Using Data To Drive Decision Making And Generate Support In Cultural Organisations

This event will present two innovative systems designed for cultural organisations. The that explore the use of data to:

Better understand audiences
Assess the impact of relationships between organisations
Improve decision making
Improve organisational resilience

These R&D projects have been funded by the Digital R&D for the Arts fund. The prototype tools will be free to use.

Talk 1
The Reverential Gap - Tackling Data Driven Decision-Making in Culture Organisations
Cimeon Ellerton (The Audience Agency)

What is this about?
What has the Arts Data Impact project learned about data driven decision-making in cultural organisations? How do venues respond when a data scientist is embedded in the organisation?

What will I gain?
A sneak preview of the tools that have been developed by the ADI partners and initial findings from the ethnographic study at English National Opera (ENO), National Theatre and Barbican.

Project Background
The Arts Data Impact (ADI) project will support arts organisations to make data-driven decisions by in-depth analysis and improvement of current approaches.

The ADI project will embed the first ever Data Scientist-In-Residence for the Arts at the Barbican, ENO and National Theatre to interrogate their ever-growing data resources. ADI is one of four projects that will examine the potential of big data – high volume, high velocity, high variance information – in the arts and culture sector, having been selected for funding through the Digital R&D Fund for the Arts.

This will be delivered via consultancy and through the employment of an embedded data scientist-in-residence (DSIR) for six months in partner arts organisations, to learn from and teach data-driven techniques. The research will focus on the impact and organisational change.

Partners: The Audience Agency, Magic Lantern and Professor Paul Moore at the University of Ulster, working with the Barbican, English National Opera and the National Theatre.

Talk 2
ArtsAPI – Using your Email data to uncover the hidden value of your network. (Bill Roberts and Shaleph O'Neill)

What is it about:
They believe arts organisations have inherent value in the networks they create and sustain. This isn't about your audience, this is about all the relationships your organisation nurtures.

Arts organisations are brokers and intermediaries, relationships are central to our activity. By using Email data we can capture information about your network, the impact you have geographically and the impact you have on other sectors.

The tool will also give you insight into your vulnerability and resilience. This information can be used as a business modelling tool as well as a means for gaining new kinds of support.

What will I gain:
This session will explore what ArtsAPI is, how you can use it and how it will benefit your organisation. You will see a demonstration of the tool using the email data of FutureEverything and you will be shown how FutureEverything and their arts partners, Blast Theory, Culture 24, Red Eye, Forma, Baltic and Islington Mill plan to use this to map their network and improve their business.

Project Background
ArtsAPI has been developed by FutureEverything, University of Dundee and Swirl IT. It has been funded by the Digital R&D fund for the arts. The tool is free to use for all arts organisations based in the UK.