NEMO Webinar on audience development strategies and organisational change
Nemo
September 2021
The methodology Audience Centred Experience Design (ACED) has been developed since 2016 by the Adeste+ project, is based on Design Thinking and strives to reach the real people behind the hard data, replacing abstract data points with a tangible connection to real human beings.
Adeste+ was presented by project members Alessandra Gariboldi (Fondazione Fitzcarraldo) and Inês Câmara ( Mapa das Ideias). Susana da Silva shared learnings and insights from testing the methodology at the Gulbenkian Foundation.
Alessandra Gariboldi pointed out that audience development isn’t only about developing audiences, but rather about developing cultural organisations. Cultural organisations often have to change within themselves before they can help empower change in society. Alessandra listed barriers to overcome to successfully develop audiences, such as involving the whole organisation and make teams work together, dare to take risks as well as to develop empathy to erase stereotypes.
Inês Câmara introduced the participants to the methodology ACED, which will be made available as a blueprint to other organisations at the end of 2021. The ACED methodology is based on change, Lewin’s three-step model and Design Thinking.
Susana da Silva explained how ACED worked in a real museum context when the Gulbenkian Foundation developed its own prototype based on the methodology for the project 15-25 Imagina. She shared a video that explains the project Imagina, which invited young people to peer programming and curatorship. Gulbenkian Foundation went through four major phases when testing and prototyping the ACED methodology: listen, ideate, launch/ test and learn. Gulbenkian Foundation is planning to make the method part of the regular programming process.