What am I doing and learning through my Clore Fellowship?

Thanks to Clore, I now know my sitzproben from my ODR (thanks Opera North); I have spent time behind the scenes finding out how the world’s leading art museum does things;  I’ve enjoyed masterclasses with Adrian Ellis, Michael Kaiser Wolff Ollins and some of the UK’s leading fundraisers and arts leaders; talked ‘value’ with John Holden; become an accredited coach and I’ve also discovered a real talent for karaoke.

I’ve enjoyed (and occasionally endured) a lot of new and wonderful experiences as part of my Fellowship.

Nine months into my eighteen-month Fellowship, and as I look forward to the final ‘core’ component of the Fellowship at the end of this month (a two-week residential course at Bore Place organic farm near Sevenoaks), I’ve been reflecting on what I’ve done and learnt so far – and thinking about my priorities for the final few months.

Highlights of the Fellowship so far

I’ve had time (and a budget) to attend more talks, seminars and conferences than usual – including the excellent Museum Next conference in Oct 2009 led by Nina Simon (author of the fabulous Participatory Museum), the MMM ERA 21 series of seminars around UK (on funding, thriving on less and whether we have too many buildings), and I’m looking forward to the Arts Marketing Association conference in Leeds in July.

Tate is the most successful (and popular) art museum in the world and I’ve been fortunate to have various opportunities to find out more about this organisation including shadowing Andrea Nixon (Executive Director of Tate Liverpool) over several weeks last year and shadowing my mentor Sir Nicholas Serota (Director of Tate since 1988).  I’ve also met and spoken with many other Tate staff based around the UK and been deeply impressed by their approach to engaging with audiences – whether through their learning, marketing, visitor services or online activity.

Opera North generously welcomed me on secondment during January – early March and I enjoyed the opportunity to find out more about opera and the business model for a touring performing arts company through working with them on reviewing their planning processes.

There are two issues which I’ve been keenly exploring during the Fellowship to date. Firstly, I’ve been trying to work out what kind of role I’d like to take on next. Shadowing Andrea gave me a better understanding of the role of Executive Director – a role commonly found in performing arts companies but less so in the visual arts sector.

The other key ‘issue’ that’s been at the heart of much of my activity since the autumn has been the question of how we can engage more effectively with audiences and what this means for how we run galleries and museums. Allied to this, I contributed to a online community reviewing a book on this subject (primarily to experience being a participant) and I wrote an article on this subject which is due to be published by NESTA next month.

Over eight days in Spring I took part in the Relational Dynamics coaching course, run by Deb Barnard and Rivca Rubin. I learnt some fantastic skills and approaches which will have a big impact on my professional life for years to come – I’ve explained more about this here. If you’re interesting in developing your skills working with others I’d strongly recommend considering this course.

A lot of the learning I’ve been doing is quite specific to me, my working style, and what I want to get from my professional life and I won’t bore you with that – suffice to say the Fellowship has been extremely useful in clarifying these issues. Most critically for me it’s been a period when I’ve experimented with different working patterns (including working full-time again for the first time since having kids and traveling a lot for work). I’ve also reflected a lot about what works for me and my family – but also about wider cultural issues in the arts sector which contribute to making it a difficult place for those of us with caring responsibilities – be those elderly parents or children.

So what’s next?

I’m looking forward to spending a bit of time at the end of June planning the second half of my Fellowship in more detail, but in broad terms my plans are:

Research

Over the next month I’ll be finalising my research topic – and approach – but I plan to focus on user-engagement in galleries and art museums, perhaps looking at the leadership and management issues that arise around this way of work, or business model implications.

I’ll be visiting galleries and museums around the UK and further afield to find out how they are approaching this issue – if you’ve got any suggestions about where to go I’d love to hear from you.

I’m also looking to brush up my research skills, including technology skills around collaborative research, interviews etc – so suggestions about how I could do this would be really welcome.

Mini-secondments

I’d love to find out more about how organisations are using audience intelligence to shape their activities and plans – and particularly how technology is enabling this – so I’m looking for places where  I might be able to shadow or undertake a short secondment in the autumn.

Facilitation

Building on the coaching course I undertook, I’m interested in developing a better understanding of facilitation techniques. There’s a two-day course I’m considering at Henley Business School in November, although I’m open to other ideas.

Putting down roots

Despite living in Yorkshire now for three years, I still mainly work in London. I’d like this to change and so I’m trying to make more connections in this part of the world and understand better the challenges facing arts organisations working in this region.