As a new buzzword, “Big Data” is all over our daily lives.
However, the tech industry specializing in data collection and analysis doesn’t
mean that other industries haven’t found value in using data. For anyone who
knows baseball (or has watched Moneyball),
we know that data analysis has become part of the player selection process.
From a business perspective, big data enables companies to mix their
patron data into a broader pool of consumer data and extract correlations that
help them know with unprecedented specificity who are most likely to respond to
their appeals. The great thing about data is that it replaces guesswork with
facts and gives decision-makers reliable answers, clear directions and
predictable results. The not-so-great thing is that it replaces personal
expertise and human intuition with cold hard math, a process that arts
administrators who’ve built their careers on creative management
practices might have trouble getting used to. [i]Big data often has a
negative connotation in the arts, a field where emotion and personal choice are
highly valued. But does going with people’s guts-feelings necessarily lead to a
more innovative arts environment?
Recently, arts administrators are taking advantage of the data
revolution and gradually forming several strategies towards its whereabouts in
the future.[ii] From some research
papers, I have elaborated some points as below:
Arts organizations should seize on big data opportunities and
use them to improve their efficiency and build vibrant communities of
interactive participants or supporters. This will help them generate more
revenue, more individual contributions and larger support systems, thus giving
themselves a better chance of surviving as audiences for traditional art forms
continue to diversify.[iii]
Many organizations that embrace big data, however, use it to
send traditional marketing messages to wider audiences and will probably fail
to fully maximize their opportunities. Mining data to find more people who are
willing to respond to half-century-old messages is a zero sum game, but the
arts industry has a well-established history of neglecting to update its
strategic message content. It also suggests that some organizations will
consider data an end rather than a means. The goal of using data is to identify
individuals with whom organizations can forge deeper, more meaningful human
relationships, but many arts organizations will be satisfied with initial
transactions and treat new customers as data clusters rather than as
individuals. Big data will simply compound the efficiency with which we
separate the humans who work in arts organizations from the humans who consume artistic
products.
In the era of big data, many arts leaders are likely to find
that their personal opinions, anecdotal observations, favorite styles, or even
final executive decisions are not necessarily relevant to the marketing
process. That’s because data is asking art orgs to focus on professional, quantitative
bottom line-driven strategies. Ultimately, data will end up being a temporary
fix. Data can help managers squeeze more productivity out of a finite resource.
Audiences for traditional art forms are likely to continue their decline and no
amount of analytics will enable these orgs to meet with new demand.
As to audience engagements, some administrators are predicting
that audiences are diminishing largely because many art orgs fail to make
direct, meaningful, personal, human
connections with the younger, more culturally diverse people on whom our
futures depend.[iv] Hence, under the concept
of “Big Data”, arts managers may be able to use data to make more efficient
contacts with audiences, but if they fail to immerse themselves in their
cultures and just let managers be influenced by the audience, they probably
risk having used the whole investment in big data for the smallest of returns.
The best outcome would be, art orgs have better ideas of audience through data;
at the same time, they can leverage the information they gained and lead the
audience.
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