Prioritise your wish list
From your brainstorm write-up and other excises that you might have completed in your diagnostic, you will have a number of IT and digital development aspirations under broad headings. You might have prototyped or storyboarded some of the ideas. Highlight developments that are interrelated, such as database development or that cross headings, such as digital content development for mobile. These developments should be prioritised as strategic.
What others stand out as being essential for getting your organisation or business up to speed? Also prioritise these.
Note whether the development is:
- Short, medium, or long term?
- High priority or low priority?
(e.g. a poor internet connection is short term but high priority; whereas a new online ticketing system may be high priority but long term. Software upgrades might be low priority mid term – “it’d be nice/easier to have”).
Affordable? - Will it make money?
- Is it an incremental innovation, a process innovation, regulated innovation, or a radical innovation?
- How would any planned digital development change your organisation? Describe how the development may impact on your organisation’s artistic, operational, audience and business functions.
Achievable, or more of a radical innovation?
Finally, think about whether a development is achievable – you will have had some ideas that are “blue skies”. Whilst it’s tempting to think about these first as they seem the most exciting, in fact they are probably the most risky. Raising your technology base generally over each area of the organisation will provide you with a stable base on top of which cutting-edge digital developments can then be experimented with. In relation to blue skies ideas, consider:
- Is anyone else doing something similar?
- In your sector?
- In different sectors but with similar processes/audiences/product?
- If yes, investigate the existing good practice (see resource list, below)
- If no, research and find evidence for what is the general consensus about the technology you might be planning to use? (Is it considered stable? Cutting edge?)
- What future business opportunities does your planned development address?
- What relationship is there between the digital developments you have undertaken to date and what you propose?
- Might you able to progress the idea at a Culture Hack event, thus enabling you to develop a prototype that you can test, reducing the risk (you’re not developing a brief and commissioning a developer) and developing relationships with potential collaborators. See what happened at Culture Hack Scotland in 2012.
If you’re particularly confident about your digital fitness, your digital development journey may be more focussed on radical innovation. Edinburgh Festivals’ Festivals Lab created this guide to Creating Your Own Innovation Lab for AmbITion Scotland.
