Sydney and Melbourne will host the 14th edition of Communicating the Museum © Destination NSW
It’s a lot of money for an individual – less so for an organisation – but as the adage goes, ‘you have to spend money to make money’.
While dollars are less the topic of this conference, it is an indirect thread that runs through it. The bottom line for museum’s communication is about getting people through the door.
And this conference is all about the business of communicating culture.
We are talking about the world’s leading museum communications conference, which will hosted in the Southern Hemisphere for the first time from 4 – 8 November.
Parisian-born Corinne Estrada, CEO of the communications agency Agenda and founder of this professional ‘pow-wow’ along with then Director of Communications at the Tate, Damien Whitemore, said: ‘This is the first time the biggest museums in the world will be here on same platform as Australian museums – the Louvre, MoMA, LACMA, Getty – they will all be here.’
‘[Australia’s museum professionals] can meet all these people when they go to the US or Europe – so why should they attend CTM? Because those museums are coming to Sydney with the appetite to build partnerships,’ Estrada explained.
For the first time in the conference’s 14-year history it has introduced pre-scheduled One-on-One meetings for visiting international delegates with Australian museum partners.
The carrot has been dangled.
Estrada added: ‘This is the first time in organising conferences that I found a country has been so dedicate to welcoming international participants. Our museum partners here have been so impressive – and that translates a willingness to listen and to work with others.’
This year the conference theme is Optimism.
Estrada said: ‘This country, to me, inspires optimism. We, on the other side of the world, have the image of a great country that is open, energetic, candid.
‘When I look at all museums [today], there is the optimism of audience development and it is amazing how much they have increased in past ten years. The opportunity is huge.’
The one-word theme says it all – it is up to us to embrace it.
The conference schedule for the next quarter is also optimistic, with a plethora of opportunities; a skeptic might ask what makes this particular gathering any different?
The professional collegiate of this conference is unique. Not just in its roll call but its one-on-one structure has defined CTM internationally. And with a 30% delegate return rate annually, that is a resounding endorsement.
‘They are quite faithful to the conference,’ said Estrada. ‘It has become like a group of friends.’
So the message is clear – we are in this together.
But this conference also, at times, pulls the rug from under our feet. Sometimes it is important to ruffle the feathers, to cut through, to find a better way to communicate to those vast audiences who remains untapped.
Take for example Michael Johnson’s presentation, The Branding Exercise: Brave, Bold or Anonymous – You Decide, at last year’s conference held at Moderna Museet in Stockholm, and now available online.
Michael Johnson’s Branding session at CTM13 in Stockholm; courtesy Agenda
Johnson heads up the UK design consultancy Johnson Banks, responsible for London’s rebranded Science Museum, as well as repositioning the famous Parc de La Villette in Paris, branding an art centre in Philadelphia and a space observatory in Japan, not to mention Guggenheim, the Qatar Museums Authority, and the V&A. This is the caliber of speaker CTM attracts.
At that same conference, Lise Korsgaard, Head of Communications at Statens Museum for Kunst Denmark, went face-to-face with and Marc Sands, Director of Audiences and Media at the Tate UK, on the topic, Creating a Tone of Voice, and asking the question, ‘How to create a brand that allows multiple voices to be heard?’
Their session demonstrates the unique structure of the Communicating The Museum (CTM) conference.
Korsgaard and Sands get stuck into the topic of voice and tone in marketing a museum brand at CTM13; courtesy Agenga
We are all grappling to best understand and utilise the many modes and means that we can use to communicate with our audiences.
The Australia Council for the Arts released its audiences research data earlier this year, citing that, ‘over eight in ten agreed that the arts make for a richer and more meaningful life (85 percent)’ and that Australians ‘view the arts as easily accessible, with 72 percent of people in agreement that “There are plenty of opportunities for me to get involved with the arts” in 2013.’
While those figures breed optimism – to use this conference’s theme – they also leave us asking: how do we translate those statistics to bums on seats and people through our doors?
Estrada said the CTM conference confronts some of the biggest challenges facing museums in the 21st century: ‘As museums and galleries grapple with the challenges of social media and the opportunities for direct engagement with audiences, the role of the curator, the artist and the visitor are being redefined. We gather creative international players to discuss audience development strategies that are pushing the envelope.’
One of the highlights in Sydney will be the keynote presentation by Will Dallimore, Director of Public Engagement at the Royal Academy of Arts, Estrada said: ‘[He] is talking about leadership and how he has totally transformed [their] space through new approach to marketing and digital.’
This is Dallimore’s third CTM conference. He joins other luminaries such as Miranda Carroll, Director of Communications at Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA); Brooke Molinaroli, Director of Marketing, Dallas Museum of Art (DMA), who is currently leading the charge in transforming the DMA brand (including the first free museum membership program in the States); and another favourite of Estrada’s, Tim Jarvish ‘an explorer and astronomer who is coming to talk about motivation, in museum with budget cuts where morale low he show how to motival and push forward.’
And if that isn’t drawcard enough, some of the other papers presented include:
- Museum retailing and developing merchandise as a means for museum outreach with Jessie Oh, Director of Business Development, National Heritage Board Singapore
- Take it outside, moving the museum into nature, Mark Johnson returns, President, Civitas Inc, Denver, in conversation with Dan Gottlieb, Director of Planning, Design & Museum Park, North Carolina Museum of Art
- Sabline Doolin of the Tate (UK) talks Teenagers: what they like and what they don’t
- Free and open platform for creating audio guides. Create your own in 30 minutes is a topic that Alex Palin of IZI. Travel opens up
- From Staten Museum Kunst in Copenhagen Sofie Linde offers her perspective on The power of print: media in the digital age
- Scott Tennent from Los Angeles County Museum of Art and San Francisco’s Robyn Wise will go head-to-head on the topic You have to build the mountain before you climb it
- From product to audience led: a new journey – Jennifer Yard Head of Marketing, The Natural History Museum, London looks at new approaches
Plus Museum of Modern Art’s (New York) Chief Communications Officer, Kim Mitchell; Tate (London) Head of Marketing and Audiences, Claire Eva; Le Louvre (Paris) Director of External Cultural Relations, Sophie Kammerer-Farant; Dallas Museum of Modern Art Deputy Director, Robert Stein; The Art Institute of Chicago Vice President of Marketing and Public Affairs, Gordon Montgomery and former Victoria and Albert Museum (London) Director of Public Affairs and Programming, Damien Whitmore.
You can view other video clips and papers from previous CTM conferences online – part of the ethos of sharing that remains the heart of CTM. Collaborating we can create more engaged museums globally.
Communicating the Museum: Optimism
14th International Conference
Sydney 4-8 November 2014
Melbourne 9-11 November 2014
More on how to register visit www.agendacom.com
