Community – the culture of this gathering – is where the real diffusion and impact occur.  Although the speakers and panelists were great and a good trigger for conversation, the value really took hold in the hallways over coffee or in some of Portland’s great pubs over a beer.

In thinking about this next post on transparency, it struck me that the same is true about our own museums as well.  The culture of our institution – the hallway and cafe conversations that happen between colleagues – is where much of the success and innovation will come from.

At the MCN conference we heard some great conversations about strategy and innovation.  But I think all would realize, the harder part of strategy is finding a way for it to take hold and become REAL.

As a final salvo offering reasons why your museum should adopt open and transparent practices around institutional performance, let’s talk a bit more about the impact this choice can have on the culture of your museum.

If you’re just joining the conversation, here are links to parts 1 and 2 of this series. (Part 1 – Walking the Talk) (Part 2 – Reasons for Transparency)  Please join the conversation in the comments and tell us what you think! A little virtual water cooler would help us all.

Reasons For Transparency: Impact on Institutional Culture

“The organizations that will be truly successful in this environment are those that have integrated Transparency as part of their organizational culture and not just their communications strategy. To the extent that the two are inter-related, the communications strategist has a substantial role to play here.”

-Mark Hannah, “Transparency as a Principle not a Tactic”, PBS.org, January 7, 2009

The infusion of an attitude of Transparency and an institutional understanding of strategy will allow our museums to continue to mature steadily and continuously over time, but these goals require a cultural shift for our staff. One organization which understands the impact of Transparency and the role of company culture is the internet shoe company, Zappos (recently acquired by Amazon). As illustrated by Zappos’ CEO Tony Hsieh,

“It’s a very different world today. With the Internet connecting everyone together, companies are becoming more and more transparent whether they like it or not. An unhappy customer or a disgruntled employee can blog about a bad experience with a company, and the story can spread like wildfire by email or with tools like Twitter.

The good news is that the reverse is true as well. A great experience with a company can be read by millions of people almost instantaneously as well.

The fundamental problem is that you can’t possibly anticipate every possible touch-point that could influence the perception of your company’s brand.”

-Tony Hsieh, “Your Culture is Your Brand”, Zappos CEO Blog, January 3, 2009

Hsieh makes an important point that museums should observe as well. In order to remain culturally relevant, museums must address this inevitable and global cultural shift towards ubiquitous information and user experience or risk being sidelined both online as well as in our communities.

Putting Transparency into practice in an institution has a number of consequences which can offer significant benefits to museums. The act of publishing information for public scrutiny always elevates the attention that is given to that effort.  Whereas staff members may have been apt to forget about tracking performance in a key area, a commitment to publish that information pushes professional staff members to pay more attention regarding how that information will be perceived outside the walls of the museum.  Ideally these are features museums want and need to be tracking anyway, but the reality is that when no one is looking, it’s easy to pay less attention. Transparency then, is an effective mechanism for generating this external motivation which can result in measurable improvements for the museum.

When these key metrics are tracked, organizations will be able to easily identify and develop trends and forecasts for these mission critical pieces of information. Since institutions are committed to a timely publishing of this information they will also benefit from more timely and accurate disclosure of problem areas not only to the public but also to internal constituencies. Indicators of success and poor performance can help management teams identify areas which need more attention or resources without simply sweeping the problem under the carpet.  Measuring which areas are succeeding can help museums better optimize how much effort is required to continue performing well in that area.  Perhaps staff can spend half as much time or money and achieve the same results?  Mission-critical information such as this is a crucial underpinning that will allow management teams to execute good decision-making based on fact and not opinion.  These steps can facilitate not only cost savings, but time savings over the long term as well.

Next week, we’ll begin to look more practically at how the Indianapolis Museum of Art put some of these theories into practice and what kind of impact / experience we’ve seen since doing so.  Again, I’ve really enjoyed some of the comments offered to these posts… but understand that there are several shy ones among you!  Don’t Fear!  Pipe up with your thoughts… I’ve generally found our little blog community to be very open to opinions of all different stripes!  -Rob

I sat down with IMA Senior Graphic Designer Matthew Taylor last week in the Design Studio to take a hard look at our current IMA membership magazine (Previews) and talk content and design. A bit of history: The magazine has been around since 1988 with its current name.  (Before that, it was called the Quarterly Magazine. A bit of an improvement?) Matt was kind enough to hang out with me for a few minutes after our redesign brainstorming session to answer some questions:

Do you have a design philosophy?
I feel like George Bush in the movie “W.”. You know, when he was asked what he would consider to be his biggest mistake…I’m kidding.  As a designer, you can’t help but put something of yourself into every project. But I think the less of yourself you put into it the better. A piece can be clean and beautiful without shouting “Matt Taylor did that.” My philosophy is stay true to the project.

How does the design department at the IMA work?
The environment of the Design Studio is truly collaborative. We have exhibition designers, graphic designers, a lighting designer and a technical designer. It’s a multifaceted team. Everyone has a specialty, but we work together on projects that aren’t necessarily in our own area of expertise. We work with every department in the Museum to make well-designed, cohesive exhibitions.

What are the challenges of designing in a museum setting?
The biggest challenge we face is over-designing. You are working with a museum brand and an exhibition brand. Everything here is an art form and design itself is art. The challenge is to find a balance in your work. Part of my job is to get people to come see an exhibition, but at the same time know when to pull back and not overshadow the art with my design.

What upcoming design project are you most excited about?
Redesigning Previews magazine, of course. I’m excited about incorporating the new IMA brand that we are rolling out now into the magazine. The old magazine doesn’t live up to our new mission of art, nature and design. I would like the new design to be true to that mission and the new brand, as well as be more engaging and exciting than it is currently.

Can you describe the new IMA brand? (above)
The new IMA brand was designed by Indiana native Abbott Miller and his team at Pentagram in New York. We discussed our needs with them and why the old brand wasn’t working. They came up with something conversational, welcoming and inclusive. Using two new typefaces, Taz and Brioni, the brand has the flexibility to say the right thing at the right time. It’s got personality. We’re doing a soft roll-out of the logo to be green, economical and smart.

What’s your favorite magazine?
I.D. (The International Design Magazine)—The design is beautiful.  Great layout, typography etc. The magazine as a whole (from design to content) is always fantastic from cover to cover.

Design Inspiration

And so the conversation continues… With a content strategy that’s mission-consistent, flexible and collaborative and two full boards of design inspiration, we will bring you a new and improved quarterly IMA magazine this winter. Your thoughts and title suggestions will be considered—please add them below!