This month, the Heritage Incubator named its4th class. This means that 5 start-ups (3 of them Tunisian) are joining the incubator for 1 year to experiment with projects in the various monuments of the Centre des monuments nationaux: Aller Simple, Capsulo, DesignLab, Educ’art and Morbiket. The implementation of such a program dedicated to innovation, as we have already mentioned elsewhere, would seem to encourage experimentation and the implementation of collaborations between public and private partners inherent in the development of digital projects. However, many start-ups wishing to target the public sector and, more specifically, museums, still face a series of obstacles that force them to adapt their offers and approaches to these various constraints. To complement a first article written in 2019 on public/private collaborations, we recently spoke to a number of innovative companies and cultural institutions * with a certain track record in the cultural field to gain some reflexive perspective on these obstacles (we’d like to take this opportunity to thank them warmly for their availability). The challenges faced by these different companies provide food for thought on how to improve the relationships and collaborations between cultural institutions and private partners, which are often essential to the logic of digital innovation, and can even change the lines in terms of cultural policies.
1. Seeking each other without finding each other, or the need to take a step towards each other.
The vast majority of such meetings are initiated by companies. To stimulate interest and the desire to get to know each other, the private partner generally initiates the matchmaking process proactively.
However, the organizational clarity of cultural institutions is sometimes difficult to get to grips with in order to identify the right contact(s). This organization is often defined by the size and number of visitors to the facility. It is also the fruit of history, of specificities linked to collections, to the area in which they are located, of interrelations and good understanding between departments, or of the place given (or not given) to digital technology within the institution. In order to present a digital offer dedicated to the public of an institution, it will be necessary, for example, to contact the Communications department. However, in 55.7% of cases, museums do not have full-time professionals dedicated to websites and social networks. The lack of recognition of digital professions and skills (which many museums are currently renegotiating following last year), makes identifying the right contact a challenge. Depending on the size of the establishment, the right contact may also be within the museum’s management team, its visitor services department, or a dedicated digital department (which is rarer). In any case, the decision-making power and budgetary delegation granted to each of these contacts is often relatively weak. It’s often essential to include facility management in discussions.
Beyond the internal organization of museums, their governance models also need to be taken into account when canvassing companies. These governance models can even influence the pricing policy of the offers they are likely to propose. In France, 82% of museums are managed by local authorities, 5% by the State and 13% by associations or foundations (Source: Ministère de la culture). The majority of museums in France are managed by public bodies, with varying degrees of autonomy. Some are run on a self-governing basis, with varying degrees of public accountability depending on whether they are direct, autonomous or personalized. Others have become public establishments with a degree of budgetary and decision-making independence (which varies according to the legal form of the establishment: administrative, industrial and commercial, cultural cooperation, etc.). This diversity means that companies can adopt a variety of approaches, depending on the type of museum. Below €4,000, competitive bidding is not necessarily necessary, whatever the type of museum. Above this amount, however, the decision-making process is potentially longer and the administrative burden heavier. Admittedly, the threshold for public procurement contracts has been raised to €40,000 in recent years, making it much easier to decide on a contract below this amount, but museums operating under public control have less budgetary autonomy. Above €15,000, approval from the local authority’s accounting department is required, with priority given to the use of local authority framework contracts, or the launch of a tendering procedure.
Faced with these various regulatory constraints, many companies have aligned their bids on these amounts to reduce contracting times and the administrative burdens associated with public procurement. However, the lack of autonomy of departments, and even of the company’s management itself, makes relationships and decision-making more rigid, with timeframes that are sometimes difficult for young companies to accept. More mature companies, on the other hand, are more often involved in strategies designed to develop their reputation.
2. Encourage meetings, the prerogative of more mature and expert companies.
Depending on the degree of innovation, companies will have to work hard to be clearly identified and, ultimately, to be mentioned in public procurement contracts. By way of example, the concepts of chatbot or customer relationship management have recently been the subject of public consultations. Faced with this lack of recognition, which is all the more obvious when innovation is strong, it’s up to companies to arouse the interest of museums with a set of stimuli highlighting the relevance of their offerings. While young companies need to communicate in a pedagogical way, such communications investments are, paradoxically, only sustainable for more mature companies.
This commitment to communication manifests itself, first and foremost, through participation in trade shows dedicated to tourism or culture, such as Museum connectionsSITEM or the Salon international du patrimoine culturel. It can also take the form of involvement in professional networks such as the Club innovation et culture or the Club culture et management. Applying to local, national or even international calls for projects could also be a third option. In addition to this desire to integrate into networks, many start-ups are increasingly developing a particularly rich communications strategy: sending out regular newsletters, running blogs, organizing professional events, training courses, publishing sector studies and dedicated resources, etc. Ask Mona(see its resources for professionals), Artips(subscribe to its professional newsletter) or Arenametrix(see its blog), interviewed for this article, are good examples in this field.
This sharing contributes to the reputation of these different start-ups. It also feeds the thinking of the professional museum sector through the dissemination of best practices, feedback and sector analyses. In fact, with {CORRESPONDANCES DIGITALES], we regularly support this type of approach, which we feel is more virtuous for the cultural sector than more commercial approaches that are often ill-adapted and potentially negatively judged by public museums.
While the promotion of innovative projects and solutions may be the responsibility of private players, it is also supported (and, it should be emphasized, supported) by public authorities, to raise awareness of these developments among professionals in the museum sector.
3. The need to facilitate such encounters: the public authorities’ commitment in this area
Public authorities, often at a local level, are deploying incentive policies to bring together innovative companies and museums. To achieve this, they have a number of levers at their disposal: promoting the experiments and projects implemented in their territories, organizing events or training courses, launching calls for projects, and even investing in programs to support the creation of dedicated professional sectors.
As a general rule, such actions are often carried out locally by DRACs, tourism players or directly by the cultural, territorial, economic or tourism development departments of local authorities. By way of example, the actions developed by Val d’Oise tourisme to federate tourism and cultural players are quite emblematic in this respect: creation of communication actions in the region, launch of a prize dedicated to tourism innovation (to encourage links between start-ups and institutional players), organization of events and training for cultural players in the region. For more information, see the speech given by the agency’s director in the Webinar we organized in the spring.
The Finistère 360° tourism development agency organizes and leads a Tourism, Culture and Heritage club. This club provides access to high-quality innovation intelligence, facilitates the sharing of experience between cultural and tourism players, and inspires and supports them in their innovation initiatives. We recently had the opportunity to speak alongside Diane Drubay (We are Museum) as part of a Webinar organized by the agency.
This commitment to innovation and the creation of links between start-ups and heritage sites also takes the form of calls for projects. Such is the case with the Cultures connectées call for projects launched by the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region. The Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, through its cultural digital service, is particularly active in the field of heritage innovation. The proof is in the ebook we had the pleasure of creating together to showcase the inspiring projects developed in the region.
Finally, the desire to bring start-ups and heritage sites closer together can be seen in the creation of incubators or innovation spaces (often dedicated to tourism) in Nice, Nîmes, Tours, Angers… Some local authorities are also keen to structure and support professional sectors dedicated to heritage innovation. This is the case of the Haute-Loire departmental council, which for the past 2 years has hosted a forum for innovative companies and local authorities dedicated to digitizing local heritage: Heritech (next edition in October).
Bringing innovative companies and cultural institutions together can be a complex business. These collaborations come up against regulatory, organizational, economic and sometimes psychological barriers. Faced with these barriers, decision-making times are longer, sometimes unsuited to a public/private relationship. Private and public-sector players regularly contribute to these closer ties at local level. The formats they propose are a source of inspiration for public authorities and museums, whose ambition and vocation it is to pursue a more proactive, incentive-based policy in this area.
Antoine ROLAND
*Many thanks for their availability and openness to Ludovic Bordes (Arenametrix),
to Marion Carré (Ask Mona), Amélie de Ronseray (Artips) and Muriel Jaby (Musée
d’art contemporain de Lyon) who inspired this article.
