On Tuesday April 28, 2020, in association with theIncubateur du patrimoine, the third edition of the Rencontres de l’IESA will take place at the Hôtel de Sully at the Centre des monuments nationaux.
very year since 2018, {CORRESPONDANCES DIGITALES] in collaboration withIESA, organizes a series of professional meetings. The first two editions were a great success, with 700 registrations and over 40 speakers in 2018 and 2019.
From the outset, the Rencontres have provided an opportunity to address a wide range of issues concerning heritage and innovation: digital technology as a tool for preserving heritage, open data, innovative strategies for cultural institutions, immersive exhibitions…
For this 3rd edition, we are joining forces with the Incubateur du patrimoine. The Rencontres will therefore be held at the Hôtel de Sully, headquarters of the Centre des monuments nationaux, on Tuesday April 28, 2020. To register and consult the program :
Les Rencontres de l’IESA – Heritage & Innovations
The Rencontres will provide an opportunity to discuss the importance of links between the public and heritage institutions in fostering innovation, and the implications of such links:
- In the design of cultural projects (digital but also more broadly museographic, scenographic or programmatic);
- Vis-à-vis knowledge of the public, their uses and the data they generate (for purposes of evaluation, steering and instruction of new projects in line with the establishment’s policy);
- In terms of professional practices, skills and, possibly, organization and strategy for cultural establishments.
This month’s article looks at the various themes that will be discussed during the meetings.
1. A FIRST MEETING ON DESIGNING INNOVATIVE PROJECTS WITH THE PUBLIC.
Why this meeting?
Involving the public in the projects of a cultural establishment is nowadays an injunction for heritage professionals.
Since the middle of the 20th century, new approaches to museology have been enriched by the development of more participative mediation practices. More recently, some cultural professionals have adopted a range of methodologies inspired by design, IT, marketing and project management to support innovative participatory projects (technological, social, managerial or user-oriented). We recently wrote an article on the subject:
CAN YOU (REALLY) INNOVATE WITH YOUR AUDIENCE?
This first meeting proposes to draw up an overview of these various participatory projects. It will also be an opportunity to discuss the challenges, contributions and limitations that heritage institutions may face in terms of skills, professional practices, organization and regulations when faced with the challenge of public participation.
Who will speak, and what will we talk about?
Marie-Laure FROMONT, administrator of the Remparts d’Aigues-Mortes, and Florence RAYMOND, heritage conservation officer at the Palais des Beaux-arts in Lille, will be presenting various projects carried out in close collaboration with the public at their institutions. These projects have fed into their institutions’ policies in fields as varied as technological, managerial, museographic and scenographic innovation.
Representatives of the Museomix association will then present another, more occasional approach to public participation, as part of an annual event. They will look at how a range of talents can inspire cultural institutions during a festive moment open to the public. The way in which cultural establishments participating in Museomix extend and perpetuate (or not) the mediation and museography solutions proposed during the event will also be the subject of discussion. Museomix, now international since 2013, will be represented by Cyrille CARILLON and Charlotte MADER, members of the association’s Swiss community.
When we talk about involving the public, we also need to ask ourselves: which publics should we open up to? Simon HOURIEZ, founder of Signes de sens, will talk about the challenges of including people with disabilities, and how taking them into account can generate innovation for all.
Finally, to round off this panorama, Sofia ROUMENTCHEVA, a museologist and doctoral student in law specializing in the legal issues surrounding creation and collaborative innovation, will offer her thoughts and perspective on the challenges that the development of public participation brings to heritage establishments from a regulatory point of view.
Following this first meeting, participants will be able to discover the various start-ups supported by the Heritage Incubator and the experiments they are carrying out with the Centre des monuments nationaux. An article was recently published on the website of {CORRESPONDANCES DIGITALES] :
(HOW) CAN WE WORK WITH PRIVATE PARTNERS TO INNOVATE?
Naturally, taking audiences into account requires a better understanding of their types, uses and the data they generate. This will be the subject of the second Rencontre on April 28.
2. A SECOND MEETING ON VISITOR AND USAGE DATA.
Why this meeting?
From the 1970s onwards, public services were deployed in heritage organizations, with the aim of getting to know visitors better, adapting to their uses and practices to support them, win their loyalty and involve them in decision-making.
Whether it’s to meet the commercial or social needs of a public cultural venue,the need to better understand audiences has been enriched in recent years by a range of new data from websites, social networks and digital devices made available to audiences. Reputedly lagging behind Anglo-Saxon cultural establishments in this area, French institutions are implementing a range of projects in this direction, but are also coming up against real or supposed barriers, whether social, societal, regulatory, organizational or technological.
The aim of this meeting is to define potentially available usage and visitor data, to specify the means required to collect and analyze them and, more generally, to examine their usefulness in managing a heritage activity. A guide on the subject has recently been published by Ministère de la culture. It offers practical support to cultural institutions:
Contact Relationship Management (CRM) Guide
Who will speak, and what will we talk about?
Jérôme IRAND, Project Facilitator at the Klee Group, will take part in an initial presentation to define, in relation with Rencontres participants, a number of key issues to be taken into account in order to gain a better understanding of audiences and the links they may have with cultural heritage institutions. Jérôme IRAND made a major contribution to the creation of the Ministère de la culture guide mentioned above.
Ludovic BORDES, co-founder of Arenametrix, a company specializing in audience data management solutions, will take us through the tools, processes and resources required to implement this type of system.
Marie GANAS, Head of Research, Prospecting and Building Audience Loyalty at CMN , and Mathieu DECRAENE, from the Louvre Museum‘s Department of Audiences and Artistic and Cultural Education, will be talking about how data linked to their audiences and uses can meet the challenges facing their establishments. These challenges can be commercial, social or societal. This discussion will also provide an opportunity to discuss the limits and constraints of quantitative approaches to audience analysis.
The Rencontre will then focus on the ways in which data can be used to fuel public policy in local and regional authorities (and not just from a cultural point of view). Philippe ARCHIAS, Director of Innovation and Research at Groupe Chronos, will talk about a project implemented with OuiShare: Data cités.
The first two Rencontres highlight the importance of taking audiences into account in the strategies of cultural establishments, for research or project purposes. This requires (also) a range of human, material, organizational and financial resources. This will be the subject of the third Rencontre.
3. A THIRD MEETING ON THE RECOGNITION OF DIGITAL AND INNOVATION SKILLS WITHIN HERITAGE ORGANIZATIONS.
Why this meeting?
Cultural establishments are faced with a combination of increasingly pressing imperatives: pressure on their funding models, redefinition of their roles and missions, injunctions to innovate technologically and take account of their audiences.
To ensure these transformations,professional practices within cultural establishments are evolving towards more collaborative and experimental modes of working, inspired by other economic sectors. To drive these changes, it seems necessary to enhance the skills of certain employees or to recruit new, dedicated profiles. However, there are many organizational, budgetary, social and managerial obstacles to gaining legitimacy for these skills. An article we wrote some time ago offers some thoughts on the subject, and looks back at a number of examples from heritage institutions:
CAN YOU LEARN ABOUT DIGITAL INNOVATION?
This Rencontre proposes to define the key skills required for transformation, to specify the means necessary for their development and the constraints they face.
Who will speak, and what will we talk about?
The Rencontre will be opened by Nicolas ORSINI, Head of the Digital Innovation Department at the French Ministry of Culture. He will talk about the digital evolution of professions in the cultural sector and, above all, the challenges of transforming cultural institutions.
Noémie COUILLARD will complement this perspective with a look at the development of professional skills in digital cultural policies . A researcher in information and communication sciences and co-founder of an audience research agency (Voix/Publics), her testimony will be invaluable in both respects, especially as she is the author of a fascinating thesis on community managers in cultural venues:
French museum community managers: Professional identity…
Two professionals from the cultural sector will then testify to the diversity of their institutions’ approaches in this area. Ronan LE GUERN, head of the web and digital department at Le Centquatre, will talk about how, following a master’s degree at Les Gobelins, he piloted a project by applying a range of skills acquired during the course. Following this project, he decided to share these methods and tools with other professionals at Le Centquatre, but also much more widely (in a recent article, we mentioned his fascinating dissertation, which he generously put online at the beginning of the year):
Pauline MOIREZ, from the Bibliothèque nationale de France‘s Mission innovation, will explain how her institution has set up such a department to implement a policy of encouraging open innovation among all Bnf staff, through training courses, workshops and an incubator….
To complete this panorama, we also felt it was important to look at the training challenges facing professionals in the heritage sector in the face of these new skills and practices. Ewa MACZEK, deputy director ofOcim, will present the range of activities carried out by the Office de coopération et d’information muséales (Museum Cooperation and Information Office) to support professionals in their practices, through active monitoring, the publication of numerous resources and top-quality training courses. In terms of initial training, Boris GREBILLE, Director ofIESA, will present how this cultural management school trains its students in innovation, new professional practices and new professions that are developing in the heritage field.
The inclusion and participation of the public, and the desire or injunction to innovate faced by heritage establishments require this perspective. We are therefore proud ({CORRESPONDANCES DIGITALES], IESA students and the Heritage Incubator) to offer you such a program this year. We look forward to seeing you there!
