Museum Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship

A New Model for a Challenging Era

Haitham Eid

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• ISBN:
  9780429647185
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Art
• Subtopic: Museum Studies

Museum Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship makes a contribution towards building a museum perspective of innovation that takes into consideration the unique role of museums in society. Beginning and ending with the idea of museum innovation in a wider sense, the book takes digital innovation as a particular focus.

Drawing on innovation theories from business studies and case studies from national museums in the US and the UK, as well as numerous examples of innovative museum projects around the globe, the author unpacks, in practical terms, what it means for museums to be innovative and socially enterprising. As a result, Eid presents a research-based model of innovation in museums, which is flexible enough to be fully or partially adopted by any museum, regardless of size, location, mission or nature of the collections it houses. As such, this model makes innovation in museums scalable, replicable and feasible to start and operate.

Supplying the museum studies field with essential terminologies and conceptual frameworks related to innovation, Museum Innovation and Social Entrepreneurship helps to forge new ideas and create common ground with other disciplines. Therefore, the book should be essential reading for academics, researchers and graduate students working in the fields of museum and heritage studies, digital humanities and business studies. It should also be of great interest to practitioners working in museums around the globe.

1
Innovation in museums

Current practice and future aspiration

Introduction

Innovation is one of the concepts that can be described as attractive, prolific and magnifying. Nothing can match the prestige of describing an organization as innovative. It implies creativity, imagination, effectiveness, efficiency, leadership, productivity, success and impact. Looking specifically at the museum sector, this chapter intends to analyze the status of museum innovation and understand some of the relevant motivations, emerging trends, effective strategies and potential challenges. The chapter also presents to the sector a comprehensive discussion about the levels and types of innovation in museums, which leads us to construct an exhaustive definition of museum innovation, something substantially overlooked in the museum studies literature.

More precisely, the discussion in this chapter navigates two types of innovative projects in the museum sector. The first type draws a macroscopic overview of national initiatives, illustrating the extent to which innovation is preoccupying those who plan sector-wide policies and negotiate funding schemes. The second type takes us into a microscopic examination, looking more deeply into some specific examples of what many experts in the museum studies discipline consider museum innovations. Building on that discussion and realizing the different innovation types and levels, the chapter suggests that museum innovation is defined as the new or enhanced processes, products or business models by which museums can effectively achieve their social and cultural missions.

Finally, the chapter concludes by recognizing that innovation is increasingly becoming an important subject in the museum field. However, a close examination of the innovation projects in the museum field shows the growth of what seems to be two parallel innovations: digital innovation and social innovation. Additionally, although some recent research in the literature of museum studies has looked at museum innovation and tried to provide conceptual and practical frameworks, these studies are still very limited both in number and in scope, suggesting that more work is needed to cultivate a deeper understanding of innovation from a museum perspective.

Innovation, enterprise and the Great Recession

Innovation can provide museums with a platform to systematically reflect upon their practices and produce novel ways to achieve their missions. While innovation in the last few years has gained considerable grounds in the museum sector, it seems that innovation as a term and concept, was pushed into the sector by outside players. Motivated by reducing spending during the 2008 Great Recession, governments in Europe and the US have encouraged (and sometimes pressured) museums and cultural organizations to adopt innovation in their practices.

In the UK, for example, David Barrie, former director of The Art Fund, an independent art charity, was quoted in The Telegraph during the recession stating, “I don’t want to be a prophet of doom, but obviously there is going to be less and less money available to support the cultural sector and it is going to be grizzly” (Nikkhah, 2009). He also did not rule out that “some national galleries and museums might need to reintroduce admission fees,” which would have been a huge change in the UK’s museum sector.

On the other hand, Ed Vaizey, the former minister of state for culture and the digital economy in the UK, conveys an important message to the museum sector in his keynote speech at the 2010 Association of Museums Conference in Manchester. In his short message, Vaizey focused on two major concepts: innovation and enterprise in museums. Concerning innovation, Vaizey stated that Renaissance funding¹ “will only be applied to efficient, imaginative and innovative museums” (Vaizey, 2010).

According to Vaizey (2010), the funding scheme sought “to drive improvement and innovation” and “will continue to promote innovative ideas.” Innovation, as Vaizey envisioned, did not just relate to one specific funding scheme; rather, it was a quality that should be nurtured and embedded in the museum work. He was clear in his message: “I want to encourage bold and innovative thinking” and “we need to continue to grow innovative cultural leaders” (Vaizey, 2010). Vaizey’s focus on innovation in museums seemed to be consistent with a bigger political vision that saw innovation and enterprise as important components in improving the UK’s economy. In fact, besides his responsibility at the State Department for Culture, Vaizey was also responsible for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills. Combining both responsibilities shows the depth and level of commitment by the UK government at that time to integrate innovation and business skills in the cultural sector, including museums.

Within this context, Vaizey (2010) asked museums to reexamine their business model and “develop a stronger instinct for partnerships, mergers, commercial ventures and new approaches.” According to Camarero and Garrido (2012), “[l]inking innovation to financial and operational innovation is considered essential and reflects a more general conviction that a sustainable arts organization without a viable business model is impossible.” Additionally, Vaizey clearly warned the museum sector that “driving forward will take courage and ingenuity” and that “the state cannot afford to subsidise those who are unable to help themselves.” The strong language in Vaizey’s speech had probably shocked many museum practitioners and academics at that time. Nevertheless, it was a catalyst for the museum sector to begin to realize that museums were approaching a new era of transformation and challenges including the ways in which they were expected to operate, define themselves and create value in the community.

The connection between innovation and revenue generation, as seen in Vaizey’s comments is typical of the business world. Therefore, it is not surprising when business studies researchers like Carmen Camareroa, María José Garridoa and Eva Vicenteb from the University of Valladolid in Spain state that

[t]he current need for museums to augment their own revenue and improve their performance coupled with the transformation of cultural models towards more experiential services has led many to adopt a consumer orientation in an effort to make museums and their collections increasingly accessible to visitors.

(Camareroa, Garridoa, & Vicenteb, 2015)

The model Camareroa, Garridoa and Vicenteb describe in the previous statement is somewhat controversial, perhaps more so in some museums and countries than others, and seems to be at odds with the mainstream museum business models. This is probably because museums are not used to running their operation from a business perspective that includes “augmenting their own revenue” or developing new services with business in mind. One of the goals for this book is to unpack the two connected concepts – innovation and enterprise (as mentioned in the introduction) – and try to understand how they may relate to museums. Hence, this chapter intends to investigate innovation within the museum context, while Chapter 3. titled “The Museum as Social Enterprise: Do Good and Do Well,” tries to examine the concept of enterprise and how museums have attempted to deal with it.

The case in the US context is quite similar. As financial support from federal and state sources significantly decreased due to the economic recession, museums faced some tough times. The Las Vegas Art Museum, for example, had to cut 30% of its budget and closed for an entire month in 2009. During the same time, the Art Institute of Chicago’s endowment dropped 25% (Ilnytzky, 2009). This tremendous financial pressure pushed museums to adopt innovative approaches, including “entrepreneurial strategies,” according to Geller and Salamon (2010) to overcome the impact of the recession.

Mindful to this reality, the American Alliance of Museums’ Center for the Future of Museums (CFM) looked at ways to help museums experiment with innovation. The renowned center believes that “museums need to innovate in order to successfully navigate the rapidly changing landscape of the 21st Century” (AAM, n.d.). Through funding from MetLife Foundation, both CFM and EmcArts, a consulting firm based in New York City, launched in 2012, the Innovation Lab for Museums, “a major new initiative designed to enable selected museums to design, research and prototype innovations, testing novel approaches to field-wide challenges in a laboratory-like setting” (EmcArts, n.d.). The program consisted of four stages that ran for 18 to 24 months each and awarded each participating museum $40,000 to create prototype projects. This move by the American Alliance of Museums, the largest museum membership organization worldwide, signifies how serious the museum sector is about investigating possible ways to adopt innovation.

Along the same lines, the mission of the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS), which is the federal organization responsible for supporting museums and libraries in the US, is “to inspire libraries and museums to advance innovation, lifelong learning, and cultural and civic engagement” (IMLS, n.d.). IMLS offers several grant programs for museums, one of which is called The Sparks! Ignition. The program provides funds for museums to encourage them “to prototype and evaluate specific innovations in the ways they operate and the services they provide” (IMLS, n.d.). Funded projects are expected to “offer valuable information to the museum field and the potential for improvement in the ways museums serve their communities” (IMLS, n.d.). The funding scheme is designed to help museums develop “rapid prototyping and testing of new ways to engage learners,” “innovative new types of services or new service options” and explore “the potential of highly original, experimental collaborations,” among other things.

The language used in the IMLS funding schemes reveals the IMLS efforts to push the boundaries by encouraging museums to develop new or improve existing services, which is essentially what innovation is about. The Sparks! Ignition program also encourages the collaboration between museums and different institutions in the community to address “community challenges through new types of partnerships” (IMLS, n.d.). Creating purposeful partnerships and using both internal and external ideas to innovate is thoroughly investigated in the following chapter when open innovation is discussed.

Museums embracing innovation

The consequences of the 2008 great recession, as discussed earlier, mark a major paradigmatic shift in how museums conduct their work. This shift, represented in the growing interest in the concept of innovation, and its associated values are still in a nascent phase, but it certainly has the potential to fundamentally change how museums operate for many years to come.

Notably, innovation has rapidly become an important topic in many museum conferences, workshops, publications and social media discussions. Responding to the growing trend, in efforts to attract funding and improve internal operations, more museums have become interested in innovation and sought to model it in their practice. The next few pages try to introduce some of the efforts in the museum sector to understand, adopt and execute innovation. The projects were selected to represent a broad mix of innovation types, objectives and levels. For example, it is noted how some museums have chosen to carry out innovation with clear social objectives, like working with homeless populations or addressing issues related to the environment. Other museums or initiatives prefer to focus their innovation on developing digital technologies – in galleries or online.

Additionally, the following examples give us two layers of understanding the landscape of museum innovations. The first layer draws a macroscopic overview of national initiatives, illustrating the extent to which innovation is preoccupying those who plan sector-wide policies and negotiate funding schemes. The second layer takes us into a microscopic examination, looking more deeply into some specific examples of what many experts in the museum studies discipline consider museum innovations. These two layers can help us recognize how the museum sector is gradually developing its innovation path.

The Dallas Museum of Art (DMA), for example, announced in June 2012 a $300,000 project to establish a Laboratory for Museum Innovation. The initiative is supported by AT&T, Texas Instruments Foundation and Forrest and Cynthia Miller. According to the DMA (2012), “[t]he Laboratory will produce focused and highly innovative digital projects that will positively impact visitor experience at the DMA and offer a broad application to the global museum community.” When I spoke with Robert Stein, who was the deputy director of the Dallas Museum of Art at that time, to understand the motivation behind the initiative, he stated,

You can either be a rock in the stream or you can be a leaf. The world is the stream and it is changing. It is flowing by us. You can either be anchored and left behind, or we could change with the world.

(Stein, 2014)

Stein’s poetic metaphor leads us to understand that innovation is ubiquitous. It is impacting the daily lives of ordinary people in fundamental ways. From the way consumers book flights and check-in at the airport to the way a taxi is called, or holiday shopping is done, innovation is taking place faster than it can be imagined. Given this environment, museums are compelled to innovate. This type of mind-set thinks of innovation as a neces...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• Foreword
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• 1 Innovation in museums: current practice and future aspiration
• 2 The eradication of boundaries and the emergence of the open innovation model
• 3 The museum as social enterprise: do good and do well
• 4 Social innovation and rethinking objectives and priorities in museums
• 5 The Museum Innovation Model: theoretical framework and practical applications
• Closing note
• Index