Harnessing Data in the Arts Sector featuring Robin Sokoloski

[AI ] TRANSCRIPT:

“There is no data unicorn, that are going to swoop in and solve all your data problems for you in your organization.”

Let's talk about harnessing data in the arts. With me today is Robin Sokoloski, who's a Toronto based arts leader with more than 20 years of experience as director of programing and research at Mass Culture. She leads the DNA, the Data Narratives for the Arts initiative, which is at National Data Platform of more than 4000 arts organizations and a learning series to empower arts professionals in data utilization. Robin also serves on the Toronto Arts Council Board, Thomas Center for Free Expression Steering Committee, and she's also taught arts policy, cultural entrepreneurship, and evaluative practices. I'm delighted to have Robin share tips with us today. Welcome, Robin!

Thanks for having me, Heather. It's great to be here and with you for this. I guess I'll just jump right in.

I'm an arts manager, so my approach, to, this particular topic has, come from being very lucky to have the capacity to really, over the last few years, discover and learn what it means to provide and support arts organizations in data utilization. I think that a really important tip, number one is that, there is no data unicorns, that are going to swoop in and, solve all your data problems for you in your organization.

In fact, I think it's really important. And this is the tip to build, collaborative data culture within your organization because data touches everyone, whether it's staff, board, volunteers, everyone has something to contribute towards, a data strategy. So I think it's more about how you bring folks together within your arts organization to understand what they have to, to, to bring to, really make something like that possible.

So, it's best not to just think that there's going to be some one data expert or someone that you can rely on a singular person within your organization. It should be the responsibility of everyone. So I guess that moves me on to tip number two, which is, really supports how you activate that kind of work, which is, really to collectively develop the right questions.

I cannot tell you, how much of a challenge, although it seems really obvious that, when we are working with when mass culture was working with a cohort of arts organizations last year, this is what took the most amount of time, just developing what are the right questions? And it's so important to start, your data journey within an organization from what you hope to learn from the data.

So, that is my tip number two. Getting a little bit more specific, with tip number three, but in alignment with the the last tip would be, to not just think of data as numbers. You really need to embrace, the qualitative, information that you can draw out. And I would consider that very much, data in and of itself as well.

Of course, numbers, are when it comes to knowledge, transfer that numbers are, the most easy to, that, that resonate the most easily. It's, it's more about just not collecting how many tickets you sell. Sell. But it's about, how you made some of those ticket holders feel. And I think that is, such more, much more meaningful, data work.

And if you're going to go about creating capacity to do this work within your organization, and you should think about it in that way. And I think that I'll move on to tip number four, which is I think that we have these constant complaints within the art sector that our strategic plans lay dormant. They sit on a shelf.

But I think a great way to activate your strategic plan is to link it to a data strategy, or a learning process. Think about how you want to. What do you want to learn from the strategic goals that you've outlined within your within your plan? How are you going to understand whether you've accomplished those goals or, what have you learned from doing those making those goals happen?

So I think that it should a data plan of some sort should accompany a strategic plan. I think my final tip, would be to be unafraid. To use external data sources. So, it's quite a tremendous amount of work, to go about understanding your own organizational data. I get that, but I think if you really want to understand your impact, which is a big term these days, within the art sector, you need to be able to, cross-reference your organizational data with other data sources if you want to go about understanding, audience development, you might want to compare your organizational data with tourism reports.

So I just think that, to not be afraid to go down that road, there's lots of supports out there. Mass culture is certainly one of them. We have, a training and, program. We're just about to, release a new learning series called data, Data Digest. So in helping arts organizations, support them in understanding their impact.

So there's tons of, of, resources out there that are free and accessible. It's just finding the time to do that. The learning networks that you can create to make that happen. And, it's, and I just really I really see the appetite and, interest and importance in doing this work so that we can become a more thriving arts sector.

Absolutely. Love it. So people can check out the data dives and all of the other information and resources that you offer, both on the website and on mass culture, social media accounts, on all the platforms. Yeah. Yeah. Perfect. Thank you so much, Heather. Thank you.

Yeah. Developing a data strategy can seem really daunting sometimes, but it can really help us have impact in the arts.

And I appreciate and want to echo what Robin said about qualitative data in particular, as so useful people's experiences, perspectives and insights as part of our data set alongside the numbers and the analytics. I think when we can harness the human experience as well as the numbers, we can really have impact.

I'm Heather Kelly, and this has been a high five for arts leaders and cultural entrepreneurs. Join me again next week for a new episode.