Digital Works Podcast

The sixth in our new series, Bytes, where Ash and Katie discuss 3 things from the latest Digital Works Newsletter. In this episode we'll be discussing some of the links in the newsletter that went out on January 29th . We talk about: Hugh Wallace asking 'is it time to shake up your social media' , the Association of Cultural Enterprises leaving X, and X being flooded with offensive...

We catch up with Sydney Opera House's Head of Screen, Stuart Buchanan.  We talk about Stuart's new job title, how digital teams are structured at SOH, and the unhelpfully vague nature of the word 'digital'.  Stuart shares how digital artistic programmes have enabled the Sydney Opera House to work with new artists, in new ways.  The issues and challenges around rights, and reach...

Our last episode of 2023 is a conversation with Haydn Corrodus. Haydn is a social media and digital marketing consultant who was previously an Arts Council England Tech Champion as part of the Digital Culture Network Haydn brings rich insights into the fragmented and ever-evolving world of social media, and its potential for storytelling, connecting and engaging with audiences in the cultural sect...

In the last podcast episode of the year, Katie and Ash reflect on 2023 - picking a few of the most notable articles, podcasts, research reports, and new stories of the year. We discuss digital overload and the impact it's had on our attention spans. Exploring whether our cultural institutions could become havens of focus and relaxation in the blizzard of digital distractions. We look at the w...

A conversation with Dr Carrie Goucher. Carrie helps people transform meetings and meeting culture. She has redesigned how we meet for the collaborative era, crafting meetings that are honest, focused, supportive and energising. Carrie’s PhD created an evidence-based framework for what underpins meeting success (spoiler alert: it’s not having an agenda) and her research was described as 'game...

The fourth in our new series, Bytes, where Ash and Katie discuss 3 (actually 4) things from the latest Digital Works Newsletter. In this episode we'll be discussing some of the links in the newsletter that went out on November 10th . We talk about: Internet Artifacts This TechCrunch article " App Store for AI: OpenAI’s GPT Store lets you build (and monetize) your own GPT "  An essay...

A chat with Zoe Williams, the Head of Communications and Fundraising at the Vagina Museum in London. We discuss their successful recent crowdfunding campaign, we also explore how they've harnessed the power of digital platforms to reach a global audience, built a robust community online, and how they’ve carved out their niche in the digital sphere. As ever this work isn't without its cha...

The third in our new series, Bytes, where Ash and Katie discuss 3 things from the latest Digital Works Newsletter. In this episode we'll be discussing some of the links in the newsletter that went out on October 20th . We talk about: " The Moral Case for No Longer Engaging With Elon Musk’s X " by Dave Lee ChatGPT can now see, hear, and speak The release this month of version 2.2 of...

The second in our new series, Bytes, where Ash and Katie discuss 3 things from the latest Digital Works Newsletter. In this episode we'll be discussing some of the links in the newsletter that went out on September 22nd . We talk about: The End of the Googleverse - Ryan Broderick Skyrim Mod Uses AI to Give NPCs Memories - Marc Keever How to understand your current digital costs (Budgeting for...

A conversation with George Montagu, Head of Insights at  FT Strategies. FT Strategies is the consulting arm of the Financial Times.  George and I talk about the shift from print to digital at the Financial Times and the related shift from ad to subscriber revenue, how leadership at the FT galvanised the entire organisation around a single goal (getting to 1 million paid subscribers in 3 years), ch...

The first in our new series, Bytes, where Ash and Katie will be discussing 3 things from the latest Digital Works Newsletter. In this episode we'll be discussing some of the links in the newsletter that went out on August 29th . We talk about: 'How to Blow Up a Timeline' - Eugene Wei  ' We need to tell people ChatGPT will lie to them, not debate linguistics' - Simon Willso...

A conversation with Fran Sanderson , Director of Arts Programmes and Investments at Nesta (which was originally set up in 1998 as the National Endowment for Science, Technology, and the Arts). Fran is in the process of exploring a major shift in the way Nesta goes about making investments in the arts. We discuss the funding landscape for culture in the UK and the changes that need to happen. We ex...

An incredibly wide-ranging conversation with Seb Chan, CEO and Director of ACMI (Australian Centre for the Moving Image). Seb talks about his background in community radio, 'looking under the hood' of the early internet, the importance of experience-focused roles in museums, the power of cultural leaders developing a 'digital imagination', understanding the importance of capita...

A conversation with CEO and Creative Director of The Space, Fiona Morris.  The Space was founded in 2013 by Arts Council England and the BBC and is now an independent not-for-profit organisation. The Space's primary goal is to enable the arts, culture and heritage sector to engage audiences using digital and broadcast content and platforms. Over the last 6 years The Space has commissioned 300...

A chat with Maaike Verberk, Managing Director of DEN, the Dutch Knowledge Institute for Culture & Digital Transformation.  We talked about digital transformation, the importance of being open to new ideas, the value of really understanding your audiences, the traits of organisations where good digital stuff is happening, and loads more.

A great chat with Hilary Knight. We talk about the importance of team culture, the value of trying to be entertaining, the rigidity of the career paths into leadership positions in the cultural sector, the strategic importance of digital ambition, and loads more. Hilary is a Senior Consultant at AEA Consulting and is the former Director of Digital at Tate. Prior to joining Tate, Hilary worked in a...

Dr Richard Misek is a Senior Lecturer in Film, School of Arts at the University of Kent. He is a film-maker and researcher, and was the Principal Investigator on the Arts and Humanities Research Council project, ‘Digital Access to Arts and Culture Beyond COVID-19’, in partnership with Arts Council England and digital arts agency The Space. It's through this research project that I first becam...

A conversation with Nick Sherrard about experimentation and innovation. Nick is a Partner at Label Ventures, which is a venture studio in Edinburgh. Nick has held a number innovation and strategy-focused roles in the commercial sector as well as production and administration-focused roles in the cultural sector. We talk about risk models, nurturing a culture of innovation, new approaches to partne...

Our first returning guest! Another brilliant conversation with Kati Price. Kati is Head of Digital Media and Publishing at Victoria and Albert Museum in London and was one of the first guests I had on the podcast back in early 2020 (that chat is now our most listened-to episode). We reflect on the turmoil (and progress) of the last two years, the impact that the pandemic has had on the thinking ar...

A lovely chat with Nicholas Triantafyllou. Nicholas is the Director of Information Technology at the National Theatre and has previously held technology and systems-focused leadership roles at the Southbank Centre and the Barbican. We explored the importance of collaboration, what good leadership looks like, the challenge of getting things done in big institutions, how NT At Home happened, and lot...

A conversation with Annette Mees, Annette is an award-winning artistic director, creative producer and cultural strategist. Annette used to be Artistic Director of Coney (an award-winning company of adventure and play which put the audience at the centre of every experience), she ran Audience Labs at the Royal Opera House. She is currently Artistic Director of Audience Labs & Visiting Senior R...

Back after a bit of a break with a chat with the Sydney Opera House's Head of Digital Programming, Stuart Buchanan.  We chat rave culture, the Royal Court Theatre's website in the 1990s, employing digital to explore new ways of engaging with artists, wrangling institutional dynamics, responses to the pandemic and loads more. Stuart has worked with organisations such as ABC, Disney, SBS,...

In this episode we chat with Heart Of Glass CEO, Patrick Fox. Heart Of Glass are a St Helens, Merseyside-based collaborative and social arts agency. They work "with artists and community groups , young people , asylum seekers and refugees , LGBTQ+ people , disabled people , older people and communities of all kinds" to "support each other – and learn from each other – on creative jo...

A really enjoyable chat with my pal, Drew. We compare and contrast the similarities and differences between the banking and cultural sectors. Drew in his own words is "a serial entrepreneur turned banker; a sheep in wolf’s clothing. He recently left Barclays where he was Director of Digital Strategy since 2019. He was previously the Head of Platform for the Standard Chartered Virtual Bank in...

A lovely chat with Wise Children's Technical Director, Simon Baker. We talk about Simon's career, the DIY approach that Wise Children have taken to their digital activity, why the "bodge it" skills you learn doing audio are useful in a digital context, the potential of audio experiences for storytelling, understanding signal flow, and loads more.