Page 120 - AC/E's Digital Culture Annual Report 2015

Cultural business models on the Internet120using analytics technology from IBM40 to com- bine and analyse admissions, food, merchandise and membership data in real time in order to understand its visitors better, and to personalise their experiences in a way that encourages repeat attendances, and improves fund-raising. One opportunity going forward is to use Near Field Communication41 (NFC) data to obtain detailed information about visitors “journey” through a museum, which can be used to personalise and improve their experience.The Unusual Suspects42 project also highlights how Big Data can help Arts and Cultural organisations segment and profile audiences more effectively. Unusual Suspects is a coalition of 9 Arts and Cultural institutions in Newcastle covering a wide range of cultural forms, from modern art to cinema and museums to theatre, who are pooling their data into a “Big Data commons” which will be analysed to identify infrequent visitors who could be encouragedto participate more actively in local Arts and Culture, and also to identify opportunities for cross-promotion between the organisations participating in the project.c) Discovery: Many Arts and Cultural organ- isations are going beyond the use of data to improve the efficiency of their operations, and bringing it into the development of their social media strategy and wider strategic direction (over 4 in 10 of those surveyed by Nesta do), as well as informing the development and commissioning of creative artworks, events and exhibitions (a quarter are using data this way).Audience Finder43 is an example of a data platform that can support these discoveryactivities. It has been set up by the Audiences Agency,44 a not-for-profit consultancy that supports audience development in the English arts and cultural sector. Audience Finder provides those organisations who join the platform (and contribute their data) with access to standardised information about audiences across England – including their location, their behaviours and their attitudes – through a variety of data visualisation tools and dashboards that they can use to benchmark themselves against other organisations, and generate “area profiles” they can use to identify new opportu- nities to promote their work. Audience Finderis currently being augmented through the Arts Data Impact45 project, which will bring other open datasets into Audience Finder, and develop an API which can be used by other organisations to tap into its data.Understanding and measuring impacts can help target investment on activities that create higher public value.Audience Finder data is also being used to improve our understanding of the impact of Digital R&D in the arts. A recent statistical analysis of 12 million ticket sales from per- forming arts organisations46 in England shows that the NT Live digital theatre broadcasts that I mentioned before generated a “spillover” effect by increasing the numbers of people who go to see other arts performances in local venues, instead of taking audiences away from those venues. Understanding and measuring these impacts can help Arts and Cultural organisations and funders target their innova-Using data to create value in the arts and cultural sector