Page 118 - AC/E's Digital Culture Annual Report 2015

Cultural business models on the Internet118users to engage with. 26% publish stand- alone digital exhibitions, and more than half receive over 1,000 monthly unique visitors to their website.• Transaction data: Almost half of the Arts and Cultural organisations surveyed sell tickets online, 39% accept donations online, and 38% sell other products and merchandise online.• Social media and social network data: 9 in 10 have a social media presence. 50% of these organisations have over a thousand followers in Twitter, and 40% have over a thousand ‘fans’ in Facebook.• Archival data: Many museums, libraries and galleries have a wealth of information about their own collections. 57% of the organisations Nesta surveyed are digitising their collections and archives.Big data can provide the cultural sector with opportunities if culture organisations pool their data.Although these data sources are rich and diverse, very rarely will they “add up” to Big Data, at least in terms of their volume. While, as US economist Michael Rushton rightfully points out, the Arts and Cultural sector should avoid getting obsessed with Big Data at the expense of other important goals,28 it is also true that there may be some Big Data opportunities lying ahead for the sector, especially if groups of arts and cultural organisations pool their data together.The fact that many of these organisations are not motivated by profit can make it easier for them to do this better than commercial organisations worried about sharing valuable data with their competitors. I will provide below some examples of how this data pooling experiments are happening already.In any case, the question at the end of the day is not so much whether Big Data is possible or not in the Arts and Cultural sector, but whether data (big or small) can be useful for solving important problems for the sector. For example:Can data help to measure the impacts of Arts and Culture better, providing a stronger ratio- nale for any public or philanthropic funding received by organisations in the sector?Can data help Arts and Cultural organisations with a variety of funding mixes and missions behave more economically, innovatively and transparently, deploy their resources more efficiently, and identify new opportunities faster?Can data even become a source of inspiration and new ideas that drives the creative and innovative activities in the sector?I believe that data can make a critical contribu- tion in all of these areas.As before, I explore how this is happening, drawing on the activities of English Arts and Cultural organisations recently surveyed by Nesta, as well as practical examples of innova- tions taking place in this space:Using data to create value in the arts and cultural sector