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 028 - Hilary Knight (AEA) on the importance of team culture, the value of being entertaining, and the strategic role of digital
A great chat with Hilary Knight. We talk about the importance of team culture, the value of trying to be entertaining, the rigidity of the career paths into leadership positions in the cultural sector, the strategic importance of digital ambition, and loads more.
Hilary is a Senior Consultant at AEA Consulting and is the former Director of Digital at Tate. Prior to joining Tate, Hilary worked in a variety of digital and commissioning roles at the BBC and Channel 4.
Hello and welcome to the Digital Works podcast, the podcast about digital stuff in the cultural sector. My name's Ash, and on today's episode, episode number 28, we have a conversation with Hillary Knight. Hillary is a senior consultant at a e a consulting, and she's also a trustee of company of others. Prior to joining a e a, Hillary was director of Digital at Tate. And before that, held roles at Channel four. And at the B B C we talk about her career in the cultural sector, the importance of entertaining audiences, uh, the importance of digitally literate leadership. We talk about the role of team culture in delivering digital projects and loads more. Enjoy. So, hi Hillary.
Speaker 2:Hi.
Speaker 1:We are gonna start with your career. Okay. Because I'm always interested in people that have started in the private sector and inverted commerce and, and then moved in into the cultural sector. Cause I do think that gives you a particular perspective that maybe people who have existed career-wise wholly in the cultural sector mm-hmm.<affirmative> don't enjoy. Um, so what is, what does your career look like? I know broadcasters in there mm-hmm.<affirmative>, certainly time at the Tate as well, and now your consultancy, but yeah. What does the Hillary Night story look like?
Speaker 2:Uh, okay. So the potted history, I, um, have, uh, oh, let's say three forgotten years after university, which we just won't go into. It was mostly characterized by abject failure. And then, um, I started working at the bbc. I got very lucky and I was taken on as a, as a temp. I'd been doing a lot of admin work, and I got a, a temp job at the BBC as a, a team assistant. And then was promoted to, um, pa to somebody who was then promoted to become the cto. Um, and I was a terrible pa, um, you know, very chatty and friendly and all that, but really not pa material. Um, and I got bored quite quickly. And at the bbc you can learn stuff, right? There's a, there's an incredible culture of internal training, and I learned how to build webpages, and I built our department intranet pages for lack of anything else interesting to do. And, and, um, I think one of the things that I've discovered about myself as time's gone on is I'm, I'm at my best when I'm learning and learning new things and trying new things. And I think that's a, an early example. Anyway, I used that as a, a little portfolio to get me a job in the, what was the nascent online division at the bbc. And, uh, from there bounced up to Radio One. And that's really where I think my career in digital Proper started. And I, so I spent about six, six and a half years at Radio One-on-one Extra, um, making websites, running digital teams. And this was in the early naughty and at the start of Web 2.0. So it's the, the early and then burgeoning days of lots of things like social media and music streaming, and lots and lots of turbulence. And I learned a ton there, um, and had a fantastic time. It was a lot of fun. And from there I went to Channel four and again, doing websites for TV programs, starting with Channel four news and documentaries. Um, and that's a very different environment. It was a commercial environment. We had to carry advertising on the website. We had commercial clients, um, and advertising partners as well as the shows. But we were also, channel four is a publisher, broadcaster. They don't make their own content. So I moved from a space where I was in the radio, literally in the radio studios as things were happening live and building things live to things that were produced by a production company that weren't part of the organization I was working for. And so working with third party pr, um, what we call third party partners and suppliers, um, and created all sorts of different colors. And then I moved to, uh, drama and my final role at Channel four as a multi-platform commissioning editor. Um, and that was also a lot of fun in drama, working on flagship series, like Skins and Misfits, and again, still social media at its height, trying to answer the question of now that people are watching TV with devices in their hands, how do you engage them? Uh, there was a lot of stuff around two screen strategies at the time, um, and had a great time there and left there, had a little career break to have a family, and then joined Tate and moved, so moved from quite high paced, lively audience-centric, um, broadcasting environment to something that felt more academic, but still very, very much about speaking to audiences and reaching audiences and, uh, in, in an environment where we're trying to entice people into buildings, which I had not done before either. But I think the thread that has, that has woven itself through all of that is around storytelling and audiences and engaging with audiences and trying to build experiences and environments that sort of engage and entertain them. And, um, entertain isn't something that, a word isn't a word we use often in the cultural sector, but it's something I'm, I'm quite into and now I'm a AA and I'm hoping that I can use everything that I've learned and the experiences that I've built up, um, and the people that I've met and everything I've got in my head to help clients, um, develop their digital strategies and modernize their organizations and their ways of thinking to think creatively and innovatively and tell amazing stories and be successful.
Speaker 1:Thanks. And that's a really interesting, Jen, and I was struck there by the comparison you drew between the BBC and Channel four, and immediately I was thought of the difference between, in the theater world, a a producing theater. Yeah. Which, you know, digital team would be very close to the creative team, you know, would have a lot of access and a receiving theater Yeah. Where, you know, you are working with external producers and the show is more formed by the time it gets to you, and you're sort of given things to work with mm-hmm.<affirmative>, but don't have as much of a a say. I'm wondering if you've got any reflections on the role of digital, I suppose, in digital teams in those two very different, or fields, like very different environments, and how to be successful in those two very different worlds and different dynamics.
Speaker 2:I think, yeah, they are very different and they, they present very different challenges. And I think the difference, I guess is around, as you've indicators around ownership and for a digital team or digital individual is sometimes is how close they can get to the action and how involved they can be. Um, and I, but there are similarities. I think that in so far as, and you know, hands up, it's now been a very long time since I was at the Beeb. Um, but at the time we were having to work quite hard to convince the, um, shows to have us in the studio with them and to work closely with us. And, um, it took a while and it took a lot of hard work and persuasion. And then somebody agreed, and somebody from team I was in, I wish I could say it was me, wasn't me first time, um, made something that was a tremendous success that just caught fire. Um, and after that it sort of proved a case and everybody wanted one. Um, and that's quite often how it works,<laugh>, let's be honest. Um, and so there was that, that kind of level of convincing. I'm certain that it doesn't happen now, you only have to look at the output to know that. So moving to a, to the more receiving theater end of things, the persuading work is harder. Um, and there's more of it. And the people you're persuading are different, but it's still persuading work, um, and relationship building. And I think for, for any digital professional, I think the top skill you need to have is persuasion and people skills really, because you have to work with so many different people in different departments, whether you are making the stuff yourself or whether you are working with somebody who, who owns the ip, um, you, you have to be able to negotiate and persuade them and demonstrate why it's valuable. And for, I'm sure for touring theater companies, as with production company, TV production companies, the thing they're making is tremendously precious. And there's a lot of pressure on the, the creatives who are making it to succeed. Um, so having somebody come on and go, hi, can I take this thing you're making and, and chop it up into little bits and put it on the internet is, you know, it can, can be off-putting to say the least. So I think understanding where people are and what their priorities are, and then coming in with those, those skills that demonstrate that you can see their position and that you are on their side and you are there to make their thing even better and even more successful is where you start.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I think that skill of being able to intuit what the other person's agenda is or what is valuable to them, and then being able to speak to how your work helps meet that agenda is, is something I've heard in other conversations I've had in this, in this forum.
Speaker 2:I suspect it's something that happens in every sector where there are digital teams that are separate from teams who are making a core product or a core message, whatever that sector is.
Speaker 1:And maybe on that same challenge, I suppose mm-hmm.<affirmative>, coming back to the, again, something you said about moving to Tate and perhaps moving from an environment where entertainment was something that people were looking to a achieve Yeah. And unafraid of talking about and was a measure of success Yeah. To perhaps somewhere where the word entertainment was perhaps a less, uh, primary concern. Yeah. How, how did you find that? Was, was that quite a crunching gear shift to moving to a, into a, a set of conversations where, you know, the, perhaps people were talking about the same things, but they were using very different language and perhaps didn't necessarily Yeah. Thinking, think they were thinking in the same way?
Speaker 2:I think Yeah, absolutely. And I think that's the thing that really struck me in, that I wasn't really prepared for when I was joining Tate, um, given my career path because I ha, you know, I, I was not, uh, raised in a fine art kind of environment, um, at all. It was how academic it is. And, and that was, you know, that was my entry point. It's not, it's the entire sector in terms of museums and art galleries, particularly theaters also is, but maybe less so, I dunno, um, debate that one, uh, was was that it's a very cerebral space and very academic and, um, there is a dynamic in for art museums and art galleries that is about presenting your thesis and arguing your thesis through the presentation of the exhibition. And that is almost, and well almost opposite and sometimes in act actual conflict with any, um, kind of need to entertain or engage an audience because you're trying to convey something that is, uh, one could argue. And I've been in these arguments where that is deeper and more meaningful than mere entertainment. Um, I suppose my counter to that is you have to in be able to invite people in and entertainment can be being entertaining with meaningful content is some of the most powerful thing things you can do. So, sorry, that was terrible. Grammars one of the most powerful things you can do. Um, and when you hit that sweet spot, it's, you can see the, the, the impact with audiences, not just in audience, um, numbers, but, um, but also in terms of critical acclaim. You don't necessarily have to want have one or the other. Um, but it's a difficult, it's a difficult balance to strike. And I suppose the, the museum sector doesn't have that, um, that driver or hasn't, hasn't have had that driver to provide entertaining experiences to audiences in the same way that more, I suppose, popular culture like tv, um, has. But when you look at the success of what are really recent newcomers to the cultural sector, like, you know, the emer I'm talking about sort of the immersive experiences that, that seem to be everywhere now. Um, or maybe that's just, I'm, I'm tuning into them and the, the audience figures that they achieve for audiences who could go to an art gallery, who could be going to a museum, um, and feeling as enriched and as transported and without feeling stupid or challenged or that something's difficult or that there's somewhere where they don't belong. Um, I think there's something to learn.
Speaker 1:And, you know, you were, you were at the tape for a number of years. Did you see the conversation in this particular area around this particular priority shift at all? Because it does feel that, excuse me, it does feel that in recent years perhaps there has been, there have been more exhibitions Yeah. In, uh, sort of traditional cultural spaces that have been looking to entertainment engagement experience as, as much as a part of what they're offering as it is a sort of a really important inverted commerce exhibition a around a particular
Speaker 2:Artist. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And, and, and, and certainly the shift at Taton and that I've seen in in other institutions has been very much in that direction of, um, thinking more frankly thinking more about what audiences want and need and listening to audiences more. Um, which is, which is really important. And really, you know, it's a, it's a fundamental part of kind of digital thinking, but also any kind of business thinking needs to, to be about what your, what your customer wants and needs. Right. Um, and that is something that, that digital content affords us and makes more easy than, um, perhaps exhibitions on a wall because you can see behaviors and you can track behaviors and you can obviously get the quo quant stuff from comments and things like that. Um, but yeah, we've seen audience, um, so more audience centered thinking. Absolutely. And that has shifted the sort of how Tate taught and, and other institutions. I mean, I'll talk about Tate cause I know them best and I was there most recently. But, but other institutions as well talk about their exhibitions, um, where they place content, the sorts of digital content that's made that look that, that, um, works visually. It's a very visual center. Lots and lots of film stuff, um, for other institutions. There's lots of audio stuff. It's also creating content that's around playlists and soundtracks to go with exhibitions as well as the content of the exhibitions themselves. So that kind of whole, um, web of content and experience that weaves itself around an exhibition. Um, and yeah, absolutely. That's, that's definitely grown and it's something that, um, that I think has become kind of a standard way of doing at the bigger institutions. Now, what I'm curious to see ne happen next is how that, what's the next level of that? And how do the institutions that hold incredible wealth of deep knowledge about the artifacts and, you know, incredible and, um, absorbing artifacts and artworks that they have in their collections, how they tell those stories, um, in other spaces as well. You know, how, how they kind of, I dunno, build on this start of being amazing, tremendous storytellers into, you know, um, other platforms like streaming services. You know, we've seen, um, MoMA and the VNA have TV series about behind the scenes at museum. Um, I would love to see Tate and the National Gallery and the Met and MoMA have partnerships with Netflix or Apple tv, um, about the stories that they're holding their collections. Because as we've seen with the pandemic, you don't, obviously the buildings are important, are vital parts of the museum and the gallery experience, but they aren't all of it anymore.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And you know, if you, if you go, I guess if you go back into a broadcast context, the institutions have, you know, they have ip, they have expertise, they have talent in inverted commerce, hundred percent. And, you know, that is really, really valuable. And it feels like the sector is maybe starting to wake up. It still hasn't fully realized the stuff. It just has to hand Yeah. That is of
Speaker 2:The riches. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. Absolutely. And it's, you know, I, I don't want to kind of make light of the, the shift that that would involve. It's, it's significant, it's a significant shift in thinking about business and operating models of how you make this part of your business, your day-to-day business, how you fund it to get going, how you work out what works and what doesn't. And the skillsets to do all of that aren't necessarily in all of our cultural institutions at the moment, but some of them are. Um, and yeah, so I don't want to, I don't want to diminish the, the, the scale of the task at hand, but I think the opportunity is quite exciting.
Speaker 1:And it feels like through the pandemic, you know, we saw some little bl blooming blooming Yes. Some, some blossoming of, of experimentation and new ideas, and perhaps some people tentatively feeling their way into the sorts of spaces that we've just tentatively described. But it feels like over the past year, as as people have tried to reopen their physical buildings and welcome physical audiences back, a lot of that stuff has stopped happening. Yeah. You know? Yeah. And I think, you know, understandably, people have felt they didn't have the capacity to do both. Yeah. Which is understandable as someone who was recently, you know, director of digital at a big institution. Yeah. How important do you think it is the organizations make the space to work out how they can start to operate in this digital space, even if that means perhaps doing slightly less physically
Speaker 2:As it will? I, I think it's vital. I think it's, um, vital for their own organizational resilience, um, and for their ability to continue to move forward. Um, we've seen over the last three years, the pandemic existentially challenge museums in a way that digital transformation didn't in the early nineties. So going back to when I spoke about Radio one i music streaming, existentially challenged the music industry and record labels closed. Um, you know, the same happened for print journalism, for publishing, for cinema, for tv, um, and to, you know, to greater and lesser extents. And museums and galleries seem to sidestep all of that and, and make some incremental developments. They may put ticket sales online and, um, put some collection online and, and started advertising using digital media and social media and sort of absorbed some of these changes, which is fantastic, you know, fantastic level of adaptation or albeit slow. But, um, but nothing existentially challenged them quite as much as, as having to close their buildings. Um, and I can understand, um, I don't agree with, but I can understand the sort of the swing back away from more digital experimentation once the gallery doors reopened because there's kind of a relief and, and a desperate desire to want to go back to normal. And, and normal was 2019, but we are now 2023. And, um, audience expectations of what they can get online has fundamentally shifted or maybe not fundamentally shifted. It was always there. It's been accelerated, um, that's not going back. So museums and galleries and other institutions who have sort of rolled back on their digital investments, that's okay for now, but au what audiences expect and audience behaviors are continuing to move forward. And if you don't keep pace with them, you will ultimately become left behind. Um, and also this is one pandemic that shut the buildings. Right. And I don't want to get all end of days about this, but there might be more, there might be other challenges we've seen. Um, you know, these, you know, and they, let's hope they're not pandemics, but other challenges like, um, these burgeoning immersive experiences that are capturing audience attention are taking potential audience share away from museums and, and galleries. If museums and galleries aren't continuing to innovate and iterate, those audiences won't find them. Um, and over time they will become less and less part of people's cultural lives because they're not continuing to move forward. If you take, you think about any other sector, if you think about, um, retail, right? If, if retail didn't continue to invest in digital innovation, in trying new things and experimenting and accepting that some things don't work, some things will, and double downing on the things that work and the things that don't, if retail didn't do that,<laugh> shops would close, people's livelihoods would disappear. And I think, you know, we have to think, we have to think like businesses, um, and think ab and that includes thinking about how you continue to adapt your offer to audiences. It includes understanding what your audiences want to, includes looking for new audiences. It includes thinking about the skills that you have in your organization and how they work together and how your organization is organized. If that's not taught logical, um, you know, there's, it's across the whole piece. And it doesn't have to be a wholesale transformation. This can be an evolution, but you can't turn the clock back. We can do it for now. It feels comfortable. It feels nice and cozy to like, pretend we're back in 2019. I completely get that. But it's not realistic.
Speaker 1:No. And I, I think that echoes things that other people have reflected on in, in these types of conversations that, you know, to, to not experiment is risky. Yeah. Uh, you know, yes. Perhaps, um, to the point of, you know, organizations ceasing to be relevant and then quite quickly ceasing to exist mm-hmm.<affirmative> and the status quo that people seem to be trying to achieve is now, you know, three and a bit years out of date. Yes. And even if you try to pretend that audience expectations haven't changed, you know, the societal context has shifted. You think about just cost of living, um, energy costs, you know, all of these, these other very, very tangible pressures are shifting the way that organizations should be thinking and, and behaving and adapting. And I completely understand that the natural desire to that is to sort of bunker down and try and double down on what you know and what's worked in the past. But I, I really believe that unless the sector starts to ex explore some new ways of working, that we could be in a real, uh, sticky spot in three to five years time.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I completely, I mean, the world is moving so fast that the greatest risk you you take is in standing still. Um, yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:And I, I'm interested to look at your time at, at Tate a bit because, you know, you came in director of digital, the Tate did a lot of digital stuff while you were there. Yeah. It seems from, um, someone on standing on the sidelines, and I'm intrigued now you've, now you've left<laugh><laugh> and, and, uh, perhaps reflected a bit what you are sort of proudest of mm-hmm.<affirmative> that you achieved in your time at Tate. Perhaps what you are sad that never you, you never quite managed to make happen. And maybe a reflection on the challenges of working in a, you know, a a huge ins multi-site institution like Tate that has this global profile. Yeah. Um, which I'm sure opens many doors mm-hmm.<affirmative> and presents many opportunities. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, but equally I'm sure comes with many challenges. Of course. Um, so maybe we start at, start with the things that you are, you are proud of, um, o over your years is at, at at Tate. Cuz it feels like there's a lot,
Speaker 2:There is a lot. And, um, a above all else, the thing I'm proudest of is the team that I worked with. Um, and when I joined Tate, I joined as a, as head of digital content after a restructure of the digital team that brought together teams that hadn't necessarily been working together in any, or, you know, in on, on a daily basis anyway. Um, and together with my colleagues at the time, we built that into cohesive department. And then when I took on the directorship, um, we kind of took that upper notch. And in terms of the, their, their ways of working, their incredible collaboration skills, their really thoughtful approach to digital in an art world context, their ability to work with colleagues across the organization, their imagination and innovation. And above all compassion is, you know, is, is is really, um, something I ha I'm in awe of really. They are, they are very, very excellent colleagues. So, um, and I can't, you know, they, they are their own people. I can't claim all the glory for that, but that is, you know, bringing together a team of great people is, is the thing I'm proudest of because, um, that's the thing that keeps on going, you know, and, and I, I led the department, I didn't do all the work, right? So you need to have an, an amazing team of amazing people if you're going to maintain the level of output that Tate digital output that Tate has. And then other things I'm proud of, you know, I'm proud of being able to do, um, projects like the ME vr, which was in I think like 20 16, 20 17, which feels like a million years ago now. Um, and, um, but was was just kind of one of those exemplar projects of bringing people from across the organization together and, um, to a and and creating a really great result. And, and the, the piece that we made still stands up. So I'm very, I'm very proud of that. Um, I'm proud of other, you know, there are things that that launched in the gallery after I left, but started before I left, so I can, I can remain proud of them. Things like a new drawing bar in Tate Britain, like, which took enormous amount of work, um, on the part of, part of colleagues more, more than me, but enormous amount of work to kind of get agreement on and is just beautiful and welcoming and full of people drawing whenever I go in there. And people making and being creative and feeling inspired and people of all ages. And, you know, it's what you want to see in something in the heart of the Tate Britain building. Um, there's one tape modern as well. I should, you know, in in that thing where you've got to be fair to all siblings. There's one in Tate Modern as well, but it's been there longer. So I shout about it less these days. Um, so, and obviously, you know, the website I'm tremendously proud of and it keeps evolving and I suppose that goes back to the team, the practices that they've developed that mean that the work is always maintained, always polished, always moving forward without having to throw everything up, everything up in the air again and rebuild from scratch every five years. Um, there's lots that's challenging in working like in a big organization like Tate. And actually this is one of the things that was similar with the bbc, it was one of the things I recognized, um, and to a lesser extent, channel four, because in channel four you're all in one building, so you can, if there's a problem, you can always walk up a flight or down a flight of stairs and, and have a human conversation. Um, but it's the, the multi-site nurse and the Tate is four galleries and a research center or multiple research centers, um, and a learning team and, um, stores, uh, all, all coming together as Tate. And there is a Tate nurse that defines all of them that they all have in common, but they are also all individual and all have their own, um, strategies and aims for success and definitions of success for, particularly for the galleries that are their own. And so finding the, the thing that balances all of those when you are trying to present the whole organization digitally to the whole world, um, yeah, that's an ongoing challenge and I can't pretend that I solved that. Um, I think I made progress. Um, we had some really great conversations and there was a lot of good work, um, that started last year and continues, um, after my departure. So, you know, it's, and it's a known challenge, right? It's not, it's not like Tate doesn't know that this isn't a challenge, but I'm, I suppose when you said, what am I sad about? I'm sad about that. I didn't crack that nut, that was<laugh>. That's, that's the one thing I look back and go, it. Because if I had, then I could, uh, bottle that and<laugh> and because, you know, I think there are lots of places that have that challenge.
Speaker 1:Yes. I think lots of people st uh, uh, confronting all of the things that you, you talked about there. Yeah. And I think, you know, often if you look at the organizations that seem to be most successful in the digital context, you know, they've got really clear leadership and then they have really great culture and really great team. And I've, you know, I'm working with a few organizations at the moment who are restructuring their digital teams or restructuring around their digital activity. And I'm interested if you've got any reflections on, on that because it feels like people get very hung up on roles and very hung up on processes, which are absolutely important. But it feels like the, the special source is culture. Yes. And it is the, the, the values and the qualities of the people that you're bringing in around as you, as you've said, people that are compassionate and collaborative and good negotiators and who are curious because that's how you keep doing good stuff. It's not just about saying, right, we need someone who's a really good video editor or really comfortable VR experience designer, actually there's all this soft, these soft skills, this culture of stuff that, that, that's the important,
Speaker 2:It's, it's, it's absolutely vital. I suppose, I'm gonna try an analogy here and it might all fall over, but, um, if I think about the, the processes are kind of the skeleton of the team or the department, and they're, you know, if, if you don't have them, it falls over<laugh>. I'm liking my analogy now. Um, you've gotta, you've gotta have a good and robust skeleton, uh, to, to, to build things on. And then the skills that you have in terms of content production, um, and uh, I guess design and code and all those things are kind of the muscles that move the skeleton, but the blood flow that gets the messaging, I'm loving this analogy, the blood flow that gets the messaging around from skeleton to muscles to brain to vital organs, I dunno what those are yet. I'll wing, I'll wing it. Um, that is the, that's the culture and the, and, and, and because culture is how that department thinks about itself and how it presents itself to the rest of the organization and to the wider world. Um, and, and also how it communicates. And, um, and if you have, you can have the most incredible skeleton and muscle muscle structure. Um, but if you don't have the culture that makes the, that means that communication works well and that people can work out how to work with each other and have pride in their work, but enough humility as, as individuals to know that they aren't the be all and end all, um, then it's, it doesn't matter how good your processes are, and you will end up with, you know, and cultures, and I've seen it and I've been in teams where this, it's happened where you have a rockstar in your team and everybody defers to that rockstar, but it means that other stuff gets neglected and you don't have a well-balanced team and you don't have a well-balanced portfolio of work. And ultimately you will succeed for a time when that rockstar leaves your team falls over and you have to start again. Um, so yeah, there we go. Skeletons muscles,<laugh>, blood flow got big
Speaker 1:Gruesome. I think that is a valuable and good analogy,<laugh> when people are thinking about teams. Thank
Speaker 2:You. But yeah, and, and, and it's, and it's hard to grow and it's not something you can buy in and it's not something that you can grow overnight. And it requires really, really good leadership and not just from the individual at the head. It requires the people that are leading the teams. And ultimately it will cascade down if you have good leadership people, um, follow by example. And if you are a trustworthy, authentic, honest, compassionate, and hopefully a bit creative leader and compassionate doesn't mean weak, you know, there's great strength and compassion, um, and your leadership team are also, you know, embodying those, those qualities, it filters down and then it filters out because also, you know, that's how people will then take your, their work, your work to the wider organization.
Speaker 1:And I think, uh, what's my next question? I think my next question is probably about people who end up in leadership roles in the digital parts of cultural organizations and how those people very often seem to end up leaving the sector or at least moving out of in-house roles. You know, I can think of five or six people that I think we both know that got to a certain point, a sort of head of digital, maybe director of something Yeah. Role, and then felt they needed to leave the sector, which is such a, a loss, I think, to the, to the sector, um, in terms of skills, in terms of experience. Um, and I, when, when I was thinking about this, it feels like that only seems that most regularly seems to happen with digital people. Um, you don't see that so much with marketing colleagues or operational colleagues or artistic colleagues. Um, and I, I, as someone<laugh>
Speaker 2:Who, who may have, who may have done this,
Speaker 1:Yes. I'm just wondering if, if you had any thoughts you could share on, on why a move to consulting rather than to another cultural institution. Was the move that you made, was it a move you were looking to make? Did a e a approach you, I'm just interested in because it does feel like there is a bit of a, a talent problem around digital leadership in the sector. There is a bit of a brain drain that happens, you know, the best people now no longer either don't work in the sector at all or, or sort of tangential to the sector in consultancy or agency roles.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah. Um, so I think I have a few thoughts around this. Um, I think one of the challenges is that still leadership, and I mean by, you know, very senior leadership as in directing, uh, cultural institutions, um, has a long way to go in terms of diversity of the careers. I have to speak so carefully because, you know, I don't mean this as any kind of, I'm not throwing shade on people who are directing cultural institutions. They are doing tremendous and difficult jobs, but there is a lack of diversity in the leadership in general in cultural institutions. When you think about other sectors and people moving across sectors, um, that just doesn't happen in the cu in the cultural sector. And some of that is, and, and people, it is the thing that people shout about first. Some of that is to do with salaries, possibly, I think more it is to do with, um, what skills we value, um, and, uh, how we seek those people out. So if you are running a cultural institution, you have probably come up through the academic root of curation, um, and you will have studied that subject at university and a master's, possibly a PhD. I, I've never met so many well-educated people as I had at Tate, and that's no comment on people in places I've worked before. It was just the numbers of PhDs was, um, quite humbling and mildly intimidating. Um, but, uh, yeah, we don't have a lot of, we don't have a lot of movement in this sector, um, which means that people don't leave and learn new things and come back in. But it also means that other people from other sectors don't look at the cultural sector and go, oh, I could do some interesting work there. Because the, it's, it's quite homogenous at the top. Um, and certainly what I sense at the moment, and I will, he, I do hope that it will shift is that therefore, in terms of career progression, um, it becomes very limiting when you get to a director level, um, in, in the digital realm. Um, there is only one gallery director I can think of who has a career in dig who had a career in digital. And you know,
Speaker 1:I'm speaking to him later this month. Oh, you
Speaker 2:Lucky thing. Um, but yeah, I, I, you know, so I think, I think that's a challenge. Um, and then, you know, the, the cultural sector is challenged, let's be honest, by the sorts of salaries that digital people can command in other sectors. So it's not the, it's not all the fault of the cultural sector, right? It's not purely self-inflicted, but I think there is something about what we value in skillsets at senior levels, and that translates into different styles of leadership and structures of organization and that kind of thing.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I think that's a, we could have a whole nother hours chat about Oh yeah, that and what board's value and what sort of institutional strategy is primarily concerned with, but I do think it's, it is an, it's an issue that runs through all levels of institutional thinking, you know, from, from boards and xx all the way down to, to,
Speaker 2:You're right actually, you, you're right to talk about it in terms of what the institution values and, um, in terms of skills, in terms of different ways of thinking and different approaches and different ways of, um, operating model as well.
Speaker 1:Lots more to pick up perhaps than another
Speaker 2:Whole future podcast series
Speaker 1:In that. We'll, we will absolutely do that at some point. But to, to, to finish perhaps I'm, yeah, I'm interested in talking a bit about where you are now, because certainly when I saw that you'd gone to aa, I thought, oh, that's interesting. Mm-hmm.<affirmative>, I didn't know that they had a digital focus, to be perfectly honest. And, you know, you are a digital person. Uhhuh,<affirmative>, that is where you have built your career. So, so what is, what is the role at AA look like? What are you working on? What are you hoping to work on?
Speaker 2:Um, uh, it's great. I'm really enjoying it and I'm learning a lot. Um, so AA for those who don't know, we are a strategy organization. We provide business, uh, and planning and strategy to arts and culture institutions all around the world. Um, and so the sorts of things I work on are strategic plans for new institutions or existing institutions, operating plans. It's not just digital strategy, but yes, I do do do, I do do digital strategy as well. And, um, so I suppose what I'm doing at a e a, uh, is, um, deepening and expanding on we, what we can offer from a digital perspective. So when I work on, um, operating plans and dig and, um, business strategies, I'm, you know, I'm thinking about the whole organization. Um, and I bring to that my experience and a digital lens. And some of that experience is just from working in organizations, but also some of it is very much about how do we weave digital into this, into this institution for its, um, ongoing kind of success. Um, I'm also really interested in building, uh, creative and innovation practices within teams and thinking about how you can kind of weave that into the day-to-day, um, and thinking about, uh, new business opportunities. So looking at, uh, the immersive sector, uh, it's not a sector is it, but, you know, immersive, um, experiences and other kind of newcomers to the cultural sector. So I think about the culture sector in its widest sense. So I, I would consider, you know, the immersive ex experiences that we see, um, broadcasting roll the way down to, you know, fine art museums. I, I'm, I'm interested in all of it and thinking about how, um, any of those organizations can tell rich and compelling stories that audiences love and want to come back to again and again, and how you make that sustainable within the organization and how you make that a sustainable business as well for the organization. So it's, it's really interesting work
Speaker 1:And the very fact that you are now a a, a yeah. Whether that is as a response to inquiries that they as a, as a consultancy were getting, or because of an opportunity that they spotted and felt they needed to bring in someone with your expertise. Yeah. Feels like, you know, we've talked a lot about challenge and frustration, but that feels like a positive thing. Yeah. Because AA are working at the, you know, the tip of the spear in terms of institutional strategy. Yes. The, the conversations that you are having are in inevitably going to filter down an influenced institutional thinking Yes. And institutional prioritization. Yes. So that, that does feel Yeah.
Speaker 2:Positive. Yeah, absolutely. And that, that is the aim. You're absolutely right. And it's about, um, yeah, trying to, trying to weave this into the conversations that are happening at board level and in the senior executive level. Um, because it's 2023, right?<laugh>, we've gotta, we, we, we, we've gotta, gotta keep moving forward. And, um, I think, I mean, above all, I think the cultural sector is so important, so important and so vital and, and can be tremendous, can be incredibly successful, um, and beneficial to the communities that they, that it serves in a sort of local and regional and global scale. Um, I absolutely believe that it's possible and can be, you know, for, for lots of different territories. Cuz now this is one of the great things about aea. I'm, I'm not just thinking about the uk, um, but I think it's really, yeah, I think it's really, really important that we continue to help organizations to make that kind of digital thinking part of the, part of their everyday fabric.
Speaker 1:And maybe as a very final thought, you know, you, as you said, it's 2023<laugh>, let's look over the next 12 months. Yeah. You know, the, the types of conversations that you are having. What are the, what are the maybe three or four or five key areas that you are looking to either help organizations with or force onto the agenda? Is it about skills? Is it about strategic planning? Is it about leadership?
Speaker 2:Oh my God, it's all of it. It's, um, yes, it's, it's skills. It's about, um, digital maturity, um, by which I mean, how do we start with digital literacy? For some organizations it's, it's starting from much earlier on in that kind of digital understanding. But how do we grow that ability at senior levels to be able to factor digital in? It's not about making everybody a digital executive, it's just about this is part of business now. Um, so there's that kind of level of sort of digital maturity, um, at, at leadership levels, of course, digital strategy and weaving digital into an organizational strategy rather than just bolting it on the side, the days of a bolt on digital strategy. Please have to be over now. We cannot have come through a pandemic and still be sticking digital on as an afterthought. Um, and, uh, and also then, and therefore, what is the operating model? How do you make this part of a business in a way that can be flexible and adaptable and mature as time goes on? Um, and then thinking about innovation and innovative and, and innovation in many different ways. It doesn't have to be digital innovation, but, you know, thinking about looking further afield, looking outside of the cultural sector and learning from other parts of industry and bringing that in to what it is that, you know, how businesses can evolve into the future.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I think if nothing else, it feels like that final point is the key thing that organizations need to try and try and do. Amongst all the difficulties that inevitably 2023 will, will involve. You have to be trying to at least keep half an eye on what other people are doing, what you could be doing differently. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Um, yeah. You know, audiences to, for digital organizations live in a world where everything is coming at them mall at once, right? They live in a world where they're looking at the cost of living and they're looking at the news and they're looking at retail and they're looking to be entertained and they're looking to be moved. Um, we can't just consider them in this sort of one very narrow sliver of their lives. Um, and so that's, you know, that's just the, that's just the audience that's not even thinking about the business structure. But I think, yeah, we have to, we have to think about ourselves within the wider context of the world we're in.
Speaker 1:And on that note,<laugh>, thank you Hillary, for your time. Thank you. Cheers.
