nick and I first met about a decade ago now, and I was really excited to speak to him about his perspectives, having been out of the sector for a while, and also his thoughts on innovation and experimentation, which is a topic that's come up time and again over the last couple of years through these podcast conversations. I think Nick has a really interesting and inspiring perspective on how cultural organizations might think differently. He also has a few enjoyable provocations sprinkled throughout our chat. So enjoy. So morning, Nick . Thanks. Morning . Thanks for joining me. Thanks for coming down from Edinburgh. I know it wasn't especially for this, but , uh,
Speaker 3:Well, I'm gonna say it definitely was and you know, yeah . But it's good to be here though.
Speaker 2:Thank you. And as is my classic first question, you currently work at Label Ventures, but actually we were just saying we met maybe almost 10 years ago when you were working at Sound and Music. Yeah . And that's quite a journey. That's quite a a , those are two very different types of organizations. What, what is the Nick share our career story look like to get you where you are?
Speaker 3:It is funny 'cause on one level I've always been doing the same thing, which is spotting an opportunity for something to exist and then trying to create something. Um, now as you're saying , so I'm a partner at Label Ventures. It's a venture studio, which I guess the kinda arts world equivalent is like a production company that's focused on creating new products and new brands. So we work with , um, lots of quite big organizations, so Visa and MasterCard, Aberdeen, and HSBC , uh, all kinds of different brands like that around spotting where the future opportunity will be and then building out a whole new product for them. So that can turn into apps, that can turn into digital businesses of different kinds. We've even got one , uh, well, a couple actually projects now that are more around the drinks industry and new whiskeys and things. So , um, that's the core of it. The kind of backstory to that is I started out for , um, at least in my sort of twenties, my first 10 years of my working life at least , um, working in , in the arts more directly , um, initially being a , a kind of, well, initially kinda working with early stage theater companies and , and things like that, trying to , trying to somehow get some marketing effort together and putting a website together. And then , uh, a first proper job in the culture sector was with historic crawl palaces, actually. So at the Tower of London working on outreach. But I gave it quite a kinda digital agenda, so starting to build , um, social media platforms and connect to audiences in, in different ways. Um, and then freelance across the sector in different ways. So right from , uh, the Quad in Derby, which I really love, and , uh, all kinds of , um, organizations around that space was also head of development at Circus Space for a while . So in that kind of , um, uh, sort of wider performing arts , um, space. And then at Sound and Music where I had the really weird job title of head of Digital Development and Communications, which kinda made some sense in terms of what the actual work was. But it had , it was a , it was a hell of a long title. Um, and after that, weirdly, I actually just crossed the bridge in London, 'cause Sound of Music at that time was in Somerset House. And I moved over to an innovation consultancy called Market Gravity, which was literally just over in Suffolk , quite close to where we are now. Um, and started working on, you know, the same kind of core thing, working out what a digital strategy is, but doing it in a , um, in a more , um, commercial setting, I guess. So working with different brands in different places. So that's the kind of, so , so , so to me it's all what I would call being a producer, just not what anyone else calls being a producer, but I suspect more people might saying things might start saying things like that soon.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that is a really interesting point because I've got a number of friends who are, you know, trained theater makers and their , their training is in things like producing or lighting design or sound design, you know, making new things. Yeah . And actually they do not work in theater. They work in digital product or they work in innovation because those are, whilst it may not seem like it, those are super transferrable skills between those two spaces. So it's interesting that you make that observation. Yeah,
Speaker 3:And I , I think it's probably more likely to happen now as well. 'cause if you think of , uh, well partly because of what's changed in the tech, actually. So one or two people now can make something quite significant , um, as a product or as a, as a , you know , whether that's artistically driven or whether that's slightly more commercially driven. And there's also, there's a lot of , um, kind of crossover in terms of what's happening next in digital. So I was, I was at an event last week and met lots of people there who are working at Masterclass on creating content that helps people explore the arts in different ways. And that's actually, you know, their core job is very similar to what the digital team at the National Theater were doing 10 years ago in a small way. Um, so that , yeah , there's , there's , there's definitely gonna be a , a , a crossover, although I think in terms of the culture of the organizations in the different spaces that are world apart.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And we are definitely going to talk about that <laugh> . But I think that that point about, you know, in the , the sort of digital , commercial , digital space, there's so much focus on content and, you know, you look at lots of Amazon's acquisitions recently, it's been, you know, podcast platforms, podcasts, producers, you know, content is so key, long form narrative content , um, you know, things that cultural organizations are expert in , you know, storytelling. And it's interesting that they're , uh, the commercial players are , seem to be sort of out flanking the cultural sector slightly. And there's a, from what I can see a bit of a a , a talent drain , um, you know, which has always been there, but that certainly seems to have , uh, picked up pace , um, with, with some of the moves that some of these, these big commercial players are making.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think there's, maybe , there's maybe two things on that. One of which is kind of a career path issue. Um, 'cause I guess there , I always felt in the arts world, there was a big drive towards making arts management more like a profession. That's kind of way we understood making it more official and better was to make it more like being a doctor or a lawyer or something. Um, and I think the thing that I rubbed up against with that a little bit was I didn't really want to become a chief exec. So once I got to ahead of digital sounding music, I kind of felt like the path that was gonna have to go on , it was gonna have to be about making less and be a bit , be a bit more about facing into the arts council or , um, uh, you know, it's kinda managerial things, which I , I entirely respect people who want to do, but I kind of felt like I wanted to go and start making things more. And I think it's an interesting thing maybe for what's emerging. I could quite easily see a good career path where someone could go to a theater , uh, be had taken a digital role from that step out and maybe work in a , a funded startup , maybe doing some of that kind of same kind of content type stuff and maybe step back later on into a head of or to, and then from that to go on , you know , there , there's a very clear path there that wasn't there before. And then the other bit within it, I think is that the cultural sector has sort of embraced digital, but I think one of the things that's interesting, especially after the pandemic, is a lot of them haven't really translated it into their purpose and reason to be. So it is weird that things like masterclass now exist and there's very little voice from the cultural sector in terms of what do we want this bit of digital culture to be? How do we interact with it? We seem to see it almost as like a , maybe an interesting thing for the fundraising team to look at. Is there a partnership that we could do? Whereas actually surely from a sort of public value perspective, then we should be hearing more from the cultural institutions of Britain around what they want the creative scene to become, both from an audience journey perspective and also from a , uh, you know , do we think this is good for artist development or do we think it's not? I just don't know what any of our institutions think about that. And I'm a pretty engaged audience member.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you are the target audience. Yeah ,
Speaker 3:I'm the target
Speaker 2:Audience content. And so, I mean, one of , one of the reasons that I got in touch with you to see if you wanted a , a chat is because so many of the conversations I've had on this podcast and elsewhere over the last two years would obviously reflecting on the pandemic and the positive things that people were saying about the pandemic is that, you know, there was suddenly a, an impetus and a , a need for new ideas and trying new approaches and digital suddenly came very much to the forefront. Um, and that has to varying degrees somewhat gone away since the , the pandemic has become less of a factor. And, and what I'm interested in us trying to dig into today is this idea of experimentation and this idea of new ideas. And maybe we will talk about the word innovation because I think it's an interesting word that means everything and nothing in some context. Um , but I I wanna start really by the conversation we were having over coffee just prior to pressing record where you were saying, you know, in a commercial context, not innovating is seen as a massive risk, whereas in a cultural context, in a cultural sector context, innovation is seen as a risk that you have to sort of mitigate. And I'm really interested by, by that idea. So could you talk a bit about, you know, the conversations you are having in , in your current role about innovation as a , a necessary part of existing as a, as a as a business?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So it's interesting. So for within a label ventures context will normally start talking to an organization when either they've half spotted something that's kind of interesting or they've spotted something that's kind of scary. So it could be a new entrant, it could be there's a new tech that's emerged, they're not quite sure what the shape of it is. It could be things that are going on in the world. So a lot of it recently is kind of looking at what does it mean to be sustainable, but also to be , uh, to be high growth. So how , how can you find some way for, for an organization that has to pay its own way to, to also transition that way. So, but , but all the time, therefore we are talking to people around innovation in the sense of new product developments, brand development , uh, proper kind of foresight, looking at what , what , what's going on in the world. And that conversation in the commercial world is couched in a sense of how do we manage the risk of the change that's going on in the world? And, you know, how can we find an opportunity in it and , and mobilize behind it . Um , my experience was in the arts world, it tends to start from a different place. So someone sort of thinks we should be doing some innovation, it's a good word. We like the word innovation, but it tends to be seen as risky to the brand or risky to the reputation because there's a fear of things being seen to go wrong. Um, and some of that may be is a, is a, a kind of maybe a symptom of the fact that the arts world is quite interconnected. 'cause actually the weird thing is we have , you know, in the recent years worked with, you know, absolutely massive brands, whether it be like , uh, Google or a MasterCard or whatever. Um, and I do find that they are less worried about people paying attention to the detail of what they do than some of the quite medium sized arts organizations they used to work with. There's a real sense that people are paying more attention to us necessarily than , than they maybe are. But I think there's a, there's a , uh, AKA kind of important agenda in there, which is that actually the reason you should be innovating is to find opportunities that could help you live your mission in an entirely new way. And that could be a new way to engage an audience. That could be a new business model that comes off the back of it. But also the one thing you can be pretty certain of is that if you pretty much take the model of the arts organization that you were founded for, or the heritage organization that you , you were founded around, and you just keep on doing it in precisely the same way, then the lesson of history is that you will become a blockbuster video, I guess, that you'll just become less relevant. Um, and probably whilst the opportunity for innovation in the cultural sector now is massive, because you don't need the same level of resources you maybe did in the past to create really interesting digital tools, the risk is also much bigger too. So, I mean, in terms of, if you think about as a theater organization, building on the conversation before, there are now a lot of people who are offering theater education online. Some of them you may like and some of them you may not. But it's quite affordable, it's very heavily marketed. And we are going into a period probably without being a big economist, but there's probably gonna be 10 years of quite tough times, certainly in the UK context around public funding. So kinda as a , kinda a burning platform. And I think , uh, maybe some people are realizing it, some people aren't. But also you , I guess that that all sounds very scary. It's also, you know, there are amazing people across the art sector and I just think if, if the organizations were to think a different way and to set things up a different way, they could unlock them. And maybe the other part of the conversation as well is even if you are working with or working inside an institution, that's quite tough. There probably are things you can learn from the outside world that make things run a bit better. And it certainly in terms of, will allow you to do the things that you want to do.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. And I think I'll make a recommendation now, Nick does a , a , a book club on LinkedIn where he's, he's regularly recommending books and, you know, I've, I've taken up a lot of your recommendations and I think they are , there are, they are a very good way of exposing yourself to new ideas. And so, I mean, check out next LinkedIn profile. But I do think that idea of ex exposing yourself to different ways of thinking of exposing yourself to sectors that may seem completely unrelated to what you are doing is a good way of starting to unlock some of those possibilities. Yeah,
Speaker 3:Yeah. It's a , it is an interesting thing, you know , an really basic thing. But in terms of , uh, in the wider innovation world, I guess you talk quite a lot about precedence. Um, so whenever you're looking for a concept that you've got a half idea for or something, it's trying to find people in different sectors who've done a little bit of that idea. And one, sometimes that precedent gives you a proof point that you could go to aboard and say, look , there's something in this, because it might be in a different area, but these people have done it and it's worked. Uh , but also just from a sort of design inspiration and from a kind of just seeing what other smart people have thought around how you can engage people a different way or something, it's a really key, it's a really key thing. So I think probably when I, when I sort of retrained myself as a commercial innovation guy, that was one of the first bits that was kind of like a light bulb moment to me, which is actually, hey, when you have an early stage idea, one, don't just look in your own sector for an example of someone doing something similar. And secondly actually, you know, the internet is a thing. You can sometimes just reach out to them and they're quite happy just to kind of join you for 15 minutes and tell you a bit of their experience. And actually, weirdly, I think , uh, one of the great things about working in the arts is everybody else is quite interested. So I think <laugh> , that's the thing I wish I'd done more and I've , I've , uh, do more now is one the worst people can do is say, no , I'm too busy. Um, the best thing , the best thing is you can normally find people LinkedIn or Twitter or something and send them a message to say like , I've got this half idea for a thing. Um, but yeah, the , the people with massive jobs <laugh> for some reason are quite eager just to talk to other people who've had a daft idea and just to see if there's something in it. So yeah, that would be a key tip. Yeah,
Speaker 2:Absolutely . And I think people working in the, in the cultural sector should not underestimate the cachet of working in the cultural sector. Yeah . It is a weird and fascinating thing to anyone who hasn't worked in the sector. Yeah. Um, so make the most of that. But I think you also said something earlier about, you know, institutions needing to think differently that perhaps needing to be a slight shift in in culture and maybe sort of structurally in , in roles. And I'm , I don't wanna bog you down in a, in a redesign redesign a typical arts institution, but maybe looking at, at the work you're doing at the moment, and you know, you've mentioned some of the, the brands that you work with, are there any common threads that run through culture approach thinking, starting points in terms of the organizations that seem to be, you know, most open to new ideas or sort of most successfully managed to catalyze new ideas into a thing? Yeah,
Speaker 3:I think , um, one of the things that sound really basic but is important is realizing that thinking not necessarily way out into the future, but having a view of where you think think things are gonna be in five years is important actually to the now. One of which, because it allows you to start making smarter choices that guide you towards where you wanna be, which is the classic digital strategy piece. It also allows you though, to say to your team one of the things that we know pretty well versus the things we don't really know yet. So we're gonna have to be running some kind of experiments or research program to kind of understand what's going on in that , um, in that space. And also because one of the things that's really interesting is that one of, as I said before, a lot of innovation in the wider world is driven by , uh, perception of what the risk is. It's also driven by a need to communicate to your partners that you get it and you've got a big vision for the future. So I think sometimes I pick up from friends of mine still, and I , I remember this as well, there was a bit of a sense that if you were having a conversation in the office that was about the kind of, not about this year but about the future was a bit frivolous. The thing that I've, I think is really important is if you can nail your vision as well as you nail the strategy document, which I know the arts doc USWorld loves the strategy document and it's important, but also that kinda vision for what you think the future is, how your purpose as an organization links to your purpose around digital, then actually it's a lot easier to inspire other partners and especially if you want to actually be looking at sponsorship and things like that. There's something in terms of a big, bold vision that is thought through is a useful thing to have in the here and now, whether it's entirely where you get to in five years or not. But in terms of having that vision, I think is an important , um, thing. Um, and there's a thing for me as well around the world , world innovation, which I think is good to pick up on because , um, to be fair, it's a word that's misunderstood all over the place. So there's kind of a model that we've developed at the label that's kind of , um, it's a bit neat, but I think it's broadly, broadly, right? Which is, if you unpack the word innovation a bit, you're normally either talking about imagination in the sense of thinking about stuff that hasn't been thought of before, invention in terms of creating something technically new , um, uh, or sometimes ingenuity, which is really the ability to get something to happen, the kind of the connect dots and get people together to make something happen. And it can be that , uh, with it , when you , when you kind of look through those, you realize what your model of innovation is. And something we quite often do , um, I'm doing a lot just now actually with boards of massive companies, is working out what they're model of innovation really is. 'cause sometimes for some people, especially actually in some in very complex kind of regulated fields, actually innovation for them does have to be quite heavy around the imagination. It's gonna work out what's next. 'cause they're so stuck in , um, what's in the here and now. Sometimes it can be that actually you've got an organization that habits quite a lot in the tech sector where they've got, they're gonna almost falling over new ideas and bits of r and d spitting out things. And actually, therefore you need the ingenuity to kind of turn these things into products, into brands that people understand. Um, but I think in the art sector and the cultural sector more broadly, there's an interesting thing where our model of innovation is really confused. 'cause in artist development, we do go quite heavy on that imagination angle, which is really saying that people, you know, go out and dream big dreams bump into things. Uh , we'll put the structure around you where we can , uh, you know, help make that useful as we go through time. But trying to cut space for people to go on to go on experiment. When it comes into the way that we do it in the organization, we become very invention heavy. So it tends people that people go to the board in some level and kind call out a thing like data or something that's gonna be our big innovation angle. And it's quite , um, top down . And that then feeds into , uh, needing to go and get big funding from someone to deliver an innovation program, which tends to be in a situation where you kind of have to know what the results are before you do it. Um , and it's kind of fine , but it's kind of one , one model in particular. And then the thing that's interesting is I think most people who work in the arts and culture are very good at the ingenuity piece because they're quite good at making things with relatively few resources and kind of finding ways to kind of hustle things , um, together. Um, so I think there's, there's definitely something in terms of for, for organizations to be good at innovation, the first step is to get clear on where your blockers actually are and then think how could we solve those different things. Um, and one of the things we talk about in organizations of all sizes is the best place to do something really interesting around innovation is to be the least important thing on the chief executives table. So it's a , it's bit counterintuitive, but actually the thing that's really interesting is the things that are the top of the chief of X table, it tends to be that there is quite a low tolerance to exploration around them. 'cause they kind of have to just make sure they happen and they tend to therefore put a lot of , uh, processes around it. Uh , and it tends to be that in in fairness, a lot of people in the organization really wanna be working on that thing. 'cause it's a thing which is kind of fine, but in terms of from an innovation perspective, that thing is always , uh, quite hard to be explorative around, creative around . On the flip side, if it's not on the achiever's X table at all, then it's really hard to get any resource around or time around. But actually if you take the thing that's the , that's the , that's the smallest thing on the achiever's X table. Um, then one you , it is , it's , everyone knows it's a sensible thing to look at, but also you've got a bit of space where you can say, actually this is the thing that we could deliver in an okay way, but we could deliver in a way that would change the rest of what this business is. So , um, that's my , so the second one, and then the other thing I think that's also just as a, a , a core thing is that to make innovation really work beyond it just being a kind of digital design idea, you really want it to have a bit of a , an innovation around the experience of it, the thing we're doing, but also around the business model in some way. So I think probably the other thing that would be interesting is if you're as an organization, I think the , the design pattern from the rest of the world would be teach your digital team about how the commercials work and teach your commercials team around how digitals could work. If you are there as an individual, if you're starting out as a digital person , uh, go and find yourself some stuff on the business model canvas and try and try and get to a place where you could at least speak to your finance director in their language. Whether that's the way you think or not is a different thing, but at least understanding what are the different levers that you could pull.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that question around money is what I wanted to talk to you about next really, because that's what we were, I that's what I was hearing is leaders were being told by their boards, by funders, we were sort of happy to give you some money for the digital when it was the only thing you could do during Covid. But actually now sort of in this fuzzy post covid period, we'll give you some more money for digital if you can prove, you know, that it sort of stacks up and it's gonna at least cover its costs if not make money. And it needs to, if it's gonna make money, it probably needs to make money to the same order of magnitude as other things that you already do. And I wondered if you had a perspective on that and on conversations around funding digital work, funding innovative work, funding new work and if there are any lessons to be learned from the more commercial world where, you know, money is just as important. There may just be a little bit more of it sometimes.
Speaker 3:Yeah. And , but even then I think , um, this is where the experimentation thing comes in. So there's probably things I shouldn't be too open about, but there was one of the, one of the clients we're working with just now. Um, it will sound like at the end it's one of those things, it's unapproachable for the arts world 'cause it ended up with a acquisition of a company and lots of millions of dollars being involved. But that whole thing started out from a , a prototype, which is a really grand word of saying that basically there was two people on a team that put together kind of in a very hacky way without any real code being involved as webflow and stuff put together a version of a product and then filmed themselves taking it to people who might be the , the client for it and showing them how it worked . Um, so I think the thing that's maybe interesting is one of the great things I think about the way that digital tech has moved is that you can make something that looks quite real quite quickly from that is then working out what the models gonna be for how you get money all the time to start building it out. Um, and I guess the thing, so I mean that , and that's kind of a challenge for everyone. Clearly it's easier if you're in a company where there is someone you can go and ask, you can unlock lots of , uh, money around something . Although I kind of think we're in a weird moment where, well for big ideas, the risk does seem to be funding that's around in different places. So I think maybe what's happened a wee bit is that it's quite easy to get stuck by thinking that you need to prove out a concepts in the traditional way. That's probably where I was when I was working more in the arts. You kind of felt like you had to, but partly 'cause you were presuming that you had to go through one of the big funders and partly 'cause you're presuming at some stage to even get a working version, you're gonna have to be talking about a hundred grand or something. It kinda led you in a very particular direction. Whereas I think the key thing around experimentation is to say, how could we get a working version of this, at least for a conversation to happen, to start proving it to people. And then how can I start going out in the world? 'cause I don't wanna be, we shouldn't be rude about anyone in particular, but there is an interesting example of this that's kind of relevant to uh , well I guess to me, 'cause I live in Edinburgh, which was interesting as a kind of arts digital thing, which was the fringe festival this year, not having an app. And I, I entirely hear from them how they got to their position, which was they didn't have any money for it in the budget, but they also then in their statement said it was gonna cost like a hundred , a hundred grand and 150 grand. Um, and the thing that just really throws me about that is there are financial institutions all over Scotland who will spend that on advertising relatively quickly, some of which used to be sponsors of, of the festival. Um, and I think there's a , that may be exposes so , so one, just from what I do day to day , I cannot believe that it wasn't possible to get that to happen. And number two, the other thing I guess is in terms of maybe for digital people in the cultural sector, if I can go back to saying we, I think we'll have to get a bit less tolerant of bad leadership around digital. I dunno what's happened in that instance. But what would've happened if it was a commercial brand running a major global festival and it got to the point where because of the way the budgets were set up and their existing commercial relationships, they weren't gonna have an app in 2022, then people would've been very open about saying this is a disaster and being probably quite public about the same word . This is, well a problem, this is gonna be because that would be dangerous to our brand because that would leave us in a situation where we're not interacting with our audiences directly. So we don't own it and other people do. So there's maybe a point I think where it's like the positive side of this is, hey, we can, we can experiment with things much more , uh, closely. And actually if we do that, I suspect approaching commercial organizations around sponsorship would be much more interesting because they're much more used to that kind of way of pitching an idea. And secondly, if you are in an organization where people are accepting bad digital provision for your audience, then it might be the point where one, the good responsible thing to do is to be flagging that pretty hard. And if you are the leader of that organization, maybe the calling out directly to say we're in a position where we can't do these things. So yeah. So I guess like the positive side of this is it's so much easier to experiment now , now let's experiment and experiment in a way that means we can go and show funders, we can go and show sponsors, we can go and show, show audience members. 'cause sometimes there's people, an audience member who might be able to unlock an opportunity or partner with you in some way. So , um, make it real. That's the positive side. And on the other side, surely it has to be time after that , after the pandemic when digital proved that it could be at the core of the culture offer rather than a periphery to it. Surely it has to be time that we start making a fuss and start saying one, if you are in an organization, then there's a leader there or board members who are saying, Hey, let's just get everyone back to doing things as we were doing it three years ago. Then let you know, maybe invite 'em to write a blog about that. So it exposes and exposes that in the outside world. Um, and if you're a leader and that position, we just have to be being direct that we're serious about having a a , a vibrant cultural sector in the next 10 years. Then one, it has to be with digital at its core 'cause that's the way the world is. And two, all the other funding sources are getting tougher. So it's again, in this thing of innovation as a risk issue. Then if you are an organization or you're a or you're a , you're a , maybe you're a patron of an organization that has just taken a quite digital model and put it back into an analog model with therefore reliance on the same business model that you had before, then what you've done is created a strategy that is bound to main that you at least decline and probably bust. So let's just say that <laugh>, like I think that's maybe what we have to do, <laugh>.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I , I suppose that the , the pushback from some people would be, you know, culture in its current , uh, offline form has existed in, well in a version of how it currently exists for hundreds if not thousands of years. And it will persist. And how dare you say that we are sort of the blockbuster , uh, experience form. I mean it's an argument I've been making for at least the last 10 years is that we can't just ignore this stuff and, and sort of hope it will go away. You look at all of the sectors that have been disrupted or destroyed by this shift of, of customers, of audiences, of users of, you know, everyone towards digital being a way they live much of their lives. Culture can't accept itself from that, I don't think.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly. And I think also there's maybe this is also where maybe where the dominance and the conversation of big London institutions maybe shapes that wee bit because you are right, the v and a has existed for a very long time. Uh, there's a lot of museums in Newcastle and Baron tweed and small, small towns that were not there 50 years ago. Uh, and there's a lot of, you know, arts organizations that were in that boat too. Um, now there's all kind of arguments about where the funding goes and all that kind of stuff, but I think the , the view that it would always just carry on is probably not a great one. 'cause I think the thing that's interesting is that if you go and look at companies that, you know, it's actually, it's quite interesting the there lots of staff at Blackberry wrote all kinds of stuff. You know, they haven't, they haven't quite gone bust has actually found a new role for themselves, but they kind of, they kind of declined , um, every sector that ends up in a horrible, every company that ends up in a horrible decline every , you know , it wasn't apparent to people before that point. You , you can , you can read it in the , there was all kind actually in the Kodak story, people have said that as well. They were taking sensible choices, things that seemed sensible internally at the time. Um, and I , and obviously the cultural sector, people love it. So people will fight to really keep these things going. But I think also in terms of, you know, public value and access and all these kinds of things, it was one thing in a time where the only thing, the only way of presenting your work as a theater was to put it , uh, in the one space that you are and to take national funding to do that. That was one thing. But when you're in a space where, one, there's lots of other ways of doing it, two, when you've actually done it <laugh> then it starts to get a bit like this is you looking after the way you see the world rather than what your mission is. And I guess that's maybe the , that's maybe the the , the better way of putting it in some ways, which is surely looking ahead five years ahead, ideally if you're in my frame of mind, but like looking ahead, your , the way you see your vision should have digital at its core now. And if you existing funding model doesn't support that, you have to find a different way of doing it. And actually it's a good time to be doing that, right? Because every brand in the world is reviewing its marketing spend just now. So there's opportunities in that. Um , and funnily enough , sponsoring or uh , building apps as we , using the example before 150 K is not an incredible amount of money for a big brand to be spending as part of things . So there's like, if you, if we can reframe it maybe away from the sponsorship budget , um, there are interesting things there. But I guess the , um, I guess it's the provocative way of putting it, but if digital isn't at the core of your vision as a cultural organization in 2022, then maybe you are part of the problem
Speaker 2:<laugh>
Speaker 3:<laugh> ,
Speaker 2:Which is an excellent provocation from my point of view. Yeah,
Speaker 3:Exactly.
Speaker 2:But I think you touched on something there, because again, if we take this sort of five year view on things, There is going to be less public subsidy unless something, you know, really dramatic shifts. There is going to be less money coming from central government, central governments , um, available to cultural institutions as in the form of subsidy. So therefore there are going to, there's going to need to be some new thinking around sources of funding. And you know, you've sort of touched on it a few times now that it seems like you think there's potential in more different types of partnerships with commercial organizations. Um, and I , I'm interested in, in your sort of perspective on that I suppose is, you know, 'cause the traditional thing has been that a commercial organization will give, you know, it'll be a sponsorship, a sort of classic sponsorship agreement. You've seen it sponsoring ticket schemes, sponsoring particular , um, innovation things. Um, do you think there are other models that cultural organizations could be exploring in terms of how they access, I suppose finance, but also expertise? Because I think lots of what we've touched on maybe highlights a , a skills gap in the sector that I think everyone acknowledges is, is there , um, so yeah, I'm interested in that idea of partnership.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so I , and I think maybe being a bit of a futurist for a second, I think it's probably too big opportunities for the cultural sector, one of which is straightforwardly. If you look at what's going on in media, then clearly there is a model that's being developed. You know, so in terms if you look at um, the most , uh, the biggest podcasts even in the UK just now , um, you can see where there's a lot of overlap with the IP that exists in the, in the cultural sector. So if you look at like the rest is history or the go hanger , um, podcast company , um, stuff that's there , uh, history podcasts with a commercial model that they have a community alongside them , um, are growing content. You know, there's kinda masterclass things that are, that are there, there is clearly an evolving model around , uh, cultural content that the cultural sector hasn't yet embraced. It's kind of, that's the more kind of conservative one. The one that's really interesting is that, you know, the National Gallery's always had this thing where, or various places like them where you have the charitable operation and you do have a commercial arm that's alongside them. And in the past that's been running cafes and stuff. I do think it's really interesting and given the model that we're in just now of venture building as we would talk about it in my world now could be an interesting thing for the cultural sector to look at. And that would be where you say the day-to-day of the way we run our business is quite hard to change and maybe we don't wanna disrupt it 'cause we need to keep it going and make sure it kinda stays, stays efficient. But we do wanna make one or two betts that could transform the fortunes of this company. Um, and so therefore what would be interesting to do would be to say actually to create a commercial arm, to build a product that isn't running a cafe is actually building a digital product. And the thing that's really interesting in there is there have to be opportunities for that when you look across different areas. So it could just be that you create a content business that works with your creators, the historians you work with, maybe some of the artists you work with to create, to seed invest behind , uh, projects that you're then using the audience of your , um, institution to be the kind of first audience for. That's a really interesting thing. And you can also see again, how without kinda doing anything too adventurous in terms of where the idea might be, you can start to see how there's versions of masterclass that might be coming from the cultural sector. Uh, and therefore the model for that might be that there's some, maybe some initial investment, maybe some people and skills that come from the, the original sort of cultural company. But then that could be getting either commercial investment or that could be having a much more direct relationship with brands in in , in different ways in terms of how you kinda communicate to the audience that's on there . So I do wonder if that's a , if that's a thing, and I it may be a learning from the last two years, that could be an interesting lesson. It's a model shift for the sector. But if we've just been through a moment where we were communicating with audiences primarily online and alongside that a bunch of, for sake of a better term, Silicon Valley companies were doing the same thing. What's then happened afterwards is that the analog world has retrenched in lots of these organizations and certainly I don't think anyone as far as I know in the cultural space has really made it work commercially yet, but they know the audience is there, so there's something coming through. So that could therefore be an argument to say for this really to live we need to create an entity that this can live inside, which should still be in the same building. It's just like, has a different structure and that therefore could be getting some investors in it. I think that'd be an interesting thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And that's, that's certainly chimes with conversations I've had previously on this podcast with someone who works in finance and you know, this idea of spinning out, you know, you take your talented people, you fire them <laugh> , and then you give them a chunk of money to do something with, you know, with obviously clauses that you are , you'll sort of buy it backhand that you create an imperative for.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's interesting this conversation 'cause also in the digital space you pretty much know those people are gonna leave the organization at some point anyway, so why don't you kind of like , uh, take 'em forward in a different way. Um, and I guess the, the other thing that's interesting, again, bringing back to the way you , we think about innovation and risk, the other appeal in the commercial world of a venture building structure is your risk is very known. So in terms of what happens in that scenario, which you say like, we're gonna build this product, we're gonna treat it as a, as a different company that we fully own for a period, we're gonna invest this in it and that's all we're gonna invest. And that therefore means that if they make it work, it's great. If they don't or we've risked is that individual money. And I've kept my core system going. So I guess maybe the, the bold opportunity for the cultural sector would be to take more of a , a venture building , um, mindset.
Speaker 2:And I think the curious thing for me is, you know, lots of the things that you've touched on in terms of ways that innovation might manifest itself coming out of cultural institutions isn't a radical departure from what they do. And I think that's maybe a misconception is it sometimes feels that cultural institutions understand digital working or digital ideas or innovation as a , a complete screaming hand break , you know, disappearing off at 90 degrees to what they do. Whereas, you know, everything you've talked about there is about, you know, it's about expertise, it's about practitioners, it's about engagement with audience and communities. Lots of this activity I suspect is already happening in some form, maybe quite an offline form or an analog form in organizations. It's almost like there , there isn't the understanding of the value of some of the things that organizations do away from their sort of exhibition spaces.
Speaker 3:Yeah , well it's , it's actually really interesting actually because I hadn't really thought about it in that, in that frame. But again, a lot of the way we do artist development already has this in mind. So if you are a theater company that's working with different artist development programs, the model tends to be that the cultural institution gives you a bit of support and it gives you a , a sum of cash to make a project happen and then to go and turn into something that's more sustainable over time. Um, if we looked at digital projects in the same way, it would be a really interesting thing if we were to say, actually I I , maybe that's also the thing that speaks a different risk model to say actually , um, either one sort the closest level to now is when we, we we, we kind of as the organization looks at the digital team to go and make some innovation happen. We agree a sum of money that we can live with and we kinda give them the freedom to go away and explore it and try and turn it into some kind of model somewhere. That even bolder thing would be to say actually that there's a , we either encourage them to set up a company that we can put some money into or we spin it off sort of formally and say this is a , this is an entity that's slightly separate so we can go and get money in different ways. Um, but at the core of that is seeing digital as a creative thing is at the core of what the organization is about, which is just getting outta that mindset of which I guess is just institutional memory of it was kind of set up as the bit that didn't fit quite into marketing or the bit of the curatorial program the creators didn't really understand. And so it's kinda this bit on the edge , um, which anyway, you know, you'd hope we've got past that we haven't quite, and after that , after the pandemic, I guess if we haven't got past that now we need to do something quite radical to make it work.
Speaker 2:Yeah. If the last two years didn't win the argument in your institution and I'm not sure what would, and may , maybe my sort of final question is, I suspect there may be people listening to this that, that say, you know, this all sounds great, this sounds exciting, but our institution, our small institution or our institution that's got seen its, you know, electricity bill go up by a million pounds year on year , um, or whose audiences haven't come back in the same numbers. You know, we don't , we don't have the , the funds to throw at something like this. In terms of sort of actual numbers, do you think there's a, there's a minimum amount of cash <laugh> that needs to be available in order for some of these ideas to be viable? Or is it more about time or is it, I I, I'm intrigued, you know, what's the, what's the MVP of this, of this, of this model?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think the MVP of this model is people being able to get a working version of an idea. So it depends, I guess how we think about the organization. I think most people in a digital role can probably get the MVP of an idea together enough to go and start showing it people. Um, but so yeah, but so people that don't have the digital skills will might find that harder . So therefore that's always got a cash implication to it. The , I guess the one thing that's in my mind saying that is like, this stuff is hard. It was funny, there was, there was a couple of years ago, the last actually during the pandemic a wee bit, various people from like university departments and stuff were reaching out and say , Hey, can you do a briefing for us on Web3 strategy or whatever , um, which I can do, 'cause I'm really happy to do it and I think it's a really good cause. But they'd always say this thing about how can we make it easier for people in the cultural sector? How can you make it easier for them to understand? Um, and my response really is, I really don't want to, 'cause it's like, it's fundamental. So you either, it's either this stuff is either fundamental or it's not. So I guess if you're in the arts organization and you're really under the caution , and I can remember that from different organizations, it was a part of, then there is an MVP to your point mark , something together doesn't need to be fully working, but enough that you can show that people get different people interested in it. Secondly though, even if you don't do that, the problem still exists, right? So it's like we are kind of, this is what , this is maybe the moment that we're at. And actually there was a really good phrase I heard the other day and it's doubly good because I, I thought when I first heard it, I thought, this is a phrase that's quite nice, but I can't use it 'cause it will be , um, from some horrendous LinkedIn influencer. And it was like, the times that we're in are not , uh, I'll get this right. The times that we're in are not , um, an era of change. It's a change of era. There's so many things going on just now that are really fundamental and I thought that's really nice. But I bet some horrendous person like Gary v said it and it , it wasn't Gary v it was the Pope, right? <laugh> , there is some fundamental stuff going on in the world. This is a change of era in terms of the business model of most organizations is fundamentally changing. That's going on even with the massive companies that we are working with. It's a proper, the text change , the environmental , um, context has changed, the economic context has changed. So that's gonna hit arts organizations too . The good bit is if you've got some digital skills, which hopefully listen to this podcast, a lot of people do, if you've got some digital skills, you actually have the tools to explore what the future is. That's the positive side. The downside is if your boss is still telling you that you have to go back to the old model and just can you just find some ways of sending some emails that would , uh, maybe convert a slightly higher conversion on the next tickets for your analog event, then the you're already screwed and you can't help them <laugh>. So I think maybe that , that's what we have to maybe get to, which is, hey, opportunity is massive downside of not doing it is also massive. You can't change the entire world to suit your arts organization. But the thing you could maybe do is come up with a different model for taking your mission into a digital world.
Speaker 2:And a final question, <laugh> , you know, we , we've talked , you know, you said that we , we are , we are in this moment that seems like it's never ending <laugh> of just crisis upon crisis, difficulty upon difficulty. Are , are you, are you hopeful? Are you excited for the future or do you think people need to <laugh> maybe get quite serious and worried about things?
Speaker 3:I think , uh, there are exciting things happening. Uh, and it's kind of positive. Not everything that existed before deserves to always be carrying on. Um, there are some dirty models and things , different bad business models and things around. So yeah, so I think there are thing I'm very conscious of is there are amazing creative people around who are making amazing things happen. And that's really exciting. It's just that none of it's gonna happen by accident. And I also very conscious of, for us, we talk about this in the label team all the time, is , uh, amazing, massive opportunities are opening up all the time. Also, lots of things that used to make sense no longer make sense. So <laugh> for everyone, we said to make sure that we do what we do deliberately, right? So they'll end up by accident thinking, oh , this was really nice a few years ago. So it'll be nice , um, in the, in the , in the next few years. 'cause I think , uh, yeah, it's , it's this tough times out there. You can, you can make yourself a good little bubble in it, <laugh>. I think it's tough times out there.
Speaker 2:Well, on that note , thank you Nick .
Speaker 1:<silence> .
