Nancy Proctor and digital transformation in museums

On Wednesday 17 May (7.30 pm) the  third MtMG event of 2017will take place featuring Nancy Proctor who will give a high-cultural innovation lecture. Thanks to the collaboration with MIBACT Segretariato Regionale della Lombardia, Palazzo Litta (corso Magenta 24) will be the outstanding location for this event on digital transformation for museums and cultural heritage.

Proctor is the Director of MuseWeb Foundation, a U.S. non-profit organisation fostering the adoption of new business models, inclusive communication strategies and more and more transparent technologies in those institutions whose task is protecting and disseminating culture. Over the past 20 years she led the Digital section of the Baltimore Museum of Art and Smithsonian Institution, comprising of 19 museums and several research centres between Washington and New York.

Her work aims at mobilising and involving new audiences by overcoming the boundaries between physical and virtual life. Proctor does not believe digitisation to be the solution for all evils afflicting cultural institutions, as it appears clearly in an image taken from a presentation of hers from some time ago. After all, digital transformation falls into a broader effort to redesign the museum business model.

Without upsetting the mission to preserve and restore for which museums were originally invented, it is now essential to align their communication and exhibition reach to current creative languages. Proctor goes beyond it and, with Museweb, envisaged a full “reprogramming” of museums (and cultural heritage more generally) turning them into something similar to start-ups: nimble, interactive and mindful of entrepreneurial criteria.

For a few months Meet the Media Guru has been involved in this matter, most specifically by becoming a part of theObservatory on Digital Innovation applied to Cultural Heritage and Activitiesof Milan Polytechnic University, as summarised in this short video featuring our Director, Maria Grazia Mattei.

During the MtMG event, Nancy Proctor will present a number of international case histories and outline the innovation processes and ways in which change was accomplished.Register for the 17 May event here. Free admission upon registration.