To celebrate their tenth birthday, our friends and their bright minds over at Shine Communications have just released a great new book, ‘Embrace the Chaos’ with ex-editor of The Face, Richard Benson. In it, they aim to set out some of the trends that will and won’t be influencing us in 2009, providing an insider’s guide to essential buzzwords for today and tomorrow.
Why do we like it so much? Because they’ve managed to cram 100 trends or maybe-trends into bitesize user-friendly chunks and, in doing so, provide a great source of inspiration for generating new opportunities for cultural entrepreneurship. It makes it easy to access thinking from outside the culture sector and in turn find ways to apply it, inside the sector.
We recommend that you order a copy or view it online at Shine’s site, and use it as the basis for a few hours reflecting on your own culture institution. Take it as a starting point for ideas and brainstorming, providing 100 interesting angles on our evolving consumer world. Explore how each of the trends could have an influence on your institution’s business model and strategy, on how you operate day-to-day, or on how you attract consumers. In particular, spend some time focussing on the opportunities and new business streams that each of these trends present.
Lectern fever
As an example, take #36: Lectern Fever. This involves a surge of public interest in simple talks at an art gallery. It could, says Shine, be part of a reaction against social networking and the virtual world.
What do we do with this? Well, some culture professionals reading this could see it as a confirmation that they’re doing the right thing anyway – the ‘build the shop and they’ll come eventually, even if demand is cyclical’ argument. I’d be tempted to read this not as a ‘content’ trend, but as a ‘marketing’ trend. It ties into the wider renunciation of slick and stylish experiences, in an attempt to re-engage with what is ‘real’ and not ‘manufactured’. The issues coming out of this – for me at least – are along the lines of:
- Since I already have these ‘simple gallery/museum talks’ at my disposable…
- …I need to get word out, and increase the marketing of them…
- …and ensure I have the right speakers/topics…
- …without making the communications collateral too slick…
- …or too ‘ironic’ (and thereby damage our reputation)…
- …creating a sense of ‘discovering’ or ‘unearthing’ something very ‘natural’ that others may not know about…
- …targeted at interesting new types of users – perhaps early adopters?…
- …which involves really creative communications devices – flyers just won’t cut it…
- …and providing a great experience on the night…
- …and charge a decent entry price…
- …and perhaps even create a whole new sub-brand aimed at this group…
It may or may not work; it may not be radically different from what I already do. I may be more interested in following up my ideas around ‘middle youth’ or ‘the fifty quid bloke’ anyway. Either way, I’ve got one more opportunity in my to-do list than I had ten minutes ago.
