cyber academy. continent of culture
EN
Cyber Academy | Continent of Culture © Biuro Festiwalowe IMPART 2016 Editors: Krzysztof Bielaszka, Kuba Żary Proofreading: Magdalena Klich Translation: Marta Dziedziniewicz Graphic design, typesetting: Magdalena Przewłocka Photo credits: Andrzej Skowron, Jerzy Wypych, Joanna Ziajka Cyber Academy Team: Krzysztof Bielaszka (coordination) Kuba Żary (communication) Barbara Wińska (administration) Publisher of the publication: Biuro Festiwalowe IMPART 2016 ul. Komuny Paryskiej 39-41, 50-451 Wrocław www.wroclaw2016.pl | www.facebook.com/wroclaw2016
Thanks: The organizers would like to thank to all of the professionals and institutions engaged in the implementation of this project. In particular: IMPART 2016 Festival Centre office team supervised by the General Director Krzysztof Maj and Financial Director Olga Nowakowska and Oskar Adamus, Anna Bieliz, Magdalena Chmiel, Anna Derwich, Marek Gluziński, Dominika Kawalerowicz, Gabriela Kociszewska, Ewa Korzeniowska, Joanna Męczyńska, Berenika Nikodemska, ONIMO Makiety Architektoniczne, Magdalena Przewłocka, Aleksandra Solińska, Alicja Wacowska and all of the panelists, experts, workshop and meeting leaders active in Cyber Academy project.
Cyber Academy project was funded by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland.
table of content introduction krzysztof bielaszka and kuba żary allowed from the age of [choose]. communication across generations anna kalinowska internet in search of means of expression dominik cymer on the online communication strategies for culture dominik pokornowski foresight in cultural activities łukasz mirocha a well designed communication. design thinking method in the communication of culture michał kocikowski and michał kwasiebiorski crowdsourcing in culture hanna kostrzewska budget: 0 pln, outreach: whole poland – about effective low budget campaigns maciej marcisz new visual identity system of the national museum in wroclaw. instruction manual for the designer kalina zatorska global promotion of polish art – where to start? „contemporary lynx”. case study dobromiła błaszczyk
introduction This has already been the third edition of the Cyber Academy international project. This year's educational program was focusing on the concept of “The Continent of Culture�, as a reference to the current European social situation. Rapid changes that affect us all are not only due to the migrant crisis or the crisis of the European values - they are also caused by a huge technological progress and a significant increase in the availability of digital tools, also in the cultural sector.
The network has become a real place, that is a universal and limitless platform for data exchange. This new, digital continent is a source of unlimited contacts, polemic and discussion, knowledge and education. On the other hand, though, it distances us from each other, thrusting ready solutions at us, which do not require human interaction. As a digital platform, it becomes a place of dialogue and mediation between cultures, languages and traditions, and, at the same time, a space for publishing academic and artistic manifestos, with reference to the dynamically changing geopolitical and economic situation, and its impact on the availability of art and culture. This year's program of the Cyber Academy consisted of, among others, workshops, meetings and open debates, expert and trendwatch presentations, and study visits. However, the added value of this long-term activity is the network of professionals from many European cities, that was founded three years ago and is still growing. Thanks to it we can exchange experiences, learn from each other, share our knowledge, but above all, we can build an informal platform for cooperation at the international level. In 2016, we were able to initiate open sessions of the Cyber Academy, during which all interested parties could work together with the practitioners of communication and PR, representatives of the media sector and the creative industries to analyze the best, as well as those a bit worse, examples of promoting culture.
The project participants familiarised themselves with innovative ways of thinking about culture-communication processes. They got to know better the habits of a typical "user" whose attention they must earn. Finally, they tried to answer the question how to encourage new customers to invest their time in an active participation in culture, that they create. Thanks to workshops with experts in the fields of communication, marketing, user experience, building audiences, design thinking and new media, we looked at communication culture at the European level and pointed out the most interesting practices and case studies, which actually resulted in an expert publication. The authors of the texts gathered in this publication present different ways of working and focus on different aspects of building a permanent and effective relationship with the recipients of our activities. We hope that the examples offered by them will be an inspiration in your everyday work.
Krzysztof Bielaszka and Kuba Ĺťary team of Cyber Academy
allowed from the age of [choose]. communication across generations anna kalinowska
allowed from the age of [choose]. communication across generations
Along with the information revolution and an increasing presence of new technologies in our everyday life, an automatic exclusion of those who did not keep up or had to learn from scratch how to function in the new era of communication became quickly apparent. In a matter of fact, we are talking about all the the post-education age groups, as digital communication skills are largely intuitive and are acquired through the practice of digital communication tools from an early age.
These are the main reasons why this text will not be about applications and use of digital communication tools, understood as interfaces, programs or social media. You will not learn how to effectively use Facebook and Snapchat. Why? Because in order to understand the processes, in which both those "pre-technology and pre-Internet" and the "post-revolutionary" people are operating, you might want to look at changes in the ways of transmitting culture in general. The story of modern communications, most commonly executed with the use of new technologies, is a story of social bonds and the way they developed over time. What you may consider to be a boring lecture on the history of intergenerational relations, will soon be the key to understand our position in relation to younger siblings or our own children. Without a clear determination of the hierarchy of values, around which we want to develop digital communication skills, we will never develop them consistently and effectively. The fact that the reality interferes increasingly with the online reality surely does not help. A step forward to understanding the transformation of communication is a reference to the cultural change, which has its roots in the theory of sociology and is a transmission of social heritage to future generations. In this spirit, the theory of evolution of cultures, from the postfigurative to prefigurative (Mead, 1964), was created. The postfigurative cultures are those whose values and paradigms were passed from the older
to the younger generation, thanks to what the tradition could be created and preserved. An indirect version of this model are the figurative cultures, where peers or related social groups are recognised as authority and the source of the transmission of values. Prefigurative cultures, though, manifest in learning standards and skills from the younger generations. Observations of such interdependence can be confirmed by the Polish educational sciences’ definition of intergenerational communication model: (...) a transfer that is made between the older and the younger generation, mainly between parents and children, within the field of psychophysical features, with participation of the biological and social environment (Ogrodzka-Mazur 2003: 64).
It is important to note, however, that the society nowadays is functioning within each of the described types of cultural transmission, whose borders are sometimes liquid, according to the rules of the postmodern reality. Postfigurative approach will therefore be applied to the subject of history and information derived from ancestors, the reception of which may lead to modification of attitudes and behaviour. Networked everyday life, where the exchange of data occurs mainly in specific thematic groups, interest groups, and dependence groups, is nothing but transferring the figurative cultural models.
allowed from the age of [choose]. communication across generations
On the other hand, the dynamics of the technology development, to which a younger generation adapts the quickliest, due to their perceptual skills, requires the use of prefigurative methods, where the young generation becomes a mentor for seniors. Mediation of values by the media is simply a result of cooperation between humans and technology. In the discourse about this result, the strategy of shaping identity through various technologies, analog or digital, is increasingly present. Anyone choosing to build their identity online (in other words: their profile in social media), needs transmission - its raison d'être is to be received by others. Therefore, it is the technology that has become the main tool for everyday use for the holder of a virtual identity, as: (...) in general, it [identity] can be expressed in the form of a following sentence: I exist, if others know about me, (I exist, if I conform to my media identity) (Fatyga 2001: 105).
Having adopted such a strategy, the values we follow are no longer part of the moral ethos - are not lived or acted by, but begin to function as determinants of transmission, that construct our communication. In this way, they become public and their status is a constant show-on. Why do we agree to having all our beliefs and thoughts made public? Everything indicates that it is the model of social functioning that has changed: vertical structure of communication control has been replaced by a horizontal network system. We have come a way from the industrial age to the information age, and a new dimension of information technology constitutes the
historical change, where it is the information, understood as a specific data resource, that has become the most important value, disrupting existing standards in hierarchy of values in human relationships. The industrial society has evolved to the network society (or the information society, defined precisely by the most important value), and along with it, the way of understanding the values has transformed. Manuel Castells, outlining the currently leading characteristic of the network society, indicates that the network is not a new social system, but "the key to social morphology" (Castells 2007). That social morphology can be read as a circuit determining the society’s functioning, which justifies the centralised setting of the data categories. Such an arrangement is not, however, a novelty in the second decade of the twenty-first century. General accessibility of information online has become common in our everyday life. What interests the network civilisation the most, is how to make the filtering tools more accurate and how to reach one particular information in the shortest time possible. The automatization of the process of filtering and selection of information, theoretically postulated earlier(Manovich 2006), became the overriding goal of the technology in recent years (in the context of priority of information as influencing factor for the course of social relations). From the point of view of the amount of data contained in a transmission, the unit does not constitute a semi-complex being, because “human software” - that is DNA - can be stored on a carrier having approximately 600 MB capacity (Page, Brin 2013). Literally, it is not a wealth of data - it is a volume of one CD-R - a technology that is also becoming a thing of the past. Yet still, humans maintain the status of the most
allowed from the age of [choose]. communication across generations
perfect beings, as they hold a secret of operational processes and creative capabilities taking place between the data on the biological, behavioral, and psychological level - as constructing identities, which can be classified in terms of the operating process. This way of reasoning , where the software becomes a metaphor for identity, is confirm by the words of M. Castells: Identities (...) are sources of meaning themselves; they are constructed through a process of individualization (Castells, 2008: 22).
Another important issue conditioning the modern communication, is the ubiquity of mobile devices. This trend is correlated with the way of reality perception, which is the largest gap in the intergenerational competence. Older generations, despite even a great willingness, need to invest the time in order to understand the way of receiving content (eg. a video viewed on a mobile device, rather than statically in front of the TV). On the 7th of April 2016 (that is a day before the beginning of the Cyber Academy’s spring session) the era of Facebook Live started. It is based on the real-time video communications, and, while launching this technology, Mark Zuckerberg focused mainly on the aspect of real-time transmission being personalised, and, thanks to it, the new opportunities for building relationships between people. Probably, in the long term, it will mean another perceptual leap in terms of the indirect communication, to which the older generation will take more time to adapt to and to understand upcoming communication phenomena. At this point, it is worth to go 10 years back, which, in the digital era, is a big intergenerational step. In 2006, YouTube was less than a year old medium of a new category, through which people shared their
funny, private videos. Back then, this way of visual communication and a kind of "policy" of exchanging content through the "tube" were so convincing that Google made sure to buy YouTube. This is not surprising, since Google already dominated the market and was able to accurately predict and shape the user behavior. What adds spice to this is the fact that the title of the TIME’s Person of the Year for 2006 went to ... the term "YOU". Not to a specific person, but to an abstract construct, which any of us can be. It was then that to "broadcast yourself" (YouTube’s slogan) has become the goal of modern communication. And it continues to be, constantly searching for new channels of expression.
Anna Kalinowska SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities From A to the end of the Internet
Identity understood as software is an analogy of the identity of the project according to the typology of M. Castells in the quoted title. Castells, M. (2007). Społeczeństwo sieci, trans. M. Marody et al., Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN. Castells, M. (2008). Siła tożsamości, trans. S. Szymański, Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Naukowe PWN. Mead, M. (1964). Continuities in Cultural Evolution. USA: Transaction Publishers Ogrodzka-Mazur, E. (2003). Rodzina i dziecko, ciągłość i zmiana transmisji dziedzictwa kulturowego w przestrzeni pogranicza. Nikitorowicz, J. (eds.). Międzygeneracyjna transmisja dziedzictwa kulturowego. Społeczno-kulturowe wymiary przekazu. Białystok: Trans Humana.
internet in search of means of expression dominik cymer
internet in search of means of expression
You do not need to explain it to anyone that the digital world is changing very rapidly and continuously. Old solutions fall into oblivion, taking along with them the pieces written for anachronistic technologies. We do not play games on the old computers anymore, because today it is impossible to use the operating systems of the past. Providing new media capabilities, new solutions downgrade the outdated technologies. Because of the dynamic changes, computer work is largely ephemeral, unresistant to the passage of time. It lives in the memories and stories. Of course, there are people who do not give up and reactivate the computer legends: we are talking emulators, applications and pages, where you can play the cult games, known from the first Atari or Commodore computers. However, these actions are a niche situated far away from the mechanisms of the mainstream trends. Among some of the creators and consumers of the world of the new media, there exists a belief that the only way for operation and development is to "catch" every emerging innovation. Sometimes, the creativity is identified precisely with the search for new solutions. One can easily identify several examples of an excessive admiration for trends - do you remember what hopes we all had for the augmented reality? Or when the internet was all about the user generated content? A craze about the responsive web design? Now, in turn, there is a buzz about the virtual reality. Analyzing the everyday stronger innovative solutions, it is easy to notice technological trends, that are currently shaping the internet and imposing standards. A good example of this are the social media and the graphic creations made in them (or for their needs).
The way users browse through the contents of social media and the increasing importance of mobile media consumption have contributed to the construction of communication based on the rapid reception of the message. Chasing trends, industry innovations and unconventional solutions, one can find some timeless pearls. Their strength lies not in the selection of the medium, but in the idea: the way they have been conceived, designed, and how they take up the subject. I will never forget, for example, a page promoting the film "Donnie Darko," created in Flash technology. An innovative combination of different media (animations, videos) and a captivating story contributed to make a cult digital experience accompanying the film. The internet is constantly looking for new opportunities. What I find interesting, is to look at the means of expression that we use online. The ways to build communication prove that we go back to the old, good solutions, “overshadowed� by the technology, more often than you would expect. We go back because they are so strong that, once again, they attract our attention and give developers the opportunity to express themselves by using them. Examples are numerous: GIFs, short films or memes have taken over the internet.
internet in search of means of expression
In my daily work, I try to look for new forms of expression and to implement them in my activities, to experiment. It is important for us - me and my team - not only to focus on technological trends, as we assume that technology should serve the idea. Our newest experiment is www.vidok.co: a format reminiscent of GIFs and short films, that we enrich with the possibility of interaction. One member of the audience at our presentation at the Cyber Academy, said: "you make interactive GIFs!". And it is quite right. Format "VIDOK" expands the traditional linear forms with a possibility of a decision and following the narration after the decision of the recipient. Interactivity in film is usually associated and implemented with advanced constructions such as webdoki. We would like to introduce it to the world of social media as simple and fun. We want our format to be accessible to the average internet and mobile phone user: we are lowering the technological entry threshold. Mechanisms and content go hand in hand. You need to find a balance between them and sensitively operate both. Let some trends die and let’s keep looking for the best ways of narration. And above all, always make sure that we have something to say - it is the good content that guarantees mechanisms to become timeless.
Dominik Cymer Creative Director at Cyber Kids on Real
on the online communication strategies for culture dominik pokornowski
on the online communication strategies for culture
Recent years have changed the way we communicate in the network, which accommodates more than 3 billion people, of which 2 billion use various types of social media. Thanks to the network, people gain access to the ocean of information, entertainment, knowledge, education and to immense cultural resources. On the one hand, we are all consumers of information (mainly in the field of social networking), on the other we actively generate content. Each one of us can have a clear, media voice in the network and become the creator, recipient and medium for the information at the same time. The phenomenon of content aggregation is changing the way people participate in culture.
Of course, the cultural information is circulating on the network in parallel with other data, and this, precisely, is the greatest challenge. Is it possible today to plan events or cultural projects without communicating them in social media? Individual channels gather various audience groups, but the goal is still the same: to promote cultural events, to reinforce the organisation’s image and to moderate an open communication for those interested in culture.
The key trends Currently, the Internet is dominated by graphic communication and video. The network of our time is a personalized and uninterrupted visual communication. Researchers of digital culture, for example Mirosław Filiciak, emphasize the important role of new phenomena such as digital storytelling or data journalism, which is based on obtaining information through the analysis of available data. Thanks to it, the network extends the public space, where content related to culture plays a significant part. Movies and live broadcasts start to dominate in the Internet. We talk through video calls, watch footage of all possible life events (increasingly in ‘live’ option), the cyclical programs produced on YouTube replace television. The culture is also present in this trend. Almost all major events are communicated through video, and the network is full of video and photo-accounts. Analysis and use of these materials often makes for an important element of animation and promotion of culture. And what does the Mobile Internet mean for the culture? Currently, a personal digital life hub is a smartphone with an access to the network. It is the phone that has become the device that should be classified as a PC - personal computer. Voice calls or text messages are currently being rather marginal functions of the device - we mainly use camera and video camera (also streaming live). The collected images are then transferred to the ecosystem of applications - social network services, whose bases operate in cloud computing. A recipient, who is permanently plugged in the parallel reality of the Internet, is experiencing the culture differently. For him or her, a museum is a space of mobile photography, and a concert is a unique source of videos (for a group of friends).
on the online communication strategies for culture
The need of strategy How to manage online communication for events, projects or cultural organisations? It is worth keeping in mind that the starting point must be the mission of the institution and a meaningful message, that will serve both as the basis and the goal. Clearly, online activities must be harmoniously combined with activities offline (ie. outdoor marketing). A consistent visual identity is the link that should accommodate the specificities of the different channels and online media.
7 elements of strategic (and calm) online communication management Analysis of the initial situation Examine the popularity of the organisation and the entire field of culture, explore the specifics of the city and region. Natural material for such an analysis are the current and previous activities of the institution. It is necessary to gather information about what is happening in the industry. Knowledge of up-to-date trends of the Internet is also very helpful.
Audience - the people for whom you do it Think about your audience through the prism of personas. It is not enough to draw the obvious audience groups. They are anonymous and certainly too vague. By creating a persona (a fictional character, a typical representative of the analyzed group), you will start editing content that is more efficient and authentic to use in the appropriate channels online.
Ideas and topics The strategy requires that you operationally translate the mission of the institution and build a list of current topics. They will define your daily content in social media.
The campaign’s structure and its goals Forming a good action plan requires defining a list of goals. Be sure to make it precisely. Use a proven SMART method. Thanks to it, the goal will be simple and clear for the organisation (Simple) and measurable - by establishing accessible and precise measurement scale (Measure). The goal must be achievable (Achievable), significant and relevant to the project (Relevant). Finally, it should have its time frame. The strategy itself is a set of actions to be performed in time (Timely defined).
on the online communication strategies for culture
Online communication ecosystem and content format When you know what and to whom you want to communicate, you can begin to create an ecosystem of online communication. It is obvious that the information center of your organisation is the website, so think about the role of, for example, the newsletter. Perhaps a blog would be an appropriate solution to publish content marketing (that is to deliver attractive and useful materials, articles, etc.)? A blog is also very useful for image creating, through a coherent narrative about the organisation and artists. The current popularity of social media means that you have to manage the official Facebook page and YouTube channel. Not to mention the fashionable Instagram and uniquely specific Twitter. And maybe your organisation’s activities will be reflected best on the Pinterest or Tumblr platforms?
Implementation schedule An action plan for social media should be based on the calendar. Make sure to manage the content, that has been created in advance. Such a plan should also include the budget and its availability in time. Managing campaigns in the network means constant monitoring, but also constant modification of the generated content. It is worth remembering that the network communication for a culture organisation is, very often, providing information and customer service. Managing online communication requires systematicness, therefore, prepare a plan of the content distribution to know when and what is supposed to be published online.
Analysis and evaluation A good strategy has a beginning and an end. Culture is often stretched throughout the life cycles of projects and artistic seasons’ calendars. It is a good and natural framework for the strategy. The end is a good time for data analysis and achievements’ assessment.
Dominik Pokornowski
foresight in cultural activities Ĺ‚ukasz mirocha
foresight in cultural activities
The condition for the successful functioning of any cultural institution or a formal or informal working group interested in cultural activities, is the best possible understanding of the present and the future social environment. In particular, we are talking about factors such as technological changes, economic trends and the emergence of new social groups, which - although not directly related to culture - can dramatically affect its development. A critical attitude and future orientation, vital for foresight, prove to be helpful while working in culture. These characteristics of social innovators make it possible to implement new models of cultural activities: efficient, open, inclusive.
Foresight thinking, stemming from the future studies, plays an important role in the construction of activities based on the values indicated above. Foresight has its origins in the American military planning methods, and it is used to strengthen the capacity of identifying early signals of changes and determining the direction of development. Forecasting the future, even based on the widest range of qualitative and quantitative methodologies, will not provide a clear answer as to how a particular field, phenomenon or trend of our interest will develop in the coming years. Foresight is not a crystal ball, but it gives us an outline of possible scenarios of development, allows to give loose assumptions the form of predictions, timetabled in a specified time horizon, and to develop a list of events, so called wild cards, that can change the direction of a trend’s development in a saccadic way. These events, though subjectively unlikely, may have striking consequences for the environment. In retrospective, they seem easy to predict (this is known as black swans). We are talking about, for example, the global financial crisis of 2008, the rapid dissemination of digital
photography, which radically changed the distribution of culture, or about the creation of the Internet. Well structured thinking about the future allows to be better prepared for what the future may hold, to avoid surprise, to maintain advantage. The future cannot be predicted, but it is worth trying to map its possible variants, to determine the probability of their occurrence and to influence it in order to increase the chances to realise the desired scenarios. One of the most intuitive methods for introduction to the predicative perspective is foresight workshop. During several hours, having some assumptions as a base (eg. the assessment of the time horizon for the arrival of the phenomenon, the weight of its impact on the environment and the probability of occurrence), it is possible to develop a grid of interesting questions and paths of development. Putting a series of questions and then attempting to find answers, makes the workshop participants take a proactive attitude - instead of waiting for the arrival of the changes, they try to anticipate it and to prepare both themselves and their organisations, or even to become the vanguard of the trend, to co-create it.
foresight in cultural activities
Sample questions, providing for a wider social, technological and economic context, which always affect the way the cultural organisations work, read as follows:
How will the development of virtual reality technology affect expectations of those benefiting from the activities of the institutions of culture? If and how quickly will the virtual participation in a concert or an opening become popular enough to force a change in the activities of animators and creators of culture? In what ways will evolve cultural needs, in the face of a forecasted automation of work, and therefore, the change of everyday lifestyle of numerous social groups? How to use the potential of Artificial Intelligence in cultural activities in 5-10 years? If and when will the new trends in the economy (social financing, sharing economy) become the alternative to public grants and traditional methods of obtaining capital? Similar questions are the starting point for foresight analysis, that are made using specific methodologies, preferably complemented by consultations with experts. It should be noted, however, that even a few hours of workshop, using the card game as support and stimulation (such as an adaptation of the game "Something of the Future" developed by 4CF), allow participants to enter the perspective of foresight thinking, giving their considerations a structured form. Future-oriented cultural creators and managers should base their strategy on the triad of attitudes - exploration of possible scenarios, anticipation and monitoring of the signals of changes, and active influence on the trend’s direction of the development through the implementation of innovations. This will allow them, but also their institutions, to be more aware of the resources’ disposal and to responsibly project the directions of development.
Łukasz Mirocha
a well designed communication. design thinking method in the communication of culture michał kocikowski & michał kwasiebiorski
a well designed communication. design thinking method in the communication of culture
Once it was believed that an effective communication was taking place when the content reached the recipient. To do so, first of all, the message had to be noticed, which means that it should stand out and catch the attention of the recipient. Secondly, it had to be understood, it was important that the sender used the appropriate language. Thirdly, the content or the form of the communication had to evoke emotions in the recipient. These conditions made it possible for the communication not only to catch our attention, but also to be remembered. It was in this way, that we thought of successful communication and advertising strategies over the years.
This approach, however, has proved to be insufficient. To understand why, we must ask ourselves, what really is the effectiveness of the communication. Our key objective, as its creators, is to change the behavior of the recipient. Therefore, to the fact that our message "interests," "will be understood" and "will evoke emotions," we should add a fourth, key component of an effective communication: influencing the recipient. You can do it by putting them in an unusual situation. A direct experience is a much stronger incentive than just a story about the experience.
If in the design of the communication we are already at the stage of creating this experience, the traditional ways to create advertising messages will very quickly prove to be ineffective, because our aim is not to create an emotional image or film, but a personally lived situation. To find a suitable method for this, we can ask the experience and service designers, and one of the most effective tools in this case seems to be the approach of the design thinking.
The process of the design thinking consists of two main phases: the first is to gather information and to define the problem, the other is to create and verify the design solutions. The next step is to test the concept, in order to get to the point where we can prepare it for implementation, all that while considering the behavior of our customers and the social and cultural context. That is why design thinking processes should be carried out in project teams, where a quick confrontation of different points of view is possible. It greatly increases the efficiency of this method. According to another popular rule - doing, not talking - the optimal form of work are workshops, involving all team players equally.
a well designed communication. design thinking method in the communication of culture
In design thinking, the starting point should always be knowing the customers well, in this case the recipients we want to be reached by our message. Please note that our message has an impact on both the customers and the broadcasters and other people, who will have anything to do with it. That is why, it is good to find out who can get the message and what consequences may result from it. To achieve it, it is great to use stakeholder mapping. The form and content of the communication should always be adjusted to the audience, so you should get to know them better. Research will give you insight in not only the language they use, but also in their lifestyle - how they work, live, communicate or how and with whom they spend their free time. In the process of the communication design in the field of cultural activities, it is also necessary to recognize how they perceive and understand the culture, what do they associate with culture in general and with its individual areas. Also getting to know what are their experiences, needs and aspirations in this sphere of life, will prove inspiring. How to find it all out?
Classic qualitative research methods may prove helpful: individual and focus interviews, observation, analysis of existing data (for example blogs, posts on forums and social networks, or reviews written by non-professionals). Two factors are important in the process of acquiring valuable data. First, you must choose the respondents wisely, so that they were, in fact, representatives of the groups of interest. Secondly, it is better to do our research with a larger team. In case of qualitative research, it is difficult to talk about objectivity, as every researcher impacts the situation by the mere fact that they start interacting with the subjects. In addition, the researchers filter all answers by their own experiences and their perception of the world. Composing a diverse team will help to introduce different perspectives of researchers, and therefore the interpretations of data will not be one-sided.
a well designed communication. design thinking method in the communication of culture
We are left with the question of the research scale. When we conduct qualitative research, it is difficult to determine the exact number of interviews - it depends on the degree of detail of our questions and the characteristics of the selected target group. It is important, however, to achieve the effect of saturation - the stage where we can see that another round of talks is failing to bring any new knowledge, it only confirms our previous observations. Most often, it is optimal to conduct several interviews. However, if you do not have such possibility, even a few conversations is enough, as it allows to confront our point of view with the perspective of customers.
A very interesting and useful element of the design thinking approach is prototyping, namely the creation of simplified models of our solution. It can be a small scale cardboard mock-up, or life-size model, scenes played with users or within the project team... Anything that will allow us to quickly present the concept of our solution to potential customers. The advantage of prototyping is a cheap and a very quick review of the concept, so you do not invest the financial resources or time in the ideas that have no chance to effectively influence the recipient. At the stage of testing, it is good to ask for help from someone who is not the creator of the concept. Such a person will find it easier to comment critically and detect weak points of the concept.
To create communication, we should always think about what result we want to obtain, which is synonymous with determining how we want to influence the behavior of the recipient. The method of design thinking gives us powerful tools to build experience adequate to the needs and expectations of particular people.
Michał Kocikowski and Michał Kwasiborski Kolektyw Badawczy
crowdsourcing in culture hanna kostrzewska
crowdsourcing in culture
What? Crowdsourcing is a process, where an organisation is handing off a task or a problem to an anonymous - usually large - community. In this way, the knowledge and the skills of the crowd are used in search for effective solutions, ideas (sourcing) or in carrying out activities directed towards a particular goal. A distinctly common environment for crowdsourcing activities is the Internet, as it is enabling participation of an unlimited range of users. In most cases, the engaged members of the community do not receive remuneration, as solving the problem, overseeing the work of others, or developing joint concepts is in itself a reward. Popular examples of operations based on crowdsourcing are Wikipedia or Oxford English Dictionary, but the work of anonymous users is ordered in various fields - from engineering, through astronomy, to journalism.
Community involvement can take many forms: the crowd can serve a company, a public institution or a non-profit organisation by deciding through a vote, on a particular subject (crowd voting), by solving the problem (crowd solving), by developing creative / artistic projects (creative crowdsourcing, ARTsourcing), or through financial support for specific initiatives (crowdfunding). In contrast to the total number of projects based on user-generated content, crowdsourcing is a method that is purposely applied to achieve the goal together. The potential of crowdsourcing was spotted by cultural institutions, who later began to engage an online community for the tasks related to culture, in particular cultural heritage.
crowdsourcing in culture
Why? What makes crowdsourcing attractive to the cultural sector, and in particular to the GLAM 1 institutions? What guides institutions and individuals who engage? Cultural entities usually face similar problems - limited budgets and limited human resources do not allow for the implementation of intended projects or significantly reduce their scale and reach. Many GLAM institutions start impressive digitization and has extensive digital resources, however, they are often improperly (or selectively) categorized or lack descriptive metadata. This makes it difficult to access and use even the most interesting digital resources. The involvement of communities in interaction with collections and their growth can lead to improve their availability, and consequently, to increase their attractiveness to a wider audience. Thus, based on the economics of commitment, mechanisms of participation, and bottom-up engagement, the process of digitization of culture can be effectively amplified by crowdsourcing activities.
Jak? In culture, crowdsourcing can take many forms. Network users are usually involved in rewriting the digitized content (or correction of the OCR 2 actions), providing resources with context (through tagging, interpretation, classification), complementing resources (with own resources, knowledge or research results), management (by moderating the forum, disposing administration tasks, and reviewing the work of others), but also by providing financial support for projects. Examples of crowdsourcing uses by cultural entities are the best to illustrate the possibilities (and limitations) of this type of activities. The selection presented below allows to recognise the range of outcomes that can be achieved through crowdsourcing.
1 GLAM – abbreviation for Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums. 2 OCR – Optical Character Recognition – a set of techniques or software for character and full-text recognition in the raster image. The task of the OCR is usually to recognize text in a scanned document (eg. a paper form or a book page).
crowdsourcing in culture
Trove www.trove.nla.gov.au The project of the National Library of Australia, where users correct the results of OCR actions. The scale and level of community’s involvement is impressive. Family search www.familysearch.org For this project, the community reads and rewrites data from the archives, including acts of births and deaths. At the same time, it provides a database to search for their ancestors and family. The Letters of 1916 project www.letters1916.maynoothuniversity.ie Community activities are based on the transcription of a specific type of material letters from the time of the Irish Easter Rising. Metadata games www.metadatagames.org Free and open source platform with games that allow, among others, to tag and categorize museums’ collections, archives and libraries. Micropasts www.crowdsourced.micropasts.org Applications and projects of the British Museum. These include the task of designating the edge of museum objects in order to support the construction of 3D models. Georeferencer www.bl.uk/maps This tool allows you to compare historical and contemporary maps, thus allowing a comparison of the past with the present.
Building inspector www.buildinginspector.nypl.org Project of the New York Public Library. Users are designed to support the work of computers to identify the buildings and the information on archival maps. 1001 stories of Denmark
www.kulturarv.dk/1001fortaellinger
Website about the cultural heritage of Denmark that allows you to add your own stories and memories of the selected sites. Moments in Time 1989/1990 www.wir-waren-so-frei.de Website gathering photos from private collections, that illustrate the atmosphere of the events at the turn of 1989/90 in Germany. Year of the Bay project
www.historypin.org/project/22-yearofthebay
The project for recreating (by adding pictures and descriptions) the history of the Bay Area in San Francisco. Zooniverse www.zooniverse.org A powerful and popular platform for research, based on crowdsourcing. It collects a number of projects that allow users to recognise galaxies, tracking climate change on the basis of the old log books, and learning about the history of immigrants in New York on the basis of real estate registries.
crowdsourcing in culture
And what about it? Digitization activities are carried out by institutions and cultural organisations on a continuous basis. The desire to protect the resources of the institution from destruction and preserve them in a digital version is understandable. Sometimes, however, digitization operations consist of only the technical processing and securing digital collections. I co z teg Only archiving and resource protection is not enough for digitization to be complete. A key aspect of digitization activities is sharing, dissemination and encouraging recipients to interact with the collections. Crowdsourcing is a form of community involvement, which is not limited to just viewing the resources, but to work with, to analyse and to use them. Sharing collections by institutions encourages customers to share their own knowledge, skills, time and labor. Openness results in measurable benefits, and above all stimulates interest in the resources. Crowdsourcing allows diffusion through (co-) operation, and it is a solution that particularly realises the idea of digitization.
Hanna Kostrzewska
budget: 0 pln, outreach: whole poland – about effective low budget campaigns maciej marcisz
budget: 0 pln, outreach: whole poland – about effective low budget campaigns
It is clear: culture is an area where usually there is not enough money for communication, and even if that is not the case, we could always use some more. Although institutions and companies engaged in the production of culture are increasingly aware of the significance of promotional activities, the budgets for this area are often "eaten up" by the very production of these events. How to design effective communication activities in such situation? In this text, I am sharing several possible types of zero or low-budget solutions, that can, hopefully, inspire or implant a new way of thinking in your own actions.
Try to create a media fact, which you can use to gain media attention. Sometimes the cultural product alone an exhibition, an event, a festival, a book - is not enough. Cultural columns in press shrink or disappear, culture does not attract enough clicks in the Internet, breakfast television viewership drops every time someone mentions theater or literature. Journalists do not avoid cultural events because they are ignorant or you do not have a deal with them very often they are simply implementing the social demand for specific topics. And culture, unfortunately, is rarely one of them. One way of dealing with this situation is to try to generate news, which will be attractive to the media. Examples? Let's look at the challenge faced by my team while working on the Mozart Festival.
One of the difficulties associated with the communication of the festival (promoted by the company where I work, in 2015 and 2016) is that it takes a very long time. While the organiser - the Warsaw Chamber Opera - never complained about the amount of media coverage of the festival’s opening, it is difficult in the third or fourth week of its duration to encourage the media to inform about something they have already wrote about earlier. This is how the idea for the "Mozart everywhere" campaign came forth. It consisted of more than 50 cafes, restaurants and clubs playing Mozart instead of music they usually present in the background, for one day. This action was enough to attract news programs (such as Teleexpress) and local media in Warsaw. The action reached more than 10,000 people directly, and several million via media. It would not be possible without creating an additional event, designed to popularise classical music, yet it was done mainly to be able to tell the media about it. Our budget for this action did not exceed one thousand Polish złoty.
budget: 0 pln, outreach: whole poland – about effective low budget campaigns
Intrigue, create a story. Sometimes simple measures are enough. Among the flood of communications delivered by new technologies, receiving a classic letter or postcard can really impress - especially when the communication method is adjusted to the product. So it was with one of the books published by and communicated for the Tatra National Park. Shipping books to journalists was preceded by a series of postcards from the Tatra Mountains. More than 100 media representatives received a series of several hand-written postcards. Art, culture and lifestyle journalists, receiving lots of books from publishers every day, finally had something to anticipate. As you might guess, the cost of this action did not exceed 500 Polish zloty.
Expand the audience by doing something extra. Sometimes the key to success is finding an additional target group, for whom we could expand communication activities. During the 4th edition of the "Views" competition, organised by the Zachęta National Gallery of Art in 2013, we organised the audience vote on Twitter, for the first time for this type of event. A loaned tablet was installed in the gallery and used to vote by anyone visiting the exhibition. As a result, we could inform the technology media about the reward, and the Zacheta National Gallery of Art appeared on the Spider’s Web for the first time. Budget? Practically zero.
Sometimes it is worth to create actions aimed at very specific audiences, outside the main paths of communication, for example ones profiled for families with children or seniors. We should also pay attention to the trends of interests - due to the dynamic development of the culinary media and blogs, it is a good idea to propose something related to cooking.
Use the new social media, while it is still free of charge. As it has been and still is with Instagram and also Snapchat, at the time of writing this text, practically each of these social platforms is growing in a similar way: at the beginning there is a fair share of freedom for publishers, companies and institutions. Then they introduce advertising and the outreach is "cut down". Therefore, let’s try to use the opportunity to build a community before the ads interfere.
Last tip: of course, if you do not have the money or you have little of it, you need to have something else. Not only the idea but also the people who will carry it out. And enough time. Good luck!
Maciej Marcisz Business & Culture
new visual identity system of the national museum in wroclaw. instruction manual for the designer kalina zatorska
new visual identity system of the national museum in wroclaw. instruction manual for the designer
When a large institution, such as the National Museum in Wroclaw, orders a new visual identity system, that is to replace previous lack of cohesion and clear concept, you should know that it will not implement itself. In such situation, you can get ready-made solutions and still need help with their application. This is why, you - the designer, have to surround the institution with special care, attention, and patience. Introduction of a new identity is a multi-year process. Below are some tips, based on experience gained by creating a new visual identity system for the National Museum, that will help you get through the first stage of it.
Win the competition. If the competition brief is too general and after analyzing it further you still don’t know where you stand, talk to the organisers. Be inquisitive - ask them to explain ambiguous descriptions, ask directly about their expectations. When you hear: "We do not know yet, surprise us", you can breathe a sigh of relief. The ball is on your side. It will not hurt to visit the renovated building - the view of a pearl of modernism in the state of renovation hasn’t harmed any designer yet. And if you're still stuck, and the time is running out, it is great to have a ruthless team nearby, who will say: "It's pointless, you'll lose!" And then, among your nervous sketches they will find the one that is sure to win. They will add a story to it, a catchy slogan and then ... we have it! You win, open the champagne (or a few).
After the win, get to know the whole team – from the marketing and the publishing departments, the department heads to the education team, you'll soon see yourself quite often. Develop the visual identity system with the management, involve them fully in the process. Take the initiative - discuss the strategies, plans and visions of the institution. To avoid the feeling that you are wasting the time of your interlocutors and your own, write down a summary including in it the most important thoughts and conclusions. Distribute a printed version of the summary upon a next meeting (the institution’s team will prove helpful here). You'll be amazed when you see your summary at the top of the director's desk. It should also have a special place on your desk.
new visual identity system of the national museum in wroclaw. instruction manual for the designer
Do not forget that you are the one to come up with innovative ideas and radical solutions - others have too much work. It will be easier for you to push it through, quoting the conclusions from months ago, in order not to come back to the starting point. Invoking (because you have it on paper) the need to have a new visual language that encourages, for example, an audience that is unprepared for contact with culture, you can offer a brave advertising campaign that the institution has never done before. You must be decisive in the work on the campaign - especially when the staff of the institution begins to hesitate. When you give up in one matter, you will succumb in the others, therefore compromises are not advisable when the campaign is to be revolutionary. If we decide that the creations will be monochromatic only, then there is "no mercy" and even the sponsor will have to be convinced that this time their logo will not appear in color. But when you still bounce off the wall and the marketing department is not convinced of the mural projects and once again decides to postpone their decision, then it may be worthwhile to take your ruthless team to the meeting - they will tell them the truth.
Once you have managed to convince everyone that the windshield wraparound in trams is in bad taste, do not let go in the last mile of the way. When the campaign starts off and people start talking about it, you need to dot the i’s and cross the t’s, to ensure proper communication in the Internet. In case of the museum, we lacked the time to do this and the internet pillory proved ruthless, as usual. That's why next time you'll be preparing your profile photos in the right resolution, and above all, make sure social media people work better on the posts.
When the dust settles and everyone breathes in relief, do not sleep! Remember that the institution will not freeze after opening a new branch the life goes on. Before you look back, everyone will return to old habits, because it is easier, safer and faster, and the museum suffers from a chronic lack of time. The radical logo will thus look like a square peg in a round hole on a quickly made flyer. The announcement of a "new visual language for a new viewer" published on an outdated website will not look very convincing.
If you follow the instructions, then your position in the institution should be considerably prominent by now, and the proposal to continue the cooperation already articulated.
new visual identity system of the national museum in wroclaw. instruction manual for the designer
Conclusion: The one-time "WOW" effect will not obliterate years of neglect in the field of communication. A system open to experiment will not work if the graphics run out of inspiration in the daily implementation process. Tailored and dedicated fonts will not substitute for a lack of clear visual language. In short: you can have a new, consistent visual identity system and continue to be somewhat fusty. Quality control is recommended at every stage of daily operations. Introducing new identity is a process that will go on for years. It's a fight for every detail, the footer in the mail, every sentence on the flyer. Conclusion of conclusion: Designer, there is a lot of work ahead of you. You need to be a strategist, a control freak and a quality guard, all in one (additionally, your team is also important). Do not give up!
Kalina Zatorska Fundacja 102
global promotion of polish art – where to start? „contemporary lynx”. case study dobromiła błaszczyk
global promotion of polish art – where to start? „contemporary lynx”. case study
"If you can not find something, do it." In short, this thought was the starting point, at the beginning of 2013, of my and Sylwia Krasoń’s adventure with the "Contemporary Lynx". There were several reasons, yet two prevailed: a lack of magazine about Polish art in English language on the market and a limited amount of materials, texts and articles in English, as well as their little international outreach and availability. Thus was born the idea of establishing an independent web platform. Today the "Contemporary Lynx" website (www.contemporarylynx.co.uk) is more than 500 articles and interviews, entirely in English. Three years have passed, throughout which time we have gradually and consistently broadened the field of our activities. Currently, "Contemporary Lynx" is also a paper magazine distributed half-yearly worldwide; meetings and debates organised around the issues raised by us, taking place not only in Poland, but also abroad; an online shop, where we offer, among others, English-language publications; participation in the most important art fairs taking place in Europe; information published in social media.
Lastly, "Contemporary Lynx" is an artistic organisation and a publishing house based in London, being developed as a result of cooperation with a network of mobile experts in art history, culture, philosophy, coming from the UK, France, Germany, Hong Kong, China, the United States, Belgium, Poland, Sweden and many other countries. Flexible and mobile structure allows us to produce first-hand accounts and to be an important source of information on the most interesting artistic events with the participation of Polish artists around the world. Because our principle is that we write only about the things that we or our editors have really seen. Our goal is to break down geographic and economic barriers in access to the Polish visual culture. We believe that art and culture are a universal language for audiences of all ages and places of residence. Therefore, we do not want to talk about Polish art only in the national context. We want to show that it is an integral part of the international language of art and that it raises issues that are important not only for the inhabitants of the region. In the modern world, the differences between artists from various countries are blurred, just like the disappearing boundaries between the fields of arts and the borders between countries. Polish artists are studying at universities around the world, are living in various countries, where they take part in exhibitions, festivals and fairs; they are also teaching at universities. They are having a real impact on building the local scenes and artistic identities. This is not "national" art, it is a part of the world art, of that universal language, and that makes the team of "Contemporary Lynx" do their best to keep up with them, providing information about their activities.
global promotion of polish art – where to start? „contemporary lynx”. case study
Since the beginning of our existence, we are publishing accounts of these events, as well as interviews with artists, curators, employees of public institutions, extensive articles about art, at least once a week. One can also find articles about visual arts, photography, design, collecting, or our experimental "postcArt” section, where the invited guests are asked to choose one work by the Polish artist and describe, in a few sentences, why they consider this particular piece as significant. Then we publish them in a form of a postcard. In this way, we want to create a collection of Polish art seen through the eyes of people from abroad, who have no national relationships and dependencies. Furthermore, on our website there is a calendar of events from around the world, with the participation of Polish artists. It shows that there is not a day without their activity. The "Contemporary Lynx" website has been visited by more than 150,000 people so far, the vast majority of visitors from abroad. Publication of texts on the website is daily supported by the promotion of content in social media.
A very important element of our business is the paper "Contemporary Lynx" magazine. Its formation was preceded by two editions of the online magazine published on the Issuu platform. Thanks to that, we had a chance to test the content, graphic design and solutions, we also did a survey among consumers, asking about their experience, expectations and remarks. Based on this, we decided to publish the first issue of "Contemporary Lynx Magazine" on paper. It was released in April 2015, with the support of our main patron - Griffin Art Space Foundation. Each issue is built around a chosen theme, which is contemplated from many different perspectives. We write not only about visual arts, but also about the design, sound art, architecture, books and creative cities. It is of a great importance to us to cooperate closely with artists. The artworks prepared exclusively for us open each department of the magazine, our photographer carries out a photo shoot in the studio of an artist featured in an issue. The featured artist is being given eight pages, where they can showcase their work in a preferred way. The same artist is invited to create, with us and for us, the magazine’s cover, which correlates, formally and ideologically, with the content and theme of the issue. That, combined with the fact that each issue is hand-stamped and numbered, each having its unique number, gives our reader not so much an art magazine, but a collector's item or art catalogue.
global promotion of polish art – where to start? „contemporary lynx”. case study
An important aspect in providing and disseminating information to the public is a reasonable price and distribution, which we are carrying out also outside of our online store. In Poland, "Contemporary Lynx Magazine" is available in museum and artistic bookstores, throughout the Empik chain, in concept stores, at festivals and conferences. To accommodate the foreign reader, we cooperate with the Central Books, one of the most important European distributors, based in London, who distributes our magazine in Europe and Asia (in bookstores and art museums, including the Tate Modern in London or museums in Taipei and Seoul). Recently, we began working with another partner, the New York based Ubiquity Distributors Inc., who introduced the magazine to the US market. We are also the first paper magazine about Polish art that is presented at the world's most important art fairs, among the best galleries and magazine publishers.
The magazine forms a part of a popular slow publishing and indie magazines trend, where reliable journalism, including texts written by experts in their fields, is as important as the unique layout and high-quality paper. All this together makes the encounter with the magazine a complex aesthetic and intellectual experience. As an addition to this complexity of provision of information to consumers of culture, we are organising meetings, debates and events. They provide an opportunity to meet the reader, to engage in joint discussions, to exchange ideas and views. Because it is, in fact, the art and its audience that marks the beginning and the end of our activities.
Dobromiła Błaszczyk „Contemporary Lynx”
uczesticy cyber akademii 2016
cyber academy participants Bulgaria Czech Republic
Violeta Dincheva, Plovdiv
Jan Chabr, Pilsen Croatia Filip Eterović, Zagreb Spain Jaime De Los Rios, Donostian San Sebastián Irene Larraza Aizpurua, Donostian San Sebastián
Germany Inga Zoller, Ludwigsburg Jan-Paul Laarmaan, Düsseldorf
Poland Anna Despond, Warsaw Anna Diduch, Warsaw Agnieszka Kluczek, Warsaw Radosław Wójcik, Warsaw Martyna Gach, Wroclaw Anna Frankowska, Wroclaw Alicja Wacowska, Wroclaw Hanna Kostrzewska, Katowice Marta Rosół, Katowice Dagmara Gregorowicz, Poznan Martyna Łokuciejewska, Poznan Katarzyna Milecka-Borowiak, Poznan Łukasz Badula, Cracow Katarzyna Łyszkowska, Olsztyn Weronika Świsłocka, Gdansk
Serbia Julija Bašić, Požarevac Mladen Savković, Belgrade Bojana Ljubisić, Belgrade
Slovakia Magdaléna Halková, Kosice