How wove helps Arts and Culture enterprises navigate a changing landscape

Wove.co is a strategy, innovation and change agency based in Dublin, Ireland. We use design to catalyse new ways forward and change how things work (for the better).

We work with organisations in Creative Industries, Public Realm, Social and Craft Enterprise, Media and Education. We help them navigate complexity and change, incubate and develop new ideas, rethink and evolve how things work.

In the last 2 years, we’ve worked with a lot of inspiring Arts and Culture enterprises — large organisations such as the Abbey Theatre and Artsadmin, festivals such as Dublin Dance Festival and Brightening Air, and cultural enterprises such as Workhouse Union and Blinder Films (now Keeper Pictures).

This article describes some of our recent work in this area, outlining some of the key challenges and shifts we’re seeing in the sector, and some of the ways we’re adapting to them.

Navigating challenges and change

The Arts and Culture landscape is changing fast. Covid 19 upended existing formats, venues and ways of presenting Arts and Culture. Aside from that, most enterprises have existed for many years, and need reframing and refreshing in the age of instant gratification, streaming and generally intense competition for people’s attention.

These shifts are not unique to Arts and Culture organisations, but in many ways they are more keenly felt. Many (most) of these organisations have been doing more with less for a very long time.

To navigate this complex landscape and ensure their organisations make impact and build unique value in a way that’s sustainable (for human, financial and environmental resources) there are a growing number of challenges.

Whether it’s a need to see things — audiences, their teams, the wider landscape — more clearly. To set a new direction and make good decisions, or to update business or organisation models to be sustainable and thrive in this more disruptive landscape.

Often it boils down to a crucial question: Where to focus attention and effort? In an age where we're made to feel we can do anything, and should be doing everything, what specifically should you actually be doing? Where to focus attention and effort to achieve the most meaningful and impactful progress?

Having worked with culture organisations for many years, we’ve developed a set of approaches suited to the particular needs of the sector. Every strategic plan, piece of business model design or suggestion of a way forward is bespoke to Arts and Culture and to the client’s specific identity, offering and needs. We listen deeply, collaborate closely and ask the right questions to reveal true insights. And we’ve developed cost effective approaches suited to industry budgets and funding models.

Our 3 month, Ways Forward strategic planning process, which we recently undertook with Keeper Films (formerly Blinder) and Workhouse Union, is designed to go from complexity to clarity across all key aspects of the organisation, and do so in a participatory way that engages and empowers the team to drive the change. Or our Ways Forward digital bootcamp which we undertook with Irish National Opera earlier in the year. This helps teams develop digital strategies, again with participation across teams, to develop alignment and a clarity of direction.

Co-designing better ways forward

Arts and Culture organisations have long played an important role in helping drive a transition to a more fair and just society, both through their work, and in how they work. As part of this, we’re seeing a shift to more collaborative, democratic and transparent forms of leadership to ensure sustainability, accessibility and diversity can thrive within organisations.

Our approach has always been collaborative, informed by our work over 20 years with these organisations. Much of the work we undertake, we describe as ‘co-design’. Facilitating meaningful participation from communities, stakeholders and teams in developing better ways forward together, for more people and planet. And in the development of resilient structures, systems and approaches that empower teams and unlock a more equitable form of progress.

Our recent work with Artsadmin typified this approach. We worked with them as they navigated a period of strategic change. With new leadership in place for the first time in their 40 year history, they wanted to navigate the change collectively and transparently, with meaningful participation from a wide range of stakeholders — their board, the art and public communities they serve, and their team.

We worked with them to design a bespoke programme of activity, undertaking a series of strategic design workshops to help them: clearly define how they create value as an organisation; develop a framework to articulate this; and align the team’s decision making, to surface smarter ways of working and develop ideas for ‘vehicles for change’: projects that excite, inspire and involve the wider team to drive the change that makes the difference.

The process culminated in an editorial workshop, helping the organisation to write, design and publish their manifesto for change. This helped them develop a confident new voice, articulation and sense of direction.

At a critical time in the organisation’s history, it helped rearticulate, reaffirm and reinspire the team, including newer members, and move forward with greater confidence and clarity.

— Deb Chadbourn, former Executive Director, Artsadmin

Meaningful digital transformations

Digital is a key driver of most strategic change across every industry we work with. Creating a fundamental shift across all facets of society, it’s changing how we act and interact; our needs and expectations. Not just online. Online is now just part of our everyday lives. It’s something we’re always thinking about, albeit through a human or humanity-centred lens.

We live in a world of interactions, online and in person. People weave pathways seamlessly between digital and physical depending on their contexts, habits and needs. While the Arts and Culture sector at large has been traditionally resistant to this shift, the forced online exodus of recent years has meant that the changing behaviours of audiences are impossible to ignore.

Over many years of working in Arts and Culture, we believe the key barriers and trepidation about digital have been about: How to make it meaningful — a meaningful part of the offering and experience? For a sector that understands that much of its value stems from the live experience, the idea of an online experience feels like its antithesis.

The need to adapt to changing audience expectations, needs and behaviours has made it crucial to imagine a role for digital which expands well beyond an online brochure. It can build community, it can supply layers of depth for the most motivated audiences, it can expand influence, reach and connection with new audiences and communities.

In recent years, we’ve worked with Dublin Dance Festival to help them as they respond to, and navigate, the challenges and opportunities of a digital-first world. From what it meant at an organisational level, and the opportunities to expand the influence and reach of dance year round. To the model, organisational and process shifts needed to drive impact in a sustainable way. Representing a major strategic shift in how they connect with audiences, frame and share what they do and capitalise on the value of the content they create through the festival.

The strategic changes and structures we’ve helped DDF develop over the last 3 years came into their own as DDF were forced to cancel their 2020 edition due to the Pandemic. They moved quickly to reimagine what the their work might mean in this new context and created an ambitious, thoughtful programme of events and interactions celebrating dance and dance artists in new ways. This included a Winter 2021 Edition of the festival, the first time a second event was programmed in addition to Summer Edition.

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