Management of the empty museum

Five things you can do to deal with the forced closure of your institution right away

As it was meant to be.

What many underestimated was actually the tip of an iceberg that ripped through our lives forever.

And today, two weeks after my stance, I am even more convinced of one thing: we have not seen anything yet.

In fact, the crisis that will follow will be worse than any we have seen to date: in fact, unlike the financial crisis of 2008, the current one is more complicated, unpredictable, and “uncontrollable” (when I am finishing revising the article, the director of the World Health Organization Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, has just confirmed for COVID-19 the level of a pandemic).

Net of these considerations, the road not to take is that of despair and resignation.

What to do in such a scenario?

We must lay the foundation for the “survival” of culture by rethinking the future immediately.

My grandmother used to say:

“If you don’t propose solutions, you are part of the problem.”

Thus, I decided to collect in this article, in a kind of symbolic letter addressed to those who run an institution, 5 useful tips in order to proper management of the empty museum.

You don’t have to think then “how” you can do to follow these tips but think about “how many” of these operations you are still not doing.

Focus on the two or three functional ideas for your museum that, if implemented, will give you a huge advantage once you emerge from the crisis.

Let’s start.

1. If you don’t have the numbers, you don’t know where to go

In times of recession, turnover and cash levels always fall faster than expenditures. That is why it is essential to do a thorough cost control immediately.

To understand where (and how much) you can actually save, you must first start inidentifying the expenditures incurred during the year (correct would be to take a broader time frame for a more detailed report but let’s start with the last 12 months).

If you are unfamiliar with numbers, comparing with employees and contractors might help you by showing you where the main losses of time and/or money occur in their respective areas (purchasing costs, vendor relations, and traditional communication costs are usually the most touted).

The key is not to get caught off guard: cut where you can now to avoid potentially more painful consequences in the future.

2. Rethink the strategy

Use the time you have recovered with the empty facility to re-plan strategic activities for your museum.

In order you must:

• check that there are no marketing campaigns active (it sounds trivial but you don’t know how many times I see sponsored posts of places and locations that are closed but keep running on my facebook wall);
• fix the database of contacts. How many visitors’ emails (and cell phone numbers) would need to be dusted off and reused?
• prepare the content for the whole online part (photos, blog articles, social posts, …) and for offline promotion (flyers, brochures, catalogs, newspaper releases, …)..;
• do the translations;
• update the material for teaching;
• order the priorities. Are there stopped projects that would be worth reactivating? Are there any active ones that would be worth reviving and revising instead?

The principle that should guide you is that of “Sow now to reap later.”.

3. Innova

There are two kinds of innovation: outward and inward.

Outward

The closure of the museum brings a new awareness: the need arises to implement a part of first contact with our visitor, from offline (normally in fact it takes place on site, inside the museum) to online, in order to educate him offering as much information as possible (and thus acquire contact data of the same).

Blogging, social, mailing, PR, automation, … are tactics that when put together, clearly coordinated, based on strong positioning and knowledge of audiences and competitors, ensure the success of the strategy.

But don’t stop at that.

Ask yourself “How can I replace the guided tour that I cannot currently offer?”. Many museums are these days competing in telling the with videos and daily pills their collections. Ideal, however, would be to have available a digital solution, so that content can be entered in real time that the visitor will then find available.

Inward

What you need to import is to create and adapt systems, from the simplest to the most complex.

From data in the cloud (to allow employees to access information and documents as if they were in a museum), to email, through communication between employees, all the way to tracking of work (tasks, project-hours, …).

I will not go into specifics as the specialist in this area is my partner Marco. In the last week he has been giving a webinar to entrepreneurs and managers, unveiling our business know-how, giving advice on software and tools that we have selected over the years to work best.

I recommend you read a detailed summary HERE.

4. Work on your team

If there are no visitors in the museum why not take the opportunity to work with the team?

You can use this time to do specific sessions of internal training. Try to think of how many areas would need updating:

• methods of reception;
• Ways and routes of the guided tour;
• customer acquisition;
• mode of sale;
• merchandise promotion.

Not only that.

With the University closed, many students will be at home. Is there a chance to “work” with some of them? Why not coordinate him or her in the implementation of more operational work?

Show yourself to be proactive toward your team. You will need it during this stressful time.

5. Don’t complain

Pardon my frankness, but I can’t stand people who complain all the time.

What happened is now the past. The damage has been done.

It is not your fault.

Feeling sorry for yourself because your museum had to close or because we are forced to stay indoors because of this unprecedented situation, it won’t do any good.

Sooner or later he will recover

I would love to dissolve the Coronavirus and all its consequences by simply snapping my fingers like IronMan.

But it is not feasible.

Nor will these 5 tips decree with mathematical certainty your museum’s survival through this crisis. Too many variables are open.

However, I believe that these due precautions your institution can accelerate the recovery once the emergency is over, also depending on the changing habits of visitors.

In the book Every Damn Museum, talking about long-term planning, I emphasized that, anticipating the future as much as possible is crucial in order to ensure that the potential guest has as many visit options as possible.

Today, the speed with which our lives are changing (and will change) cannot and must not compromise this goal.