I’m adding this post rather tentatively in response to a video that I’ve just seen at a seminar on the future of e-government by Mike Pearson from the State Services Commission. The video was created in 2004 by the Museum of Media History. It charts the history and future of media through to 2014. You can view it here (it’s eight minutes long and thought provoking).

In the year 2014, the video predicts that internet users will be provided with news stories customised to their individual needs and interests. Thanks to the information we’ve provided to search engines and social networking sites, data about our personal social networks, demographics, interests and consumer habits are used by the likes of Google and Microsoft to filter the information and messages that we receive.

The widespread availability of tools for preparing and publishing content online has made it easier than ever before to create and consume media. As users everywhere create their own news and access the news of their trusted networks, The Fourth Estate goes into freefall - no longer having sole authority over the news or the ability to regulate news channels.

Some might say that this plurality of voices and sources will democratise media; others might refer to the increasing superficiality of news driven by the interests of the masses.

What does this have to do with culture? Well, I’m not sure (that’s the tentative bit). But, to attempt to draw an analogy, in 2014, my crystal ball reveals that, like the search engines and social networking sites, cultural organisations and businesses, in greater number and to greater effect, will be gathering data about their audiences, too. We will be writing marketing messages and customising products to match the values of our audience segments and using social networking sites to let that younger portion of our audience spread the word on our behalf (the article on ‘participation marketing’ on Fuel4Arts is a great introduction).

Using this data, we’ll be cross-marketing our programmes and products with our fellow cultural producers. By 2014, the sector will have realised, as Alan Brown says, that ‘unlike Ford and GM, the symphony wins when the opera sells a ticket’.

We will be using the internet to reach new customers and deepen our relationships with existing ones - sharing cultural content by posting images and videos of our productions, performances and exhibitions, including behind-the-scenes footage and commentary, as well as inviting after-the-event reaction through testimonials and reviews from audience members. (The Vancouver Opera’s ‘media viewer’ is an example of this kind of approach.)

Further to that, we’ll be offering meaningful ways for audiences to engage with the creative process. The cultural experience will no longer be a one-way transmission but an invitation to our audience to co-create with us (see the latest reading on Fuel4Arts for some case studies on audience collaboration).

Obviously, we’re looking at an accelerating trend that’s already underway.

With the opportunities come some risks. Will we find, in 2014, that the active contribution of audiences to the cultural experience has dulled the creative edge? Will live performances and physical visits be replaced by online experiences? Will the explosion of self-published content by the citizen archivist, the armchair cultural critic and the amateur filmmaker - remixing the work of others as well as creating their own - trivialise the cultural landscape?

Seems unlikely to me. I think we can find intelligent, engaging, considered ways to integrate an exchange with our audiences into the development of our work. While we will come to measure and value ‘virtual visits’ to our products and institutions, the live experience will always have something to offer (read this interview with cultural historian Siva Vaidhyanathan about using technology to build gateways to new audiences).

I’m optimistic about the future for the media and for culture in 2014. Tools for filtering and selecting content will evolve to help us finding our way through the explosion of online content and opinion. We’ve seen the old library card catalogue transform into today’s tag clouds, into recommendation services (’if you like that, you’d like this …’) and into user ratings. I will value some news sources and some cultural experiences over others, and some of my friends will agree with me.

And finally, great artists, institutions and products will always be heard above the noise if they have that amazing capacity to surprise us, to connect with us, to show us something new in the familiar or to send us somewhere unexpected.

No, no - there’s one more thing. The role of NZLive.com. As a promotional tool for cultural events and activities, with the aim of building audiences, we will be reacting to these trends in much the same way as other cultural organisations and businesses. We’ll be thinking about marketing to different demographics, capturing data on our users in order to customise their experience, publishing rich media to add context to live events, providing opportunities for users to contribute content and sharing content across the sector to maximise the opportunites to build and promote New Zealand’s culture.

What do you see in the crystal ball – for the cultural sector generally and for your organisation in particular?

This entry was posted on Friday, August 3rd, 2007 at 9:06 am and is filed under Culture online, Marketing, NZLive.com, Social media, Technology, Building audiences. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.