(This posting is based on my presentation at AAM’s recent Technology, Interpretation & Education online conference in a session with Nancy Proctor. What’s that? You missed it? Shame on you, it was an excellent two-day conference. No worries, it was recorded. Check AAM’s Professional Development website).
Smaller, cheaper, faster, better – The promise of technology. Isn’t technology meant to make our lives easier by streamlining workflows, eliminating manual processes and supporting our administrative, interpretative and educational initiatives? That’s the myth. While technology is often smaller and faster, the reality is that technology sometimes isn’t better (shock, horror) and it definitely isn’t the cheap option. Technology may not be cheap, but done right it is a great investment. However, technology done badly can be an expensive mistake and that gives many the impression that technology doesn’t work and is an expensive waste of time. As museum technologists we struggle with this image.
In our current financial situation technology can be the soft target when we’re looking at our budgets, a second-class citizen struggling to convey its true value. I sometimes see technology as the sporting equivalent of a benchwarmer – a dispensable player who can be removed from the game without affecting its result. It’s not.
Who’s to blame for doing technology badly? No point looking around at others, we are when we don’t do our due diligence in matching solutions to requirements, or worse, when we don’t even bother to do requirements because “isn’t it obvious?”, or even worser, when we use technology for technology’s sake.
I’ve seen it many times. Applications are often a substitute for existing (manual) processes, so when we look to bring in a new application we look to replicate the processes that we have in place and are unwilling to change our ways. Third-party applications are often the result of a distillation of processes from a variety of different sources and situations into something simple. Instead of using the moment when we select technology as a time to question how we do something, we look to blindly replicate our processes with something that wasn’t designed to be as convoluted as we’ve trained ourselves to be. Bringing in technology under these conditions is a recipe for disaster.
There are any number of reasons why technology doesn’t hit the mark, but a sure-fire way is not clearly identifying the purpose and goals at the outset.
I’m reminded of a quote:
Computers make it easier to do a lot of things, but most of the things they make it easier to do don’t need to be done.
- Andy Rooney, US news commentator
But technology done right is a bit like the definition of pornography – I’ll know it when I see it. And the epitome of “technology done right” is that its transparent – its there but you don’t see it, it presents no barrier to the experience. And if we’ve done our job right, it actually enhances the experience.
The two-day Technology, Interpretation & Education conference showcased the value of technology and discussed getting it right. From the MUSE award virtual reception (thanks Jack & Suzy and congratulations to all the MUSE Award winners), to the Art Institute of Chicago on Teens and Technology: Remixing the Museum to Stephanie Weaver on Creating a Social Media Strategy to the consistently engaging Nina Simon on Developing Tools for Visitor Participation. The conference featured instances where the disciplines of education and interpretation have been brought together, supported by technology, to provide an engaging experience that represents value: a thoughtful and resonant engagement with our audiences, or more specifically, a visitor’s thoughtful and resonant engagement with us. Instances where traditional ways of interpretation and education have been replaced by elegant and meaningful solutions that further our individual missions, not necessarily using cutting-edge technology, but the right solution for the job at hand.
Technology done right is a thing beauty and a joy forever – that is, until the upgrade. But as the Chinese Curse goes: May you live in interesting times. That is certainly true of the times we are living in. And in these times we are being asked to “do more with less” – and often the instinctive answer is some technology solution. But as museum technologists and as museum professionals we’ve been tasked with “doing more with less” for many years.
We have less, so let’s do less. I think its time to focus our time and resources and “do less with less”, but “do stuff that matters”, to quote Tim O’Reilly. Tim O’Reilly also talks about “big hairy audacious goals”, but see Mike Edson for that.
“Do Less With Less”: Museum technologists always want to say yes, they are particularly good at saying yes or rather, they are bad at saying “no”. In this time of financial and resource constraint, as technologists, as content developers, and as educators, we need to create a culture where its okay to say “no” if our goal is to wisely and judicially use our skill and resources to create lasting projects of value. To misquote, Rich Cherry, Director of the Balboa Park Online Collaborative: “Don’t half-arse, just say no”.
In the short story Runaround (published in I, Robot in 1942), Isaac Asimov came up with three fundamental laws that all robots must obey:
- A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm
- A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law
- A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law
I’ve come up with the Museum Technologist’s equivalent that I’d like to share with you – to make the point of doing less with less. So for us Museum Technologists, I give you the Three Laws of Museum Technology:
- A museum technologist may not implement a technology solution that is inappropriate, uneconomic, unsustainable, unproductive, inelegant, inflexible, a closed architecture or not based on standards
- A museum technologist must obey the opinions and decisions of a museum non-technologist except when such opinions and decisions conflict with the first law
- A museum technologist must protect his own existence as long such protection does not conflict with the First and Second law
So, what is an inappropriate technology solution? Well, I talked about that one: not matching solutions to requirements and doing technology for technology’s sake.We technologists have, what I like to refer to as the shiny gadget gene, we see others doing something cool and there is an overwhelming urge to emulate it. Or we see others with some success and we want to do that very same thing. We are a culture of emulation, but we have to be careful that we emulate for the right reasons. We jump on the bandwagon, without thinking whether we should be on it or even sometimes thinking about where it is going. The early institutional websites were a great example of this, but now I hope we’ve individually figured out why we do all have a website. I worry that our current social networking efforts are similarly inclined. Are you clear why your institution has a Facebook page and what the plan is? Are you clear why you are capturing User Generated Content on your website, and what the plan is? Technology for technology’s sake is not doing “less with less”, its doing “more with less”. And most importantly, it violates my first law.
What about uneconomic? We have to be careful of not buying into the myth that replacing something with a technological solution is the cheap alternative, or that technology is in itself, “cheap”. In our world there is rarely an immediate return on our investment and thinking that is the case, is a problem. Technology is an ongoing investment and trying to do it on the cheap, for example selecting technology based on relative cost and ignoring the requirements (assuming you did some), will result in tears before bedtime. Unquestionably, technology can support us in our mission, help us build engaging interpretive and educational solutions, but it requires investment and commitment from the highest levels in our institutions and the returns are not hard cash, but are hopefully feet through the door, greater access to our content and meeting our missions.
And let’s not forget that Open Source Software is as free as a free puppy: no upfront cash, but years of scooping poop. Just because Social Media is cheap and easy (is it really?) should we be doing it? There is an important distinction between “cheap” and “economy”. Done wisely and judiciously, technology can be a great economy, saving time and resources over the long term. No doubt that some technology solutions absolutely can be cheap and can be a “financial economy”, but our returns on investment are about meeting mission, sustainability, preservation and access, which by their very nature, play out over the longer term. Doing “less with less” means being crystal clear that what you are about to do clearly addresses these mission-related goals.
To do less with less is to focus on the things that are core to our institutional mission, things that are being done for the right reasons which everybody is clear about, and are done in a way that maximizes resources and finances. We should plan for flexibility because we don’t know where this “thing” is going; we should plan for scalability because we don’t know how big this “thing” might get; we should use standards because we want to play and share in a much bigger arena; we should collaborate and stop trying to re-invent the wheel. And most importantly, we should address the long term – the sustainability of the things we’ve created for our institutions after we’ve moved on.
Doing less with less may also extend to how you structure your workforce. Here at the Getty we reorganized departmentally to recognize that there functional areas that shouldn’t change – such as content development – the way we interpret our collections, but there are areas that will change – how we brand our content and how we deliver it. How does doing “less with less” fit into a world where new technologies and platforms are constantly emerging? If you know something will change, at least you can plan for it with modularity in hardware, software, people or resources.
In these “interesting times”, your take on doing “less with less” may be different. Maybe “doing less with less” is to do something that creates a revenue stream, or to do something purely because its high-profile, or even to do something that is in fact technology for technology’s sake – a one-off, no-holds-barred, shiny-gadget project. Far be it from me to judge. Essentially, “doing less with less” it is to be thoughtful and appropriate in how you conduct your business and how you support and deliver your interpretive and educational goals under the banner of your mission.
PPT available on slideshare here.
