First study into the impact of Googling on older people

A study by UCLA scientists has discovered that Internet searching helps stimulate brain functions in middle-aged and older people by setting off key centers in the brain responsible for controlling decision-making and complex reasoning.

It is the first academic study to look into the impact of Googling on brain performance. The full report will be published in the American Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry.

The study concludes:

A simple, everyday task like searching the web appears to enhance brain circuitry in older adults, demonstrating that our brains are sensitive and can continue to learn as we grow older

Read more here

Do you know if older people are accessing your online content?  This is an area we will be looking at here at Audiences London in 2010, if you have experiences or comments I’d love to hear them.

Where’s the evidence for how best to use digital? What will people pay for in the new ‘freemium economy’? What is interactive, really?

Following on from Emma’s post about LSO St Luke’s Digital Symposium on Friday – I thought I’d post a response too…

I agree with Emma that Harold Raitt’s (Digital Programme Manager for the National Theatre’s Discover Programme) point about the lack of government-funded research into digital was well-made. It oftens feels like we’re all stumbling about in the dark, trying to work out how best to use digital technology, but without much evidence to prove what’s most effective.

The  lack of evidence about digital at large, was reflected in the content of the Symposium… there were some interesting debates and anecdotes, but not enough hard evidence and detailed case studies were given, to show the potential (and pitfalls) of digital for the arts.

Mark Mulligan (Forrester Research) brought an interesting new perspective from the commercial music industry in his keynote. He was talking about how, in the new freemium economy, we can know what people are prepared to pay for, and what they expect to get for free? Mark reckons that scarce social experience has real value. People will also pay for community, convenience, and some content, if the price is right and it comes as part of the package (ideally).

Mark was advocating for ‘relationships not releases’. Audiences want to be continually engaged in the creative process. They want to buy ‘content packages’ which will enable them to tailor their own unique experiences. They don’t want to buy record albums every few months, but rather want to be kept in the loop, and drip-fed new tracks as they get recorded.

Another point I found particularly interesting (also made by Harold Raitt), was about the real meaning of the word ‘interactive’. This is a term that often gets bandied about when talking about digital. People often assume that any rich media content (photographs, videos, podcasts etc.) is ‘interactive’ but it’s not! Something which is truly interactive, gives an opportunity to contribute and co-create, not just to consume. Therefore, blogs with a comment function, social media communities and digital games provide real interactivity.

Musings on the LSO Digital Symposium

I’ve just got back from the LSO “All Change?” Digital Symposium. Both Anwen and I were in attendance and I think our feelings about the day are about the same – lovely to network and join in the debate as always but we really need to move on this conversation now and talk about the impacts, actions and responses of digital development. One thought from the day stood out for me in particular:

Government should have led the way in testing and researching digital content and social media, much as they tested new school learning frameworks in laboratory conditions in the 50s and 60s, we should expect them to finance and develop models for the public to engage with online media, test them, refine them and release this information to publicly funded organisations.
Although I think it might have been an interesting approach, my argument with this is that approaches to interactive social media (by which I mean not videos or podcasts, but a platform that genuinely allows the audience to participate) should be unique to each organisation due to online content’s very nature of transparency and openness.

Hmm, I could have phrased that better, but it’s been a long week!

You can view comments from the day at twitter.com/AllChange_LSO. Were you there? What did you make of the day? And can you refine my response above?!

AMA – collaboration, collaboration, collaboration (aka digital)

As my colleagues have given you a marketing perspective, a research perspective and an organisational perspective, I’ve gone for the digital perspective. In the spirit of web 2.0 and Charles Leadbeater’s The Art of With (next event 25 November at Cornerhouse) for me this is all about the opportunities to collaborate and connect with each other, with audiences and with artists.

So, first of all on the ‘with each other’ – yes, I was one of those annoying twitterers (purely a personal experiment of course – my theory being if you’ve not experienced it how do you know what impact it might have). Armed with my trusty iphone I was multi-tasking – listening, tweeting and reading.  My findings – I was not so interested in where people are as what they thought.  My conclusions – I made some connections with interesting people at the conference who I would not have necessarily met in person and useful references were sourced by active tweeters, but I was hoping for a bit more comment. Anyway – have a look at one of the various tags #ama2009, #amaconf2009 or #amaconference09 or see what I had to say at #audienceslondon. I think there are big implications for the future of conferencing too, which we at AL will have to take note of – we live in a world of immediacy… look out for the new ‘digitally interactive dialogue space’. And is anyone using the AMA wiki set up by #MarcusRomer (follow his Twitter too)? One request by twitter was to share social media case-studies… so should we do this using social media?

Tackling digital from an organisational point of view seems to present a number of challenges, some of which is discussed in the Silos to Shrek Ears research report which inspired Dave Moutrey to take Cornerhouse on the journey he described in the keynote. We are charged as marketers and organisations to manage complexity, as discussed in Graham Leicester’s inspiring work at the International Futures Forum. So, how do we live comfortably with all the new opportunities – maybe it’s something about using evidence and information. Who has used the YouTube Metrics as Ed of YouTube suggested? Or entered into the discussions on the impacts of social media as suggested by Marcus Romer (everyone’s new guru… or is he a geek?). For Cornerhouse this is working out how to work an ‘Adhocracy’ style organisation.  However, the top tip is: if you can change the way you work internally effectively,  your audiences will probably go with you… wherever you want to take them.

Now to the audiences bit – as you may know, my continual quest is for some more concrete information about which audiences engage digitally and if they do, how (or does ) it enhances their artistic experience…  As Diane Ragsdale said it is not enough to facebook them, it’s all the other stuff and how relevant you are to someone that influences them to engage. Andy Ryans reiterated this, in terms of encouraging us to remember the other tools, such as just talking to people face to face. We perhaps need to be clearer for ourselves about how we use the wonderful Web 2.0, and remember according to the 90-9-1 principle of social networking maybe only a small proportion of audiences are up for full online dialogue. So, how can we best serve the 90%? Maybe we can take some lessons from the Slow Food Campaign – combine enjoyment and responsibility on all sides. Hans de Kretser’s guide to social media should be good reading (wait for the conference report) – number 1 is ‘have a strategy’. You can already find Marcus Romer’s session about using digital media here? In terms of generating content to engage audiences – do we take Dan from Innocent’s advice of ‘keeping it mildly interesting’ – perhaps we’re putting too much pressure on ourselves to come up with super-duper content, when people actually want to know how many costume changes are involved or by what route a painting arrived from New York…

There were obviously some bits about artistic content online, with the much lauded YouTube orchestra (in collaboration with LSO) and many examples from Watershed of what they’ve let artists do.  But the heart of the matter seems to be about giving up control and allowing amateur/user generated content to work alongside the professional artists’ work. Most people do know how to edit and filter to find the good stuff. And on the other hand our brands are usually strong enough as arts organisations to survive re-shaping by our users or audiences. Finally, we should not fear failure, allow ourselves to experiment and as Ed of YouTube said just ‘read up, team up and mix up’.

And as Martin Reynolds of Festivals Edinburgh said “collaboration breeds collaboration”.

A 10 Point Post AMA Conference Manifesto!

You know how you go off to conferences and feel inspired to change the world, but usually the feeling fades after a few days back in the office and no-one actually does anything differently as a result? Well, I wanted to capture that potential for change by summing up this year’s Arts Marketing Association conference in the form of a manifesto for all arts organisations – based around Diane Ragsdale’s Keynote, which made 7 points which she then developed in her ‘In conversation’ breakout session. Many of Diane’s points were also echoed and developed by the other keynote speakers and breakouts. For some, these recommendations will mean a big shift in organisational culture. For others, who are already doing these things, to greater or lesser extents, well, there’s always room for improvement…

So, without further ado, I present The AMA 2009 Conference Manifesto!

The conference recommends that arts organisations need to…

1. Be more open and porous and allow audiences better access to the development of the art, e.g. put webcams into rehearsal rooms, invite audiences (not just members) into rehearsals, allow audiences a say on programming.Try one thing and see how it goes…

2. Broker relationships between audiences and art – fostering better internal communication and collaboration between artistic and marketing departments (perhaps even merging the two into one team) can help towards this. Maybe start with a monthly brainstorm across departments around a new season or event.

3. Allow the art to be digitized and re-appropriated by audiences online, to allow better access and co-creation with audiences – (recognise that if it doesn’t exist on the internet, it doesn’t exist). Find a good partnership with an artist or other organisation and experiment.

4. Offer a platform/space for social interaction around the arts (recognise that seeing other people is as important as seeing the art). Is just having a bar enough? Should we be offering more concrete opportunities ie. the equivalent of book clubs?

5. Allow audiences to become co-creators. We need to embrace the shift to a pro-am culture, and recognise the value of all art no matter who made it.

6. Invest in audiences. Realising that taste is cumulative, we should educate our audiences to help them develop a deeper appreciation of the arts (e.g. Chicago Symphony Orchestra’s Beyond the Score programmes: http://www.cso.org/beyondthescore/about.html)

7. Avoid growth for the sake of growth, and seek relevance and impact instead. Organisations should beware that they must constantly strive to retain the relevance that they have only precariously attained. Institutions cannot and should not be maintained for their own sake. Ironically, as institutions have grown, audiences have declined – we need to reverse this trend.

8. Foster adaptation and diversity. Creeping normalcy must be avoided, but this must also be balanced against avoiding ‘premiere-itis’ and over-valuing new work.

9. Collaborate to grow the shrinking pie. Like social service organisations collaborating to tackle social issues, arts organisations should join together to tackle the issue of declining arts attendance.

10. Manage audience expectations – by being honest, and building the idea that not everyone will like everything, we will gain more trust. We should also avoid over-intellectualising the arts, and ensure that audiences are made to feel that an emotional response to art is equally as valid a rational response.

An AmbITion Manifesto

 I’ve been mulling over the thoughts and questions I took away from the AmbITion roadshow and Art of Digital London Symposium… lots of issues that were discussed at Sadlers Wells also came up in Leicester at the AMA conference. Having just written up my post-AMA conference manifesto, I felt inspired to write a post-AmbITION manifesto too, about things we need to be doing differently or better…

ambITion recommends that arts organisations…

1. Create remarkable content (it’s not about creating quality so much as interest)

2. Crowdsource and co-create (collaborate with other artists and audiences)

3. Explore virtual spaces and be playful

4. Provide platforms for discussion and co-creation, don’t just provide content (e.g. host bloggers nights)

5. Open up the creative process

6. De-institutionalise and personalise instead

7. Share the power of the curatorial/creative process – empower your audience to participate

The 90-9-1 principle for how users participate in social communities

This came up at the ambITion roadshow and is my new favourite theory on social engagement, both online and offfline!

The 90-9-1 principle dictates that while 90% of people are reader/observers, 9% are more actively engaged as editors of content, while a mere 1% are actually creating anything in the first place!

A fascinating insight into how users participate in social communities… read more at http://www.90-9-1.com/

Thoughts and questions arising from AmbITion…

Just adding to Penny’s post on this…

Ideas I found interesting…

• Digital technology allows us to explore liminal spaces and be in two places at once
• Cultural organisations need to move from being gate-keepers to curators and beyond – allowing audiences to explore their own ideas and curate their own experiences
• Cultural organisations should think about providing platforms for discussion, not just creating content
• No-one is an expert anymore – the best people with the best ideas probably don’t work for you, so you need to go and connect with them online, and crowdsource solutions
• Why not host ‘Blogger nights’ so your audiences can comment on their experiences live during performances? Project a ‘back channel’ into the performance space so the audience can view their thoughts and interact with each other and the performers.
• When crowdsourcing it’s important to think about your relationship with the crowd not just the result you seek
• It’s not about being good anymore, it’s about being interesting

 Questions I came away with…

• How can we deal with the noise of digital?
• Does the live audience become second class to the ‘virtual’ audience?
• What constitutes engagement and what distraction?
• Does a rise in engagement lead to a demise in attention?
• Are we heading for participation fatigue?
• How can we use new tools to solve old problems?
• Should we protect the sacred space of performance against interference from audiences?

AmbITion Roadshow/Art of Digital: things to read

So, we went to the AmbITion Roadshow and Art of Digital Symposium and learnt some things… here’s the first installment – things to read! About digital, about the arts and how it could work for you…

To keep up to date join the ‘ning’ network for Art of Digital London and also to find out about the follow-up workshops and surgeries organised by IT4Arts and Mute – which Audiences London will also be contributing to.  Also see previous post in this blog to answer our burning question… how do our audiences engage with digital?

Some of the presentations:

• Ludus Dance – an AmbITion Funded Project
• Rohan Gunatillake – ex of Missions Models Money

Books and things:

• The Art of With by Charles Leadbeater… not to, but with…
• Digital Britain Report – essential reading if you need a steer on government ambitions.
• “Free” by Chris Anderson – as the name suggests he is a big fan of  the idea of ‘information wanting to be free’ and true to his word, the book is available free online.
• Arts Council Digital Research – recently published results from phase one – including some qualitiative research with arts audiences and digital users and an audit of all RFO’s online presences.

Sites to visit

• Henry Jenkins - digital geeks guru! Said things like “convergence culture – when old and new media collide”… and more…
• Christian Payne – or as his known in Twitter – @Documentally – if you want to know what’s what in social media and networking – he’s the man!
• Hide and Seek – champions of  ‘pervasive gaming’ – where you put the individual at the centre of a game or project, responding to our participatory culture resulting in the ultimate engagement.  All sorts of cool projects, and were inspired by the work of Punch Drunk.
• You Tube Symphony Orchestra - a global collaboration involving LSO and other orchestras to solicit auditions from musicians around the world, culminating in a performance at Cargegie Hall that was livestreamed on Youtube and reached 8million views.
• Britten Sinfonia – using digital technologies well to engage with their audiences
• Slideshare – an online storage place for all your Powerpoint presentations
• Social Innovation Camp - why not create one for the arts?! It’s a weekend where you get lots of technology geeks together with social activists and come up with new solutions to old problem using digital tools
• A Million Penguins - Publisher Penguin’s wiki novel

And there’s lots of good stuff at Missions Models Money about our changing society and how organisations should adapt and evolve.

Musings on the AmbITion Roadshow/Art of Digital Symposium

A full two days incarcerated within the lovely Sadler’s Wells, and all I’ve got to show for it is a rather annoying new addiction to Twitter! But only annoying to those around me – I’m loving it… and yes I know I’m a bit late to this party.

On a more serious note, it was all very interesting although I had hoped there would be a bit more about audiences, which is only to be expected working for Audiences London. I’d like the input from the experts to move on from ‘there’s all this stuff you can use to communicate in different ways, and it’s all free, so use it’ (albeit with a bit of a caviat that they’re only tools – mode, not medium) to… ‘who is it we’re engaging with, and what kind of engagement does that result in, through using digital media’. It is clear at one end that it’s working for participative activities and at the other end results have been recorded in terms of global profile. However, there’s a whole world of ‘engagement’ between those two.

Some random quotes and thoughts were… ‘websites should be based around pull and shared content’ (Hannah Rudman). Hide and Seek’s Alex Fleetwood was living example of how you have to trade relinquishing control for greater visibility.  A strong theme emerging was that if you collaborate, consult or even just open the door to others it can help to develop and improve what you do. Rohan of Missions Models Money mentioned that you’re just helping people do what they already do – which begs the question, are we really reaching new or different audiences, or just deepening the engagement of existing audiences through all this digital activity.

Ekow Eshun of the ICA kicked off the Art of Digital Symposium with words of wisdom along the lines of…  the arts have a responsibility to respond to the world around us, so you can’t claim to be a  contemporary space and remain relevant if this does not include engagement with digital opportunities. He also made a very valid defence of his motivations for integrating ‘digital’ responsibilities across the organisation, rather than having a hived off separate department. Although he didn’t get a chance to answer a question about whether he’d consulted his audiences about the ICA and its digital engagement.

And Ed Baxter of Resonance FM – who I I think I want to adopt said… ‘If you learn something share it, if you make a mistake point it out’. Which seems to me very wise and should be at the heart of any thriving community.

My remaining questions are … who is the twitterer ’sealtree’, and would I really want to go to a ‘geek camp’… And please tell us what you’d like to know about how your audiences engage with digital media, or share examples of what’s worked, and what’s not…