 So today, Ross will be talking about building digital confidence through action research. She'll be introducing and talking us through an incredibly exciting project, which seeks to develop digital confidence and literacy for colleagues working right across the heritage sectors, not just here in the UK, but also in the US and Canada. So over to you, Ross. Thank you for being with us and really looking forward to hearing your presentation. Matt, thank you so much and thank you to everybody in the RL UK community for for making this such a welcoming environment today and and all the conversations we've had leading up to today. And I hope this isn't the end of the discussion this isn't just a one time conversation that actually we can frame a dialogue over the next hour that is the beginning is the foundation for for for many things we might do in the future. And hopefully that will become clear as I talk over certainly the first half hour or so when I take you through some of the bits and pieces and some of the work some of the projects and initiatives programs that we've been we've been leading here at Leicester over the last few years. Hopefully you'll see and be excited to buy the prospect of where we may be going next so these sorts of events and at these moments these seminars these online workshops where you're giving up some of your valuable time. There's so much better when something real and actual tangible comes from them so maybe let's try and do that today let's think about how we might figure something out over this hour, and actually how we might pledge a commit to continuing the conversation and doing something together. I have been in the School of Museum Studies for quite a long time coming up to 2025 25 years you know I was obviously 13 years old when I first joined, and over that time I've, you know I've seen this this intersection between between digital and the culture to evolve from a, you know a sector that used to talk about automation and computing and digitization to one that then started to think about museum computing to thinking about digital cultural heritage to today thinking about museum technology and music and so on. But as the, as the language changes and as the as the discussions become more nuanced and informed by intellectual frameworks and the bookshelf of publications continues to grow around museum tech. There are some questions that continue to endure. There's one particular question a question around our confidence within the culture sector to work with technology that I keep coming back to and I think that's the heart of everything that you're going to hear about through through this hour. I've been lucky enough since 2017 to be leading a project a series of projects actually it's an international program, and we can share the link in the chat now called one by one, and one by one has been funded variously by the Arts and Humanities Research Council very generously across three projects. Our first project was a was a half million pound standard research grant and it's grown since then, but we've also received funding from any age in the United States so we partner with Suno Southern University at New Orleans, a self designated historically back college and university which is significant in so many ways but particularly to the theme of the research that you'll be hearing about with us later on. So, we begin our fourth project with surface impression a Canadian and UK digital consultancy and design firm and culture 24, who I'm sure many of you know the extraordinary culture 24 sector support organization helping UK cultural organizations with digital confidence they've been partners with us right the way through this journey. And tomorrow we begin a Canadian Council for the Arts funded project digital action research and training or dark project, but we'll be taking about a dozen organizations across Canada over the next year through some digital confidence building, reflecting on their digital literacy and capability and then for the next two years after that will be doing the same. And it is an international collaboration of academics and academic organizations, cultural organizations, professional bodies associations professional associations, policymakers and various policy bodies, as well as technology companies and other sorts of organizations as well. The distinctive is that we come together as that ensemble public private nonprofit triple helix, seeing that those organizations are better together, knowing that we complement each other skill sets. So getting into the habit of constantly exchanging that knowledge and having that knowledge exchange mindset, letting go of leadership allowing it to move around the network. And acknowledging that the needs that different partners can see, because of their particular work, taking time to build trust, respect and empathy within that group. So that's distinctive about us to start off with, we share, we do things in the open, we're doing things for the public good. We always want to collaborate at default setting is to partner. So maybe self consciously self aware very overtly being being adjacent to a much more competitive rivaling kind of marketplace of research. We also use action research. So, we want to be a set of projects that get stuff done. It's great to write the books it's great to have that peer reviewed article that disappears somewhere. Sometimes behind appear paywall but hopefully not so much these days with changes there to OA. It's wonderful to write those it's it's part of the job it's a ref metric it's all of those things, but in terms of people seeing your work and actually your work making a difference and generating tools and resources that can be practical and useful tomorrow for cultural heritage and cultural organizations. We all want to take an action research approach. This means we respond to points of local need. So an organization a particular museum or a network or a family and museums or a community of practice or maybe an entire museum's association for a for a country may turn to us and say, this is our priority. This is the need. We then, as an arrow can then assemble leverage win academic funding we can win that bit that will enable us to put in place a piece of focused action research. We embed typically what will happen is we'll embed our researchers within an organization or a number of organizations over some time. And then not only help that organization with that resource with that expertise with that trust perspective empathy to do some good. But then the understanding is that the collective will give away and share the templates and insights and data and case studies that we put together and if we're doing a workshop or a seminar for that organization, we try and make it open for others as well. Finally, as well as being a collaborative and that triple helix collaborative as well as being a useful action research, using action research methodology is our kind of default default setting. We also want to be strategically intelligent. We don't want to do research that is interesting for a particular scholar and where she may be going on on her particular intellectual trajectory through her career. What we want to do is actually not to start with the university and its research theme and its research policy and that particular scholarly sometimes quite siloed need or niche, but we want to turn to the sector and say, What do you need? What's the research that needs to take place here. We want to sit down with DCMS we sit down with a National Lottery Heritage Fund we sit down with Arts Council England we sit down with Museums Gallery Scotland, we sit down with a number of our sector support organizations and say, what's the work where's the point of need now, and we make that our priority. So that learning mindset that research idiom that intrinsically and reflexively collaborative approach that is the recipe that's the formula that is proved so successful. In many ways, this started in the spring of 2018 even though our program had started to assemble it was the spring of 2018 with that culture is digital report that came out in the UK so those of you that are from from Munich and from an island and from New York and thank you for waving to us in the chat is brilliant to see all of you there. In a UK context that department for digital culture media and sports our cultural ministry laid down a really important challenge instead of markers about four years ago. We thought that centered digital within the cultural landscape so digital is both the tools and ways in which human beings interact with their world, but also the technologies that are beginning to shape our sense of what that world is. Recognizing that the DCMS cultures digital report us for three things. We said, we need a much more cohesive vision and articulation literally the words to talk about what we think digital is within a cultural setting. How we use digital to support culture in a particular society, but how that cultural landscape is itself digital and has a digitality within it. Adopting digital within a cultural setting but also adapting to a culture that has a digital inflection to it. So what is that what is that vocabulary what are those set of principles what what what are those those those values that we might work to as a sector in an industry and domain in that context. There are people then that can that can bring us together that can can act as champions and agents and change makers within that space that can kind of galvanize and be ambassadors and be narrators to that to that change that we know many of us are seeking. And finally as well as that vocabulary in those people. What about some practical tools, what about some stuff that can just help organizations to understand where they are and what they might become. Another link we can share with you in the chat is, it's something we help to build. So over the last few years we were part of the team that put together the digital culture compass. So many of you may have come across this if you haven't please we encourage you to go and have a look at it because this is this is what DCM asked for this is this is Arts Council England and National Lottery Heritage Fund, working together on number one, articulating that digital charter so you'll see that digital culture charter in there with its principles it's three areas around being in a person centered and values led and so on and so on. But you'll also see an extraordinary tool. And this is the tracker the digital culture tracker. This is a free to use tool that any cultural organization can use. It enables an individual enables a team enables a director or leader or an entire organization to shine a light in every corner of their organization the main frameworks. You know the main functions the main foundations of their organization and look everywhere and ask a question where is digital. And if digital is here, how mature is that use of digital and that presence of digital. And secondly, do we need digital to be more vibrant more effective, more accessible in this in this particular part of our organization. So working through that digital culture compass. Anybody can build a heat map of their organization but also get a picture of what shape what signature what distinctive signature their organization has and what it might need to be to meet its particular mission. So that culture compass is has been noticed across across Europe we have colleagues in Southeast Asia who particularly interested we know also that in Australia this has been noted and we've used it. We've actually used the tool within our North American work as well. It's a powerful tool. We've helped to build that tool. But we did a few other things as well. And let me share with you a picture of what we've done. We want our outputs from the one by one organization program you know we're about building a digitally confident museum sector actually building a digitally confident cultural industry. We want tools that anybody can use tomorrow. Now one of the things that we has emerged from the research that we've been putting together is I guess three words contextual holistic and purposeful. The reason the project and the program is called one by one is because we are flipping. We are changing we are we are querying that whole previous framework that assumes a very hierarchical top down centralized approach to digital change you know what are the 10 skills that all digital creators must have in the 21st century. What is the five point plan that allows any organization to become digital. For about 10 or 20 years we've been asking the wrong question. We thought there was one set of unified steps that we all needed to take. But of course, the culture sector so varied and in within the context of the museum sector. So many different business models so many different sizes so many different types of collections. So many different national and cultural settings that change the way the organization is funded the agency that it has culturally and politically within its society, the frameworks for professional training and development and so on. As well as the fact that those organizations are on very different points of their digital maturity as well. So once it was always going to be a fallacious question to say how do we do it. Actually what we need to do is to give each organization the means to have its own conversation about its own pathway to digital maturity to help each organization articulate what digital means to it, and for it to decide how digital and where and when, and with whom it needs to be. And one is about helping the cultural industry helping the museum sector to think about how it can adapt to a digital age and adopt digital technology, but doing it on its own terms. So we'll transform the sector, not through one key policy document, but one museum at a time, one cultural organization at a time, one library at a time, one by one. So contextualization contextualization is incredibly important to us you know whenever we're working with an organization as some of the cards I'm going to show you they help they help an individual they help a team they help an organization to understand what their version of digital and digital transformation needs to do. We also asked that through our research what we've learned through my goodness having six postdoc digital fellows embedded in six organizations across the UK for for a year. Museum of London National Army Museum, Derby, Royal Pavilion Brighton and Hove, and good for Cymru National Museum Wales National Museum Scotland. We were able to really understand on our first project that for digital transformation to take place in the organization but any digital change to take place for digital confidence and fluency to grow. It requires the whole organization to lean in. It's about the vision and the leadership and the processes and the culture and supporting staff. So everything we do on one by one is not just about working with the it team or putting in place one particular system, or making sure one exhibition or one project has a digital element, but it's actually looking holistically across the whole organization. And what I'll get into in a moment as well as is is that final word strange word isn't it purposeful. What we mean is it's not doing digital for digital sake. It's, it's not just following a digital path because other organizations are following or it seems to be the template to follow. It's doing digital because it enables you to meet the social goal of your organization. It's always turning to digital tools in a purposeful way, knowing the reason why that collection needs to be digitized that platform online needs to be used that particular experience in that particular cultural setting needs to be on a screen, why that resource or set of tools needs to be offered to the community in a digital format. It's always asking that we work in a purposeful way. We're so good at that in other parts of our cultural heritage cultural glam provision we're always asking now ourselves about how we are socially purposeful and what we do and what we what we design the program we put together what we resource the strategy and direction of our organization. This is about being digitally purposeful. This is about whenever we think of technology putting it in that context as well. Let me take you a little bit more into the detail here. So we, at the end of our first initiative, we were able to come up with this this deck of cards. So this is a very practical way of giving to an organization that we have a beautiful deck of cards that you can have. And it's about gifting something to an organization to a set of individuals which is a great way of, of having a connection with them. It's about having something physical on someone's desk that's always there and not lost as a PDF somewhere. We're not doing something that's defiantly analog and not having something very digital and complex, because actually the people you may be working with. This is about them building the wonderful phrase from Dr. Sophie Frost you know building digital courage about taking their first steps sometimes with digital. So the last thing we want to do is to put something complex and virtual in their hand. It's a pack of playing cards that everybody knows how to play. And also, yeah, it's a pack of playing cards, it's a game, a game builds a magic circle a game is very leveling a game is where we can suspend disbelief a little bit and step out of the every day and try something out whenever we play a game everyone round the table, you know has an equal right to play and could win. So we've noticed how by using these cards, it can be a great way of you know the early career professional and the director, someone with a lot of influence around digital and someone who's maybe new to using digital in the organization. They suddenly will have an equal stake when we've got them sitting here working with these cards. They work like this. The first is about helping you to decide what digital means to you. So a lot of research we looked at 5060 digital literacy models from around the world everything from HSBC to the European Commission to the Scottish Parliament and the Zilla to Barclays. Many organizations many industries and sectors have thought very very hard about what is digital literacy what's what is a digital skill what are things that make up digital. So we noticed two things we noticed first of all, all of these models are a shape, usually a circle, usually four bits of jigsaw puzzle connected together that they're kind of locked and static. So you have to kind of use them in a particular fixed hierarchical sequential way whether it's concentric rings or segments in a, in a pizza box or whatever. What we noticed about them is that they all assume a almost a blooms taxonomy a kind of hierarchy of learning that digital is something to be mastered. They are very sequential, you know, knowing what digital is and identifying it, then developing some fundamental competencies with it, then knowing how to be creative with it, then knowing how to sort of work much more understandably with it, and then knowing how to teach others and lead others, and then at a very high level, how to be reflective and almost dismantle what you know, and think and reflect and evaluate on the whole piece. It's a kind of classic hierarchy of learning, which is fine but it immediately positions digital as something to be known, something to be mastered, something I need to develop something that that I, you know, I need an educational relationship with. That might have been the case. Within our sector, a generation ago, but we're becoming more confident now in thinking about a post digital context where digital is much more normatively within the lives of many of our audiences and users, that it's there embedded again normatively in our day to day operation and facilities management and business model and running of our organizations, and frankly, it's there and present, and very normative within the beats of our everyday lives as well. So there's a different shape for digital literacy that we think our sector needs and it's one that that allows us to just express the different ways that we have relationship with digital in different ways, and this this card system allows you to assemble it in whatever So we say this we say within our culture sector digital is something we use it is a set of pieces of hardware and stuff where it is a set of tools and so on. But it is a process, you know, we are digitizing we are going through digital transformation. It is a thing we have a strategy around the policy around. Within our cultural organizations, they also create digital things, this is quite unique about our organization within, you know, within the sector of leisure and gas and oil and finance and health care and so on. The culture sector, it kind of creates digital things and unique things, but it also collects digital things in the world as well, really quite distinct. So our cultural organizations need to understand the digital world as well. The museum, the library, the archive, other cultural heritage organizations and art organizations then mirrors to society there, there are places in which we express who we are where we come together and reflect on our past that present and our future, where we assemble the artifacts of our history but also try to assemble those those fragments of the world that speak to who we are today in our in our beautiful diversity. So we need to understand where digital sits within that world within that society within that culture within that reality. So the culture industry has a really distinct relationship with digital. It has to use it as tools. It has to go through a process of digital change, but it needs to create and collect digital things. It also needs to have an expertise on what is a digital society, and what is it to be a cultural organization in the digital world today, and how a cultural organization might comment upon the digital age today. We think this is a very distinctive model to help anyone start to think well which bit of digital am I thinking about when I'm thinking about my digital transformation. We work very hard to think about what is what is a skill it's a word that gets you so often but it's really confusing there's lots of synonyms and lots of words kind of get conflated and used at the same time. So we did a lot of work on this and this is what we've distilled it down to actually it's quite simple and it makes a lot of sense really a skill is made up of three things. It's something you do, it's something you achieve, but it's also something you consider. So let me put it another way. My competency is the fact that I know how to use a hammer, and I know how to use nails. So I know how to use those tools that's what I'm competent doing. My capability is that I know how to make a chair, so I can use my competency with tools. I'm capable now of making a chair so both of them are aspects of skill. My literacy is looking at the chair and thinking, I should have made a bench. It's that ability to step back to understand the significance of what I've made, put it in the context of other things I've made, what other people are making, what our chairs what our benches, and then deciding on what I could do next and how my skill therefore might develop. Just by starting to sit with someone and ask them about and their organization about is it your digital competency that you're developing you want to develop, or is it your digital capability, or is it your digital literacy. Is it literally teaching people how to use Twitter and how to set up an account and what to press or how to edit their first tick tol. Or is it about knowing how to successfully run a clever Instagram account that's just tuned right and pitch right. By stepping back and saying, actually, we need to shut down Twitter we need to move to Instagram and noticing noticing where where where a cultural shift needs to take place. These cards very simply help us to start having that conversation. What we also do with everyone is sit down and realize and notice in a way that doesn't usually get noticed when we have conversations about professional development and strategy and change and digital policy and skills development. Who are we talking about. Are we talking about me, you know, the dad, the husband, the father, the person who's going to go home and you know get on the bus and you know, get his phone out in the evening and the person who uses digital at home and and outside outside his place of work. But is someone who's then different when they are at work is it that person is it that person who needs to develop their competency. Are we having a conversation about me and my role as you know librarian as documentation assistant as director and actually what I'm expected to know about digital in my professional role. I may be completely off social media when I'm at home and I don't like doing things on screen, but at work, I may have a responsibility to work with technology. So this is the thing that we have that complexity and it's okay to have that complexity, and that the people in your organization will have that complexity. So let's start being clear then about, you know, which aspect of my identity is it that we're talking about in terms of developing digital. Is it me within my community of practice within research libraries UK that actually it's a conversation about how this network needs to develop its literacy that's what's happening in this hour. As a community of practice as a network that we're reflecting together about what we know about digital. It's very different about me knowing how to do tick tock on my phone personally. But then what about the sector we may step back even more widely and certainly hopefully the conversation in the next half hour will get into this that we, we start to look at each other and say, where should libraries be where should the culture be in terms of its, you know, adaption and adoption of technology. But then there's even us within society there's there's me as a citizen there's me, and there is society itself that the UK, the UK to take one example I know we have a global audience today but you know the situation around the infrastructure and connectivity that national digital skills, the investment the resource that the government policy the local city council policy around digital and digital infrastructure and digital change that will be different to our colleagues that are joining us today from from the US or from Germany or from Ireland and so on. So it's recognizing that we could be having a conversation at that level. I have a few cards on the table, thinking about which aspect of digital. What, what, what do I need to develop and what, what element of me you know what version of me are we talking about can be a very powerful way of starting to have on the one hand, a much more differentiated and precise conversation about digital change. But equally, it allows everyone in the room to have a shared vocabulary, so that we have real kind of clarity and consensus around what these terms mean. And that's why we do it because there are other cards that we use Dr Lauren Vargas one of our lead researchers. She's added to our deck and she's helped us to think then about the emotional dimension that we need the empathetic skills that we need to then help us to to embark on this change particularly around digital leadership. The second project we did was with the US. So we had four museums in the UK, the V&A, the Science Museum group, National Museum Wales, National Museum Scotland, and it was bodied with four museums in the US National Air and Space Museum, the Smithsonian American Art Museum, the American Women's History Museum Initiative at the time, and the Cooper Hewitt Smithsonian Design Museum in New York. And what we were able to do with those four museums, eight museums over over a year here and a half was to reflect upon the skills that they needed as digital leaders in their organization to see through digital change and it enabled us to to use this vocabulary which is about me understanding the importance of collaborative approaches, anticipation, letting go of authority occasionally being mindful, but also about me the importance of the communication culture, assuming that the need to adapt being resilient, and being empathetic I'm sure we can get into in questions afterwards how an inflection to all of those cards was the experience of the pandemic over that year year and a half as well the project started in the spring of 2020. It would be a physical project in the end it became an entirely online project. We were with the eight heads of digital at those eight museums, just in the very month where their executive boards were turning them to them and saying, the museum is closing. We're now pivoting the entire organization to digital. So we were with them at that moment where they were reflecting upon how to lead, not just every day digital change in their organization, but unprecedented systemic and urgent digital transformation. I will share with you in the chat, the, the extraordinary podcast series by Sophie Frost called people change museums. It's quite an emotional listen it's multiple part podcast each episode is about 45 minutes to an hour. And what Sophie does is she spends time in each of those organizations and you hear sometimes live with those heads of digital still working their way through that change, then reflecting upon questions around emotional labor. Questions around cultural identity questions around equity and agency. And one particular episode which is around precarity. We've never had to question that the museum and the library would never be there certainly the museum sector it's like a lighthouse isn't it on a rock in the harbor in the tempest. Yes let's talk about how society will change and how funding will change and how government policies will change and how technology will change and the appetites and expectations of our audiences and cultural change but the museum will be there. That was always a certainty. With a third of museums in America at the time we were doing this research at risk of closure. And in the UK one in 10 museum practitioners about losing their job or being followed and so on. For the first time, we had a sector that could not assume that the museum would be there tomorrow. So precarity was very much a new aspect of these conversations around change you're asking me to adopt and adapt to new technologies you're asking me to think about the future of my museum but I don't know if I will be here in the museum, and I don't know if my museum will be here. And so for the first time we've needed to bring those front and center into our questions around digital change. And I have to say as I start to bring this to a close. We have probably seen that as the most distinctive shift in our project over the last two years. In fact, let me just close my slides at this point. Whereas five years ago, our focus was on technical skills you know what are the skills that we need to do to do our job in the culture sector in the 21st century. The second project with the US museums was very much about how how might we lead transformation and make a case for digital change within our cultural organization. What we started to notice through that year was, we spent a very long time getting to understand the technology we spent a long time mastering the hardware and software. We then spent another decade trying to understand how to write policy how to write strategy how to start to embed that technology not make a unique case for it, but to embed it within the vision and culture and identity of the institution itself. The bit we missed the final bit of that classic triangle of technology and systems, business processes and policies with people with the culture. You can have the most extraordinary 8k screens you can have the fastest of 5G connections you can throw a drone up in the sky and digitize the entire village around you. You can have remarkable photo realistic augmented reality experiences on phones and people's gallery in people's phones within a gallery experience. But if you don't have the staff that feel empowered with agency with curiosity with motivation and creativity and a mindset of adaption and resilience to work with that technology. Then that technology won't deliver it won't meet your ambition as an organization and the expectations of your audience. And so to end with I will just say that the current two things one on where we're going next and what we're doing now the current projects that we're just coming to sort of midpoint action in the US is with the American Alliance of museums is with organizations such as the IMU that work with BIPOC practitioners and technologists across America, so black indigenous and people of color, working in technology. We're working with the National Museum of African American history and culture, and Dorita Williams who works there in the center there on digitization. We're asking now a fewer questions about how to get the technology to work fewer questions about what competencies and capabilities I need fewer questions about how to write a digital strategy and how to write policy and how to make a case to the executive about leading digital change. But most of our research at the moment now is about who's in the room. Is the workplace that we're putting together for digital for our workforce, is it accessible to everyone. Where are the prejudices that are built into the vocabulary and ways of working within our sector. It's a conversation that's taken in an American context they would use this phrase around race and racial injustice within the tech industry and within that vocabulary. It's about women in technology noticing who's not in the room when these questions around digital strategy of being framed. And as a visually impaired person, in particular, our aspect of the project that's important to me is around disability and impairment as well. Are we thinking enough, not just about how the digital provision and programming that we put together for our audiences is accessible to everyone. But to what extent are the expectations we have of staff equally inclusive and equitable and accessible. A final 30 seconds. We are so lucky, because on the back of these five years of these three one by one projects now starting tomorrow with the Canadian project as well, helping us think about skills and leadership and transformation and now equity and inclusion and agency. On the back of all of that, we are now this summer announcing something quite remarkable Lester is 100 years old it is our centenary that we're celebrating last year in this year. And as well as funding 100 PhD scholarships, we're in the process of establishing five new institutes. And by the way, I'm so proud of my organization, we could have put up a monument or put a new building together but actually the investment that Lester's making is in is in 100 people 100 doctoral scholarships fully funded with a stipend across every single one to the university. As well as that we are establishing five new research institutes that speak to the five challenges that we see at the 21st century that we think Lester can make a contribution. They're around access to space Lester's heritage in, in, in leading space technology research. They're around environmental sustainability. They're around precision medicine and the next generation of medicine, other genetic and personalized level. They're about structural chemical biology and understanding the fundamental building blocks of life which again Lester because of its work around genetics and world leading. And the final institute, which I guess is an indication of how important digital is the digital shift is within within not just our sector but the whole of society. The final institute isn't is an institute for digital culture. And we have an opportunity of this institute and we have an opportunity over these next few months and years to design a 21st century research institute from scratch. And this is my offer to RL UK. I get to decline, all the templates, all the workbooks that say this is how an institute works. I'm being asked and encouraged to be audaciously different to decline the usual categories I have no legacy systems. I get to get to build the team from scratch. I get to design the organization from scratch. I get to work out a different set of interactions and an output some ways in which we may be in the sector be in the world and be with our domain. So I'm leaving, leaving that there to say to RL UK. I can't wait to start the conversation with all of you about how I can build a partnership with you. A new institute for digital culture, not an institute that writes abstractly and he said terrifically about culture and digital and puts that work on a shelf or behind the paywall, but an institute for the culture sector. What does that collaborative work action based strategically intelligent, we've got an opportunity now to institutionalize and create a stable platform for all that work we've been working on over the last few years. Thank you for your time today, and I'm looking forward to the conversation continuing and you carrying on on this adventure with us. That was incredible, amazingly inspiring. And I don't think we've ever finished with such an exciting invitation to the community. So I hope this is something colleagues will spend a few moments thinking about and posing some questions to Ross about how we as academic and research libraries both in the UK and beyond can contribute to this can add our experiences and hopes and expectations and bring those to these conversations so please spend a few moments, start putting questions into chat, sorry into Q&A, and also feel free to raise your virtual hands as well if you'd like to ask a question verbally to Ross. Just to start things out though, I think what was so exciting with obviously that repeated emphasis on people. And we've touched on this in some of the seminars previously that actually people are the most important element and then technology has frequently clouded that. One of the things that you mentioned repeatedly was who's in the room. And the obviously the one by one project has been projects have been going on from 2017 they've crossed geographies across the pandemic. And one of the things that I think we've all reflected on during the COVID-19 period is issues of digital poverty of digital inequality of digital exclusion. And the roles of museums, libraries and archives as digital and social infrastructure within their communities and their geographies and nations. So I just wanted to start, are you able to reflect on that a little further in terms of who's in the room, and some of your experiences and reflections over the length of these three very diverse and important projects around those issues of digital exclusion and the role that cultural institutions can play in combating that. It's fundamental to all of this, you know, we, we've probably had some very broad brushed generalized discussions in the past and certainly my goodness, you know, 20 30 years ago when libraries and museums were first tiptoeing on to the web in the 90s and organizations had to start reflecting upon how they use that new opportunities fund or the, you know, the people's network money and not digi and all of those funding, you know, 200 million pounds worth of government funding from the new labor government that went into the library and museum and culture sector, you know, in that in that five year period after, you know, may, may 97. And we asked very generalized questions about, you know, who would be online and who wouldn't be online and we know it's, it's much more subtle than that. In terms of the fault lines around the digital divide or as you say digital poverty and certainly our colleagues in America in America are talking about it today. Unfortunately, because we wouldn't have asked for it this way, it took the pandemic for us to slow down and to see the subtle contours of where those gaps and those points of exclusion and those points of poverty and divide actually are the research that the HRC has been and some of the emergency funding that's come out of Arts Council England as well but particularly those pieces of research from the HRC that have helped to think about who has access to technology and what assumptions can any organization make around technology when, when, you know, designing its provision. It took the pandemic for us to notice that I'm thinking of the work of yes and leave Avila here in the school and museum studies and her very careful thoughtful consideration of educational resources you know what can schools assume in terms of the the technological opportunities that people have around them and therefore what can cultural organizations assume that the kids will have access to. It's not as simple as saying, we put our resources online, you know we put lesson plans online or we started to stream x y and z. If it's a family that doesn't have a laptop at home doesn't want to pay the tariff. There's a phone that doesn't have that particular capability then that content suddenly excluded. In the US context, the work of Stephanie Cunningham and I would encourage everyone to look at museum QHUE. Her extraordinary work. She's doing a mapping project across New York City at the moment and she was sharing the findings of our last one by one project management board. She's really understanding not just the digital capability and provision of various arts and cultural organizations across New York and noticing noticing the differences there. She's starting to evidence and build the data that explains where those points of poverty and divide and exclusion are within the community itself. So that's our next job now. Our next job is not only to break that generalization down and start to notice this in a more nuanced way. So we've got Stephanie Cunningham's doing a museum QHUE which is now to start building the evidence so we can go to the funders. We can go to policymakers and we can go to, you know, research grant boards and say, this is the point of need we have the evidence now this is what needs to be addressed. It took a pandemic, but at least now we can see where those divisions and inequalities are. Thank you Ross and I think those are some of the reflections that we've had at some of the previous seminars as well it did take a pandemic but now now this is this is time to really to make that change. We've got some questions coming in thank you for posting these and please keep them coming in so first ones from from Jill. This is quite a general question but it's about the potential for cross sector collaborations. We've got a call today we've got museums we've got archives we've got libraries. So, it's a big question but what the potential is particularly using some of the one by one models and the cards to support cross sector collaboration between archives libraries and museums using the one by one model. So, please, let's talk about it let's make this happen you know I know just in the preparation for today and the conversation with, you know, the research library UK team and we've already just started to notice potential. There is, we see this quite a lot across glam don't we know we notice it's almost forgive the geeky reference now but the multiverse that we live in that we are in these parallel universes where we are. We have the same questions around what to digitize how to make accessible how to develop the digital skills of our staff, how to respond to digital changes within society and ensuring that we're relevant within that context, how to have a professional development framework that can you know see someone through their career and always know, making sure that they're resourced around what they need to develop digitally. There is touch points digitally that we're making with our leaders users, you know, customers learners and so on. We are having the same conversations, and partly we are affected by the National Archives, you know, Arts Council. The National Heritage National Lottery Heritage Fund kind of silos that may that don't always put us in the same room, even the way perhaps you know the parts of Arts Council England to take an English example may look in one direction in a UK context, and libraries and another you know extraordinary the national treasure that is Nick Paul, leading Syllip, you know, doing extraordinary things even raising a question in the last 72 hours about should we have a research platform for for libraries, yes you should and less let's do it together. I guess what I'm saying in a roundabout way is that structurally strategically, you know, we risk being kind of siloed. What we need to do is to mobilize as a workforce and mobilize as a sector and say it's time to start sharing what we've designed on one by one it came from the museum sector need. The digital culture compass is for everyone and has been designed that way it works for theater it works for ballet it works for dance. It works for libraries it works for archives but equally the cards we've put together equally the care and calm framework that Lauren Vargas has put together equally that key word breakdown of agency and precarity and emotional labor and the work that Sophie Frost is doing. So we have to cross the culture sector which is why our new Institute is looking exactly right across in that environment. I think it's on us to start convening and start assembling and working at how we can now bring our archive colleagues, our library colleagues and our museum and heritage colleagues together in the same room and have these questions. Otherwise, there is a significant risk that we're inventing very similar things in our parallel universes, and it's probably time that we should just collapse them into one universe to really stretch the Doctor Strange metaphor. And guess what I watched with my kids recently. No prizes. I'm going to try and squeeze two questions in we've got to go about five minutes. And was a fantastic question question the first one from Kristen, which is she's curious in terms of how the one by one methodology in the projects it's supported addresses issues of trust between people and institutions, employees and staff and institutions. So thinking about addressing, how addressing trust can help create a space that people who've been excluded in the past can feel safe to join. So I think it's a fantastic, fantastic question so real question about trust there. Oh, thank you so who was the question from that was from Kristen Kristen thank you so much for that. It's important to us. I just keep saying those three words trust respect and empathy. If you can just empathize with those around you and just pause in any meeting and any project at any moment when you're putting a strategy together and just start to see from those different perspectives, you'll start to respect the fact that people have different roles and responsibilities and different reasons and motivations to be part of what you're putting together. And that's, and if you can articulate that and that's noticed you can start building that trust what we do on one by one is a few things I think three things I would say Kristen first of all, we do things slowly. I think our projects take two years, you know the first project took three years, the smash and grab quick snapshots. So if we have interviewed 200 people, we can build a pie charts here are our findings. You know, it's questionable in terms of the rigor and it's questionable in terms of the nuance and subtlety it's showing but it's no way to build trust as well so we work really hard we have a thing called the digital commons which is our mighty networks online platform where, where we talk to each other, you know we share our hopes and fears we act like a community of practice and we have a, of a cabaret a set of tasks and I said of ambitions that we share. We support each other we try and bring that emotional intelligence to work and we know we think hard about diverse inclusion, equity and accessibility and we make sure that that is that's prominent and articulated so everyone can bring the whole selves to work. We think we also ensure as well as doing things slowly that we, we involve all partners in the project by design, this is not universities conceiving a project and then asking a cultural organization to be an object of scrutiny or simply to be a venue, or a partner but in a very contained way. All of the museums I've referred to from Cooper Hewitt to science museum from and good for comery to the American women's history initiative. They were in the room when we were designing the project and responding to the needs so they have a stake, they are invested, and they are co designers on this. And finally Chris and I would say as well as doing things slowly and carefully and showing that that respect and empathy, and genuinely and authentically partnering with people not superficially partnering and using their venues and their and their resources. But just every single day, working at that culture I know it sounds glib and it sounds idealistic but it's what we do every single email every conversation every meeting, every discussion like this. It's actually bringing your whole self being empathetic and building a culture, hopefully even in this hour we've had together where you're trusted because you're being very honest you've been very open. There's no clarity about where you want to go, and hopefully people can trust, trust you and be with you consequently. So, take it slow, share, and never stop contributing. I think that that real sincere sincere investments in people, and not the fetishization of technology, as we've been at the core of what you've been saying that touches on the question that we had from from one of our colleagues beardry. So I'm just going to give one final question now so never almost out of time and that's from Steve, and that's in terms of how some of the museums that you've worked with have had to balance the operational side of technology use such as catalogs and environmental control and something with that more innovative, thoughtful and creative use digital exhibitions and extended realities. Does this come up in your discussions at all that that that balance between that operational side and the innovative side in inverted commas because I know there can be very innovative sides as well in terms of catalogs and other things. Does that come up in terms of attention or a complementarity or how does that feature. Just one question Steve, yes it does and it's ever present and aware of time I'll give you a succinct answer. It was there when we were working with the Museum of London who were, you know, obviously going through the huge changes they're going through at the moment, on the one hand, it was about supporting a new, you know, a directorate team to help them where they may head with digital at the same time of just putting in place some mechanisms for getting content to work for museums. It was working with National Museum Scotland, and on the one hand again, you know, fantastic Bob Causton, head of digital there, Cirxies Mazda the amazing team that they have with their ambition and their reach and their sense of responsibility across the museums in Scotland. Being, you know, helping them with that kind of articulation of where they might be but at the same time, helping them to work with their HR department and their new media department to change three questions on the annual staff appraisal form so that every member of staff got a conversation or the plan was to have a conversation about about digital skills as well. You know, that organization, absolutely using design they are a design museum so the idea is they're saying let's use a design idiom to therefore help us think about what digital is within our museum and the whole Smithsonian so this the place you go in the Smithsonian to take a design mindset to how you might think about your audiences and experience and engagement because of the brilliant work of Carolyn Royston there. Amazing innovative inventive you know then you interaction lab, working with Microsoft, my goodness mind blowing. But at the same time, the famous Cooper Hewitt pen that was introduced you know 510 years ago, needing to sunset that huge Bloomberg philanthropic investment captain investment one off. And now just thinking how do we keep the screens on. What is it that someone does and touches and presses when they come into the museum now. In all of those cases, our conversation around building digital confidence, taking a contextual holistic purposeful approach. It was always about both. And you know, a quick line Steve would say, final 10 seconds would be, let's not underestimate the value of pace layering. You know, when you need to start categorizing you know what what's my priority list here. Get that that those those systems of record the stuff that needs to happen to keep the lights on. Identify what those projects are, they can be in some way low risk but they could be high investment. There is those those that pace layer which is going to systems of differentiation those things that you're bringing in there may be a little bit different. You know you have got an interactive table in that gallery. Again, the cost is high but not so much as the as the big systems, but actually you're starting to get a little bit risky because it's new to you or you're still working out whether this is important in your sector. The higher pace level those pace layer that that those systems of invention. Those are the not always expensive, but they're high risk and they may fail. It's just starting to look at your list of projects and just differentiating even on those levels of record differentiation and invention and seeing the risk is different. It may be different and the investment might be different, even just having those conversations with people and then saying, right, what are the competencies capabilities and literacies, who's involved, and what aspect of digital is it that you need in each of those layers. We're just breaking it down I can see the table of cards emerging in front of this mat. And I think looking for the digital I think the digital compass certainly I recommend everyone to go and have a look at that it's something we've looked at previously and I think it just making those those, you know, small changes and that litmus test across your organization to see where digital can be. I think it's them as a really incredible resource so I urge everyone to go and have a look at that.