Open Forum

I am interested in connecting with those working with analytics in the museum, especially those interested in participating in a panel discussion (AAM 2016). What are your thoughts on:

1. The usefulness of statistics from door counts, surveys, email, WiFi, apps, websites etc

2. The process for collating and presenting data

3. Applications for analytics in various aspects of museum management

4. The future of predictive analytics (e.g. for forecasting visitation or personalizing visitor experience)

5. Privacy policies

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Angie Judge
Director
PingX
AUCKLAND
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Just realized I sent this as a message and not as a thread reply. so pasted below

Hey Angie,

We have been working hard on determining which of these analytics actually move the needle for museums. Would be happy to share what we have found thus far!

1. Statistics such as door counts, app downloads, and email list are what we consider to be 'vanity' metrics. They are nice to see the chart going up but don't help as much with future predictions of trends. Instead looking at the impact of an experience on a visitor, and linking back their financial and social impact for the museum can help with being a a better predictor of success. The real important factor is to realize which Key Performance Indicators (KPI's) are most important to your organization. Is it growing visitor count, is it returning vistors, is it social awareness, is it donation size per visitor, overall donation size, special event attendance? There is no silver bullet but the more data you can collect (with the proper modeling) the more ability you have to see the impact of your decisions within you organization. 

2. Data presentation is an art in itself, it doesn't provide much value to just display a bunch of charts, but instead to build a narrative around why this data that is being displayed is important. Yes you have a 15% increase in visitors over last month but is this a seasonal change or something your organization did differently? Can you trace back the total cost (monetary + opportunity), is there a way to negate any omitted variable bias? And can you make the information digestible and understandable to an audience who may or may not have the same level of operational understandings that you do?

3. There are so many different forms of data collection that it's tough to list the best ones, however my belief is always more data is better than less data, however you still need to formulate a clear plan of what you intend to monitor and why it is important to you and work backwards to make sure you cover all of your bases. 

4. This is a fairly new area where you can use statistical modeling to attempt to predict movements and impacts of decisions before they happen. I am very skeptical of any extremely advanced foresight due to the complexity of human behaviors and omitted variable bias. Instead I see analytics as a better tool to say "last year we did X in revenue, how do we compare right now based on current trends?" it's a style called 'yesterday's weather'. Analytics should help you steer your ship, not auto-pilot your ship for you. 

5. Being as transparent and open to your visitors as possible is the best way to handle these data collection procedures. Releasing reports showing the trends of museum visitors not only helps keep your organization accountable and open, but also assures to the visitor that you have their interests in mind. People tend to like a nice data story :). 

Let me know if I can be of anymore help!

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Zachariah Reiner
Product Lead
Cuseum
Boston MA
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Good Afternoon, 

Could You please help me to get needed information?

I need a list of all the US museums with attendance of over 100 000 per year.

Maybe You have it or You can tell me some agencies  which can help me, I mean some statistics collection agency.

Will be very appreciate for Your help.

Thank You,

Best Regards, Inna

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Inna Belyaeva
Kiev
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Glad to see interest and questions about using analytics in museum management. Zack is right to emphasize selecting the right metrics that get at what your museum is trying to achieve. Clarity about your desired impacts and how you might measure them is a prerequisite for selecting your KPIs. Once you have listed your prioritized purposes and desired impacts, selecting KPIs to measure changes in impact and performance is a balance between what you would like to measure, and what data you can collect. 

We have assembled a database of 1,025 museum indicators of impact and performance(MIIP 1.0) from 51 sources in our field and have analyzed MIIP 1.0 to reveal 14 areas of potential museum impact and other findings that will be published in my book Measuring Museum Impact and Performance: Theory and practice, due out from Rowman & Littlefield next spring.

Clearly, this is a subject dear to my heart. John

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John Jacobsen
CEO
White Oak
Marblehead MA
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