Thinking about a new community for people doing digital work

This morning I hosted a session to explore whether there’s real need and appetite for a community of practice for people working on digital in the cultural sector.

In the interests of 'learning in the open' and sharing the progress I thought I'd share this summary of that first session, and where we're going next.

Written in haste, so as one of my favourite newsletters says, 'any typos are on purposes, actually'.

If you have ideas or thoughts you want to add I've set up a very short (3 question) survey to capture views - you can complete it here.

Background

Over the last few months I've asked a couple questions to the folks signed up to my newsletter to gauge the appetite for this type of idea.

As I said there "this will be a community of practice for people working with digital in culture - intentionally broadly defined, because this work ('digital') is broad. It overlaps disciplines, and shares challenges across artforms. And while there are great groups focused on specific areas like ticketing, preservation, marketing, or specific areas of the cultural sector, I think there’s real potential value in a space that embraces a mix and a diversity of perspective."

Who was involved?

We had 18 people register and 11 people join the call itself.

We had people join us from museums, performing arts centres, concert halls, historic buildings, festivals, libraries, funders, and consultants.

Most of the group was UK based, but we had someone join us from New Zealand, and someone else registered who is based in Qatar.

I asked the 11 people who joined the call to use my 3 Modes Model to describe what kind of digital work most of their time was currently spent on.

As you can see from the screengrab from the Mural board that we used, most of the folks in this first session were generally more focused on Engage and Enable type activities than Express, so that's a gap in perspectives that I will try and find people to fill in future conversations

A map of needs

The first part of the session was focused on where things currently feel frustrating or 'gap-y'. I asked people to think about three areas:

• Support I wish existed
• Things I’m always trying to solve alone
• Conversations I can’t find anywhere

The support we wish existed

Digital work in culture often feels like building the car and driving the car (at high speed) at the same time - it's both specialist and sprawling - and, often, people are doing it alone.

There was an obvious desire for:

• Peer mentoring, spaces to bounce ideas, shared tools, and useful, real-world case studies, especially for more creative digital work.
• More basic digital knowledge across teams. We heard how (lots of) people are having to spend a lot of time supporting colleagues in basic digital tasks - from guidance on how to use systems like Excel to navigating tools and platforms more confidently.
• Help advocating upwards and across organisations, from boards to colleagues and departments still wary of digital.
• A directory of trusted suppliers.

perhaps this network could act as a ‘safe space’ for sharing experiences?

It felt like there were a few key things emerging here:

• Everyday digital literacy still isn’t a given.
• There’s strong demand for mentorship and peer learning.
• Organisations need help feeling like digital part of the mission, not a competing strand.

Things we’re always trying to solve alone

The list here is long, familiar, and sobering.

From policy and product management to implementing AI and developing future-focused experiences, digital staff (as we saw in Beyond the Promise) are often under-resourced and dealing with enormous (and broad) expectations. Many don’t have IT support (some of them are the IT support). Lots don’t even have a team.

There was a strong sense of:

• People acting as one-person digital departments, expected to cover technical support, creative development, UX, product management, and more.
• Individuals trying to lead change and future-facing thinking (AI, digital transformation, connecting onsite and online experiences) without structures, support, allies, or shared tools.
• The need to train others, advocate for new roles, and encourage cultural change while still delivering digital output.
• It’s not just about technical fixes and delivery. It’s about holding the vision, too.

Key themes included:

• Digital roles are overloaded and under-supported.
• Strategic areas like AI, rights, and UX are being tackled solo. So there’s a real appetite for shared learning around strategy, innovation, and delivery not just skills training.
• There's little shared language and understanding or practical support and scaffolding to work with as a foundation.
• Without structural investment in teams, roles, and capacity, digital work risks becoming both invisible and unsustainable.

The conversations we can’t find anywhere

Perhaps the most revealing reflections were about what’s not being talked about.

We heard calls and a desire for:

• Honest case studies of what didn’t work - not just polished success stories.
• Conversations with senior leadership about why digital still struggles to get traction.
• Sector-wide opportunities to collaborate - not just to share outcomes, but to shape them together in the first place.
• Practical discussions about emerging areas like AI in heritage, or the digital tools that could enhance organisational culture.

Key ideas emerging here:

• The sector needs more candid, frank conversations, not just celebration.
• Many want to build things and work together, not just observe or share results at the end.
• Leadership engagement and understanding, and capacity-building remain big challenges.

What could this community do?

We then moved on to explore the specific value and potential of a community in this context.

We considered ideas across three levels of effort:

• Quick wins (low effort)
• Shared effort (needs a few people)
• Ambitious but exciting (longer-term)

At the quick-win end, people suggested things like online meet-ups, lightweight forums, and message boards i.e. ways to connect easily, ask questions, and reduce the sense of working in isolation.

Shared-effort ideas focused on building resources together like libraries of best-practice, mentoring schemes, guest speaker sessions, and templates for things like job descriptions, contracts and briefs.

The longer-term suggestions were more ambitious, including special interest subgroups, structured peer matching, sector-wide training opportunities - such as the chance to shadow digital work in other organisations and peer mentoring, and potential opportunities for collaboration.

What next?

I went into this session with a question about what the need and desire for this sort of initiative might actually be.

As I said at the top, I really do think there's potential to build a community with purpose shaped by the actual gaps people feel in their day-to-day work - but I wanted to know if anyone else felt that too.

And it seems that the energy is there:

“Thank you for organising this… I’m feeling inspired and excited about the future.”

“It feels like there’s something worth pursuing.”

“I'm feeling excited and curious.”

“This was all really positive.”

I will continue to explore this idea and I think the obvious next step is another short working session later in the summer to dig into practicalities and priorities - watch this space.

If you’re interested in shaping what comes next, I’d love to hear from you: [email protected]

And if you have ideas or thoughts you want to add I've set up a very short (3 question) survey to capture views - you can complete it here.