This week's best things
The FACT symposium, Margaret Heffernan, Fourth Spaces, a new digital experience from the National Gallery, Digital Culture Talks, running a 'failure budget', museum exhibition experience, UX is dead, little book of strategy, more AI woe, and a family of t-rexes
Future of Arts, Culture & Technology Symposium
The videos from ACMI's FACT symposium are online, lots in there to enjoy.
If you want Seb Chan (who programmed the event) to guide you through what to watch, his latest newsletter is a good read.
Seb also shared some good thoughts about immersive experiences and the still-developing norms around being part of the audience for this type of thing.
Wilful Blindness, the Naked Truth and Super Chickens with Margaret Heffernan
A chat with the brilliant Margaret Heffernan on the Curious Advantage Podcast.
They covered so much interesting stuff; the value of being prepared to change your mind; ways of protecting your time for deep work (and the huge - positive - shifts in productivity and 'helpfulness' that this can achieve); the importance of nurturing motivation; the impact of architecture, interior design and 'beautiful things' on curiosity; the value of interdisciplinarity and sharing experiences; the impact of digital communication on curiosity and building relationships; the negative impacts of competition; the catastrophic impact of focusing only on efficiency; and lots more.
Fourth Spaces
I have had lots of conversations with cultural leaders over the past few weeks, in those chats the question of what the real potential of digital for cultural organisations actually is or, what it might be came up again and again.
And in that vein I came across this fascinating article from Mariella Agapiou on the idea of 'fourth spaces'.
"I did some digging and discovered a 2020 article written by anthropologist Giulia Balestra, in which she states that our first, second and third places (the home, the office and the in-betweens) were already becoming smaller and smaller:
"Little has been written about a fourth space. But with the blurring of lines between the different spaces and the endless possible combinations, it seems reasonable to imagine that there’s more than we can experiment with how we see, design, organise and move between places."
Fourth Spaces are inherently “phygital” – they blend both physical and digital worlds to create new, immersive and interconnected experiences. And they usually leverage technological innovations to do so.
A more recent explanation discovered on Substack states that the Fourth Space isn’t defined by algorithms or trends, though.
"The Fourth Space is born from the desire to live fully, to find meaning in the in-between moments, to create spaces where vulnerability feels safe and belonging isn’t earned but embraced. It’s a quiet network of people who see the world not as a collection of individuals but as a tapestry of relationships."
Maybe it is in these fourth spaces that the real opportunity of digital to enhance the impact and relevance of cultural organisations reveals itself.
Mariella Agapiou
National Gallery Imaginarium
Another digital project from the NG to celebrate their 200th anniversary.
"This new experience combines soundscapes, guided interaction, poetry and animations, to help you pause and see the your paintings afresh. Let us take you on a journey to explore your own relationship with art, whether you know just a little or a lot. Here your only limitation is your imagination."
This initially takes the form of my least favourite type of cultural digital experience - a digital recreation of a physical space (in this case, the National Gallery).
Then it's into a more detailed/high-def/slow-looking type experience.
There are some really nice elements in this; the 'help me choose' functionality in the initial gallery space, the clear interaction invited around questions like 'where is your eye drawn to first?', the neat introduction of 'this is what others have said/done' content.
But overall I found the experience slightly baffling, I wasn't really sure what I was supposed to be doing, or why I was supposed to be doing it. I was being asked my thoughts but I wasn't sure why, or what my responses were supposed to be or do.
I'm curious to hear what others think - did you like it?
Digital Culture Talks 2025
The Space have put the recordings from their recent Digital Culture Talks event online. They've got sessions covering:
- Digital accessibility
- Reducing online harms
- CreaTech
- Why are artists and storytellers missing from modern discourse?
Failure Budget
An interesting idea in the latest edition of Adam Thomas's newsletter, running a 'Failure Budget' i.e. "deliberately allocating resources for experiments that might not work".
This is something I have spoken to a couple of cultural leaders about, although they didn't use this exact language - instead calling this budget line 'experimentation' or something similar.
Adam makes a good case for this way of thinking, suggesting it can be effective if:
"Resources are tight, but innovation is necessary. When funding is unpredictable, it’s tempting to only invest in “proven” strategies. A Failure Budget ensures you don’t default to what’s safe but stagnant.
Your board is risk-averse. If every idea is met with “but what if it doesn’t work?” - a Failure Budget builds structured permission to try, fail, and learn.
You need to convince funders or family. Experimentation can look irresponsible unless it’s intentional. A Failure Budget signals to those that matter that it’s strategic.
Your organisation is growing or pivoting. What worked before won’t necessarily work now. A Failure Budget gives you a margin for testing without jeopardising your core work.
You’re stuck in analysis paralysis. You’ve been circling the same idea for months, unsure whether to commit. A Failure Budget forces you to test instead of overthink."
He outlines a number of very clear ways in which you could test this idea and see if it might work for you and your organisation, he also acknowledges that "not every organisation has the same margin for error, and failure is a privilege not everyone can afford equally".
Read more in Adam's Theory of Change newsletter.
On a similar topic I saw a post from Duolingo's CMO, Emmanuel Orssaud last week which outlined their 70/30 approach to experimentation:
"Two years ago, I implemented a framework called "Grind and Expand" [yuck, this is a terrible name btw] that guides how we operate and helps us balance proven strategies with new experiments.
Here’s what it looks like:
- Grind (70%): These initiatives are already working, and they can reliably deliver results. We iterate on these to meet our KPIs and fuel growth. For example: TikToks building our "unhinged" brand, Influencer Marketing in key markets, or Google UAC for paid UA, TV in Japan. These reliably move metrics.
- Expand (30%): This is where we experiment with completely new approaches. Most fail - and that’s by design. For example: Long-form content experiments and new ways to showcase product features without losing our fun factor.
- Every experiment begins with a clear hypothesis: "If we do X, then Y will happen." This creates clarity about what success looks like from the start.The real challenge with “Expand” is overcoming fear of the unknown. We have to continually push each other beyond our comfort zone."
But Starcraft sold 3 million copies in Korea...
A story from one of the game designers involved in Age of Empires 2 that probably tells us something important about critical thinking and not mistaking correlation for causation.
"In 1999, I was assigned to design the expansion pack to Age of Empires 2. I chose The Conquerors as the theme, and wishing to have 4 civs (as we had on Rise of Rome), I chose the Spanish, the Aztecs, the Huns, and the Mayans. The project went ahead extremely well. We were almost completely finished, 5 weeks ahead of schedule as of January 2000. I was excited to move onto Age of Empires 3. Then Microsoft called and we had an important conference call..."
In 1999, I was assigned to design the expansion pack to Age of Empires 2. I chose The Conquerors as the theme, and wishing to have 4 civs (as we had on Rise of Rome), I chose the Spanish, the Aztecs, the Huns, and the Mayans.
— Sandy Petersen (@SandyofCthulhu) March 18, 2025
The project went ahead extremely well. We were… pic.twitter.com/b7Af0djI8a
Why Visiting a Museum Exhibition is More like Taking a Hike than Reading a Book
More on museum experiences, this time from Stephanie Downey and the folks at Kera Collective.
Too often, we see exhibitions developed in a way that assumes visitors will experience them like a book. However, results from hundreds of summative exhibition evaluations tells us it’s more like taking a hike. Today, we’re sharing four ways museum visitors experience exhibitions in this way :
1. Visiting an exhibition, like taking a hike, is often a shared social experience in an out-of-the-ordinary setting
2. While hiking or walking through an exhibition, our attention is diffuse with spurts of focus
3. Hiking and visiting an exhibition are both embodied and sensorial experiences
4. Hikers and museum visitors are often seeking a payoff
I think some of these ideas could also be applied in a digital context, especially around engagement-focused experiences.
Stephanie Downey
UX Is Dead, Long Live UX
Kim Flaherty at the Nielsen Norman Group has published an article that argues "Businesses must shift their focus from a narrow, product-level view of UX [user experience] to a holistic one that spans a customer's lifelong experience."
I'd suggest most cultural organisations - where the average audience journey and relationship crosses many platforms, products, and touchpoints - could really benefit from shifting their perspective in this way.
This is a very buzzword-y sentence "Touchpoint experiences are scenes in a larger emotional brand story we can create" but I think it's pointing towards something useful.
Kim Flaherty
The Little Book of Strategy
An interesting and seemingly-very-useful collection of thoughts from strategist, Peter Bihr.
"Here’s a thing about strategy work I deeply believe: Strategy isn’t one big thing, one giant process. It’s not capital-S Strategy. It’s an ongoing process of analyzing where you are now, where you want to go, and figuring out the best — or at least a plausible — way to get there. At its best, strategy is organic, messy, iterative. And while strategy work needs to be pretty process-focused at a certain scale (think global corporates) like anything at that scale needs to be process-focused, this is definitively not true at a smaller, more intimate scale. This book here is for this more intimate scale.
Strategy also comes alive in the practice, in the day-to-day. So whenever possible, I’d stay away from overly formalizing things too early: The moment something is turned into a slide deck, the more it is frozen in time — a statue rather than a living thing. Instead, focus on getting the next step right, and preparing for the 3-4 steps after that. As long as these steps take you into more or less the right direction, it’s all good!"
He shares lots of (very) thoughtful prompts, observations, and experience. You can find a pdf of the book via Peter's Dropbox.
I have been an AI researcher for 40 years. What tech giants are doing to book publishing is akin to theft
An article in the Guardian from professor of artificial intelligence at the University of New South Wales, Toby Walsh, which highlights the shady background to much of the data that the big AI models were trained on.
He highlights Spotify as a 'fairer' model, which I'm not sure many in the music industry would agree with, but I think he's right when he says we're in the 'Napster moment' of the AI arms race.
"The tech companies claim this is “fair use”. I don’t see it this way. Last year, at the Sydney Writers’ festival, I called it the greatest heist in human history. All of human culture is being ingested into these AI models for the profit of a few technology companies.
To add insult to outrage, the tech companies didn’t even pay for the copy of my book or likely the tens of thousand other books they used to train their models. My book isn’t available freely online. And, as far as I can tell, they trained on an illegal copy in books3, an online dataset assembled by Russian pirates. That’s not fair."
This week also saw 35 leaders from dance, theatre and music organisations express concern about the UK government's plans to let AI companies use artists’ work without permission.
Toby Walsh
Dan Milmo
T-rex family
Joyous.
These grandkids planned to surprise their grandma at the airport dressing as t-rex but she heard about it and planned her own surprise.
by in funnyvideos
Vacancies
Senior Database Analyst - National Theatre - London, UK - £48,000 - deadline 07/04/25
Digital Experience Director - Getty - Los Angeles, USA - $190,000 to $210,000
Survey: Beyond the promise - when digital falls short
A reminder that I am running a short, anonymous survey to gather experiences of digital projects that failed, or fell short.
I am trying to identify common issues and lessons learned. I'll be sharing the results later this Spring.
If you have experience of a digital project that didn't go to plan then please submit a response.
The results that have come in so far are really useful and are from a diverse range of organisations.
This week's consumption
I finished A Long Petal of the Sea by Isabel Allende, which was an extraordinarily good book - beautiful, funny, wise, vivid. I loved it. It looked at a part of history I didn't know much about (the migration of Spanish refugees to Chile, after the Spanish Civil War, on a ship chartered by Pablo Neruda, and the 60 years following that).
I've started reading The Covenant of Water by Abraham Verghese, apparently 2025 is my year of multi-generational, family sagas.
We went to see A Complete Unknown, the Timotheé-Chalamet-as-Bob-Dylan film which was...fine? I don't feel like I know anything more about Bob Dylan than I did before I saw the film, but Mr Chalamet did a very good job of looking and sounding like Bob Dylan.
We've been re-watching The White Lotus (season 2) and marvelling at Jennifer Coolidge.
I made some fermented soda this week - raspberry, ginger and lemon, it's extremely tasty.
I've shared this before, but this week YouTube decided I needed to revisit Christopher Tin's Waloyo Yamoni, and I'm glad it did. It's still such a beautiful piece and this is a wonderful performance.
See you next week
Thanks for reading all the way to the end. Here is a very very strange website. I spotted it via Craig Sullivan, who described it as 'eye popping' (which is... accurate).
To finish, a quick reminder that I'm a consultant who helps cultural organisations do better digital work - if it sounds like I could be useful, then let's chat.