Digital Works Podcast

We're back! A conversation with theatre producer and digital product manager, Eva Liparova about the 'hyper reality opera experience' that she worked on with the Royal Opera House last year. This was a fascinating conversation which explored remote creative teams, technologists and theatre practitioners working together, creative uses of new technologies, how you design audience experiences and expectations and lots more.

We sit down with Robin Cantrill-Fenwick, CEO of Baker Richards, to discuss the findings of their Culture Restart audience sentiment tracker. We explore how audiences are feeling about returning to in-person cultural experiences (whenever that may be), emerging insights around pricing and distribution of digital content, segmentation models, and consumer psychology.

A conversation with one of the Directors of Storythings, Matt Locke. We discuss digital audiences, attention patterns, formats, shifts in behaviour, and loads more.

Matt has held senior positions at Channel 4 and the BBC, been a curator of a gallery, set up and run digital art programmes, and attend Glasgow School of Art in the early 90s. He has a fascinating perspective on content and audiences and his blog is well worth a read https://howtomeasureghosts.substack.com/

In this episode I speak with award-winning cultural studies scholar, Dr Kirsty Sedgman. We talk about the audience experience - particularly within a digital context, theatre etiquette campaigns, excluded audiences, the democratising potential of digital, and how we understand the 'value' of cultural experiences. 

A conversation with Sadler's Wells' Head of Content & Audiences, Ankur Bahl. 

We chat about structuring digital teams, spending time focusing on storytelling, choosing the right content approach for each platform, the initiatives Sadler's Wells has tried during lockdown (and how audiences responded), and their plans for the future.

We sit down with Linda Spurdle, Digital Development Manager at Birmingham Museums Trust to talk about their recent Cut, Copy, Remix project which came about after they opened up access to their image library. The Cut, Copy, Remix project saw them working with artists including Cold War Steve, the Black Hole Club to reimagine images from the Museums' collection.

Linda is a brilliant interviewee, honest and refreshing in her candour about what did, and didn't work, and why.

You can see one of the images Cold War Steve made for the project here https://www.thesocial.com/bennys-babbies/

Aled is Head of Membership Strategy at Condé Nast and has previously worked at the Guardian and ITN. He also founded the payment solutions startup, PayTogether. We talk about fostering a culture of innovation, risk taking, structuring digital teams, digital businesses and loads more.

We sit down with Opera North's Director of External Affairs, David Collins. We look at how strategic thinking that has been developed over recent years has underpinned how they have used digital to respond to the current crisis, keeping audiences engaged, retaining a connection to local communities, the nature of opera in the 21st century, how the organisation has arrived at a clear sense of purpose and self, fostering a culture of experimentation, and loads more.

David also wrote an article to accompany this conversation which you can read on Substrkat's website https://substrakt.com/journal/guest-post-digital-strategy-and-responding-to-the-covid-crisis-at-opera-north 

A conversation with the Donmar Warehouse's Director of Marketing, Abby Corfan. We discuss what life has been like at the Donmar during lockdown, our discussions focused mostly on the two big digital productions the Donmar has been involved with; a reworking of Adam Brace's play, Midnight Your Time, and their involvement in the National Theatre's NT At Home initiative with their 2014 production of Coriolanus.

We talk about the challenges (and opportunities) presented by reimagining work for digital delivery, communicating what this new type of work is, recreating shared experiences, donations, remote working, and much more

Featuring a conversation with podcast host, producer, consultant and writer, Hannah Hethmon. We look at the history of podcasting in the cultural sector, the elements of a good podcast, how podcasts could (and should) be approached by institutions, the unique relationship that can be achieved between a host and their podcast listeners and loads more.

Hannah's book Your Museum Needs a Podcast: A Step-By-Step Guide to Podcasting on a Budget for Museums, History Organizations, and Cultural Nonprofits is still available to buy and Hannah's Digital Works #10 talk can be watched on YouTube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kt7Ul_Lxzk4