Software Tools to Help Governing Boards
There was a great discussion yesterday among MCN colleagues looking for collaboration tools for Governing Boards. Several industry leaders suggested companies and tools that would help non-profit organizations in today’s era of online meetings and the cloud. Those recommendations are listed in the graphic below.
This discussion reminded me of my previous work to visualize this and put ideas into action. I created this visual so museum leadership, staff, and volunteers can all feel like they are on the same page, working towards the collective good of the organization.
In this post, I’ve added to this discussion by suggesting a strategic planning tool and also encouraging others to participate with Pratt with digital dashboard proposals. Below you will find a link to the Pratt case studies.
Enabling Discussion and Interaction Across Silos
This featured image above fosters understanding and enables discussion and interaction across silos to help everyone understand their role in the organization.
Content creators, Social media ambassadors, web developers as well as front-of-house staff in museums, all play a part in the collective vision and action of a cultural site.
I have also created a medium article on this subject. Please feel free to review the medium article and add any further suggestions or case study information from organizations that are effective at using online collaboration tools to create high-performing teams in museums.
Through my role as Co-Lead for Leadership and Strategy Track for the upcoming MCN 2021 conference, I became aware of the excellent work by Pratt graduate students in this area for tracking Google Analytics information for museums.
About a month ago, when I took a look at the case studies available online, I was excited to find out that Ingenium based in Canada had worked with Pratt on a case study called: Digital Analytics – Ingenium – How Their New Website Is Performing
Kudos to Ryan Dodge, Chief Digital Officer @Ingenium for participating in this case study. When I spoke to Ryan earlier this summer, he highly recommended that museum professionals work with Pratt graduate students to develop their own dashboards for their organizations. When I took a look at their project proposal form, it emphasized that these projects are free. I’ve taken an excerpt from the case study below, so you can see the benefit to the organization.
Key Takeaways
Ingenium provides valuable offerings to its community both virtually and in person as a multi-site museum based in Ottawa Canada. Pratt’s graduate students provided recommendations to promote these offerings, improve their online presence, and create data analysis tools that the Ingenium team can use for a long time.
Next Steps
In a recent discussion when a colleague at Ingenium, we discussed the next steps with their digital strategy, linked to increasing revenue and attendance:
- Standardize measurements/metrics across all museums
- Begin posting to social media about virtual events until museums can reopen
- Investigate pages with high traffic and bounce/exit rates with event tracking, clicks on external links, and a short exit survey
With all of these reflections and interactions, as VS Associates, we are committed to continuing these discussions with others involved in digital strategy, strategic planning, dashboards and implementation strategies to help the GLAM (Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums) Recover, Rebuild and Grow.