This document discusses opportunities for managers to intentionally innovate projects at museums. It outlines four opportunities: 1) treating new projects as experiments, 2) empowering staff as experience designers, 3) building digital and museum literacy into projects, and 4) creating a workplace culture. It also presents five "useful dialectics" to consider when innovating projects: transformation vs. change, network vs. hierarchy, design vs. tradition, literacy vs. fluency, and culture vs. values. The document provides discussion on each of these topics and questions for managers to ask themselves to guide intentional innovation on new projects.

2. PUSHING AT THE MARGINS:
INTENTIONAL INNOVATION FOR MANAGERS
Ed Rodley
Peabody Essex Museum

3. 4 OPPORTUNITIES TO INNOVATE
BEFORE YOU BEGIN
1. Encourage managers to treat new
projects as opportunities to experiment,
and do it as the norm, not the exception.
2. Empower staff to design their design
processes (see themselves as experience
designers) rather than blindly perpetuating
older processes.
3. Build digital literacy and museum literacy
learning processes & outcomes into
projects.
4. Create the workplace culture we want to
live and work in.
New projects can be opportunities
to:

4. 5 DIALECTICS TO
CONSIDER
1. Transformation vs. change
2. Design vs. tradition
3. Hierarchy vs. network
4. Literacy vs. fluency
5. Culture vs. values

5. LOOKING AT NEW PROJECTS AS
OPPORTUNITIES TO EXPERIMENT

6. USEFUL DIALECTIC #1:
TRANSFORMATION VS. CHANGE

7. TRANSFORMATION VS. CHANGE
“Doing things differently involves
a high degree of discomfort,
which is why most of us prefer
not to.”
Marcia Tucker

8. HOW WOULD PIAGET
DESCRIBE YOUR PROJECT?
Assimilation
• involves us remaining mostly the same
with the addition of a new bit of
knowledge.
Accomodation
• an admission and understanding that we
have changed. New knowledge reorients
whole system.
= Change? =Transformation?

9. USEFUL DIALECTIC #2:
NETWORK VS. HIERARCHY

10. NETWORK VS. HIERARCHY
“The shift from hierarchical
organizational structures to
networked ones is the
dominant theme of the
current era.”
Catherine Bracy

11. WHAT KIND OF RELATIONSHIPS DO
YOU WANT TO BUILD?
Hierarchical
• Power or status resides in a person’s
rank.
Rhizomatic
• Power resides in the density of
connections at a given node

12. EMPOWERING STAFF TO THINK
LIKE EXPERIENCE DESIGNERS

13. USEFUL DIALECTIC #3:
DESIGN VS.TRADITION

14. DESIGN VS. TRADITION
“The opposite of design is tradition.”
Johanna Koljonen

15. DESIGNING EXPERIENCES
• Team meetings are magic circles &
should empower people to temporarily
try on new roles.
• Innovate by making active choices
• Challenging elements of traditions to solve
a problem
• What are the designable surfaces?
• EVERYTHING.

16. The Magic Circle of Experience Design
Not this…
The thing
you’re
designing

17. Our culture
Their experience
The thing
you’re
designing
Participants’
journey
expectations reflection memory

18. BUILDING DIGITAL LITERACY

19. USEFUL DIALECTIC #4:
LITERACY VS. FLUENCY

20. LITERACY VS. FLUENCY
Digital literacy “...is essential to improving technical
infrastructure and workflows. Digital literacy needs to be
achieved across the board, especially in the context of
museum leadership.”
The New Media Consortium
“Horizon Report: 2016 Museum Edition”

21. WHAT DOES INCREASED
DIGITAL LITERACY LOOK
LIKE @PEM?
Ø Working in digital spaces – Social media
platforms,Wikipedia, Google Art Project
Ø Professional development –Vital for staff to
understand enough about the digital realm to
make informed decisions
Ø Cultural transformation – Incorporating digital in
existing processes rather than developing
separate ones.
Ø Staff empowerment – Opportunity for staff to
demonstrate digital skills they have

22. BUILDING LITERACYDIGITAL
MUSEUM

23. CREATING THE WORKPLACE
CULTURE YOU WANT

24. USEFUL DIALECTIC #5:
CULTURE VS.VALUES

25. CULTURE VS. VALUES
“Values have a tendency to be
bullshit.”
Jan Gunnarson
“Culture is the manifestation
of values.”

26. CULTURE VS. VALUES
“Culture eats strategy for breakfast.”
Peter Drucker

27. CULTURE VS. VALUES
“A digital culture will get you
through a time without a digital
strategy much more than a digital
strategy will get you through a
time without a digital culture”
Nick Poole

28. • Lack of staff time
• Lack of funding
• Lack of technical skills
• Shifting management thinking away
from fixed cost projects (theatre) to a
program of ongoing development
(gardening)
WHAT ARE THE OBSTACLES?WHAT ARE THE OBSTACLES?

29. WHAT ARE THE OBSTACLES?
“The digital tools have to be handled
by wise and intelligent people.They
cannot be left into the hands of
techies, who will focus on the latest
craze.”
Philippe de Montebello

30. 5 QUESTIONS TO ASK
YOURSELF
1. Should this project aim to be
transformational or bring about more
discrete change?
2. To what extent should this project
design its own process, or use
traditional ones?
3. Should this project be structured to
create/support a network of actors, or
a hierarchy?
4. How should this project be increasing
professional literacy, or increasing
fluency? Or both?
5. How should this project create culture
that actually manifests (or creates)
values we support?

31. IN CONCLUSION
"Creating culture is always more
rewarding than consuming it.”
Mihaly Csikszentmihályi

32. Thanks!
• Ed Rodley
• ed_rodley@pem.org
• @erodley