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Make me a Museum...that understands the power of socials
12 Plays7 hours ago
In this episode I meet Lizzie Dunford, Director of Jane Austen's House, in Hampshire UK - the final home of world famous novelist Jane Austen.
Listen in to find out how effective use of social media has helped Jane Austen's House to increase visitor numbers and generate income without selling out their values or putting the collections at risk. We also talk about the impact of the pandemic, extending curation outside the museum and taking time out to think, plan and create flow charts!
Recorded in April 2025.
We're on Insta!
Follow me: @makemeamuseum
Follow Jane Austen's House: janeaustenshouse
Transcript
Introduction to 'Make Me A Museum'
00:00:06
Speaker
Thank you for tuning in to the first episode of Make Me A Museum. We are pulling out all the stocks this week with Jane Austen's house in
Digital Curation and Fundraising
00:00:15
Speaker
Hampshire. In this episode, we discuss digital curation, thinking holistically and question, what is the difference between fundraising and making money?
00:00:28
Speaker
So following Lizzie Dunford's advice, let's take an hour and delve into the small changes that have transformed Jane Austen's house.
Interview with Lizzie Dunford
00:00:39
Speaker
Well, welcome um to Make Me a Museum, the first episode of Make Me a Museum. And I am absolutely delighted to be joined by Lizzie Dunford. Welcome, Lizzie. Thank you for having me.
00:00:49
Speaker
um Lizzie is from Jane Austen's house, the director of Jane Austen's house in Hampshire. um And we met in 2023, I believe, in my previous in one of my previous jobs.
00:01:01
Speaker
And I was just kind of blown away by how and Jane Austen's house has been kind of changing the way that it works over the last few years. um Can you, first of all, just give a bit of ah an intro to what Jane Austen's house is, where you are, what you do, that sort of thing,
Storytelling and Curation at Jane Austen's House
00:01:19
Speaker
please? Of course. So Jane Austen's house is the final home of Jane Austen, one of the world's most famous, most iconic and most influential authors.
00:01:30
Speaker
On top of that, it has another layer of significance is because it's the place from which every single one of her novels come. you know So it is this place of extraordinary creativity, productivity, and it happens within a really short space of time.
00:01:43
Speaker
So it's this witness, this enabler of creativity, of books and characters that went on to have a life beyond their own. So it's an incredibly special place.
00:01:55
Speaker
Austin lived here between 1809 and 1817, and then it was remained within her family and her mother and sister living here until the eighteen forty s It then was sort of neglected for about 100 years and became a museum in 1949. So we have this really interesting period. It opens to the public 132 years after the day that Austen was
Exploring the Museum's Collections
00:02:19
Speaker
buried.
00:02:19
Speaker
So by the very fact of that, it has to be a reconstruction because you have this fallow period in the middle where it was was actually workers' cottages and houses and the working men's club for the village for a while.
00:02:30
Speaker
So it's been a place of storytelling and curation. rather than ah something with an Indigenous collection, which for me makes it actually absolutely fascinating. You know, you do have writers' houses and museums that are opened within a few months of their person's death or a few years, and you still have that Indigenous collection.
00:02:50
Speaker
That wasn't here. So it's had to be a reconstruction. So there's also a really fascinating kind of double layered where we also have the history of the curation of the site, as well as the history of Austen and her storytelling. And that's really been at the heart of the past few years.
00:03:04
Speaker
is we've been looking at the way we use our collections to tell our stories, what stories our collections lead us to prioritise and really kind of looking into that history of curation, history of donation and the formation of that museum over the past few years.
Visitor Experience and Anniversaries
00:03:23
Speaker
We are in little Hampshire village of Chawton, so just off the a thirty one outside Alton, relatively easy to get to um as long as you've got a car.
00:03:34
Speaker
And it's the house has often been known as Chawton Cottage and it's often known as the cottage. um I live in an actual workers cottage. And i tell you what I don't have 10 bedrooms and all these big rooms. It's actually quite a grand house in its own way. So it's one of those things that's quite difficult as well. You know Austin's social position in society was quite difficult to place.
00:03:57
Speaker
And so it's this building that's one of the reasons why we now really want to call it Jane. It's Jane Austen's house, not this sort of diminutive little cottage. It's actually quite a grand space.
00:04:07
Speaker
And yeah, we're open throughout the year and welcome about 40,000 visitors the site. ah yeah
00:04:16
Speaker
Excellent. well I mean, it's a fantastic place and i really enjoy visiting. I've also have visited with my family as well. And you've got obviously quite a special year this year in 2025. You're quite busy this year. but you know, you you always seem to be, you know, moving through different anniversaries of her writings, different anniversaries of her yeah within her life and within that of her family, because Chawton's quite central to her her family life as well, isn't it?
Digital Outreach Post-COVID
00:04:43
Speaker
With...
00:04:43
Speaker
um the Chawton House down the road. Well, it is, isn't it? that that Jane Austen's house is really the core of that. You know, this is where her the family and her mother was real matriarch and the brothers all lived and came round it. you know um Chawton House was actually tenanted out for most of the time that Austen was here. Her brother Frank lived in it for a little bit and Edward was there for three months out of the time period. But it really is...
00:05:07
Speaker
the house in which Austin lived that is the hub and they come and they visit. So this is the kind of central place, but Chawton is his very, it's it's crucial to Austin's writing life and writing career.
00:05:18
Speaker
And we are, yeah, this is 2025 is the 250th anniversary of Austin's birth. And it's also the last of a series of anniversaries. So it's a really interesting time period for us.
00:05:32
Speaker
We've had anniversaries consistently since 2009. which was the 200th anniversary of Austen moving into the house. Then her novels are published, 1811, 1813, 1814, 18... Then you have the 200th anniversary of her death in 2017. So we are now coming to the end of those periods of anniversaries.
00:05:51
Speaker
So strategically, and from a point of business plan and looking forward, it's really interesting point for the house. you know So much effort goes into all of these anniversaries two gaining what we can from them as well as meeting visitor need and expectation.
00:06:07
Speaker
And now the next anniversary isn't really until 2075, which is the 300th anniversary of her birth. So it's a very interesting point for us. and and And we're looking at it very positively actually, because we now have these 50 years where we don't have anniversary program titles after 16 years.
00:06:29
Speaker
so we've been working towards anniversaries for 20 years. It's how the organisation has been really structured. It's not a bad thing, that's just a fact, it's what it's what what shaped it. So it's now a really interesting point and it's really exciting actually to be looking ahead and to almost be freed from those anniversaries for programming and storytelling it's it's a very exciting moment for someone who I love business planning and i love strategic planning so I'm I'm in my element I'm just trying to get all these different research and ideas and see what's out there and go right brilliant what's the next step for us when we're not anniversarizing but this year is extraordinary as well so there's so much we can learn from this year we're we're building on previous experiences we've been working towards this for kind of four or five years so we're both
00:07:19
Speaker
using our programming that we've got established. And we're also testing different things for the future and see how they'll work. And there'll be some things from this year we retain because people love them and it's it's really enhancing visit and building community. So...
00:07:34
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that's, I think, so this actually is a really good point to do this podcast. So you've been in post for five years. It was 2020, wasn't when you came in? I've been in five years less a week.
00:07:47
Speaker
I've been in four years and 51 weeks today. ah Wow, that's, yeah, that's incredible. So yes, and actually the last five years has been, you know, an unusual five years and because of COVID and, you know, the amount of change in the world over that time. um And so I think it's a really nice time, actually, I think myself, a really interesting time for us to kind of look back what happened over those five years and the changes that you've made over that time, I suppose, as well as coming up to the end of this period of of anniversaries and celebrating all of those. and And like you say, looking forward now to, you know, having that freedom to to think differently and explore different things to do with the house and and and within your forward plan.
00:08:31
Speaker
Yeah, actually to say that it really makes me think sort of this year is the melding of of sort of two different things. um We have by necessity over the past four years, a lot of our focus has been digital. It's been doing online events and kind of the online outreach because our visitor numbers by the very fact of it changed.
00:08:51
Speaker
been that much lower. There have been people that haven't been able to come. So we've had to have that digital online focus. Whereas this year, there's much more on site and we're still, but we're still continuing the online. So it's a really interesting blend between, for want a better word, those tangible, physical, in-person events.
00:09:10
Speaker
whilst also maintaining and still wanting to grow that digital audience. And, know, we have, there are millions of readers of Austen around the world. And that is, I am aware that does give us an an extraordinary, it is a privilege as a museum. You know, we already have a built-in audience.
00:09:26
Speaker
Very few of those millions nowhere exist. And that's our mission is to get to those millions that nowhere exist, but they're there.
The Power of Storytelling
00:09:33
Speaker
And so there is a tangible hook. And in many ways, it makes our stories so much easier when we go back to,
00:09:39
Speaker
you know, those essences of fundraising and marketing and communicating and storytelling, which are at the heart of every museum. You know, our why it's very clear. It's very clear. Our how has not always been so clear.
00:09:52
Speaker
And those the the story has got has got muddled and there've been overlayers at some different times and stories change, but it's still the kernel of it has always been there and that does make things easier.
00:10:04
Speaker
But this year, yeah, we have that combination of high visitor numbers coming on site workshops, talks, walks, that tangibility of experience, but still maintaining that for those that can't come. So it's really interesting melding of those two that will inform the next steps.
00:10:22
Speaker
Yeah, that's great. And and thinking back then to to the kind of the digital work that you've done over the past five years, um would you say, I mean, looking right at the beginning, would you say that a lot of that was forced by COVID? Almost entirely. i mean, COVID was, ah and I'm sure we're not alone in saying this, COVID was one of the biggest forces of innovation and change and positive development that I think we've ever seen actually and one of the great advantages of being small was we were able to kind of quite quickly flex and do that pivot um and on on relatively small scale cost which was also very excellent.
00:11:02
Speaker
we We started quite early using social with different things so in kind of The May of 2020, we were kind of getting in touch with people and asking them to record bits of Austin's letters and building together and putting them on social.
00:11:17
Speaker
and But the real step change actually sort of happened in the November of 2020. We had, thanks to the Art Fund, who are just amazing, amazing funders and supportive of that creativity and innovation in the arts, we got a grant and with South Downs National Park to be able to put together an online tour.
00:11:37
Speaker
which we recorded in August of 2020. And we launched it when everything was ready in October, Jane Austen at home. And then the November lockdown was just brilliant timing. It was, it was, it was great. We had this thing ready.
00:11:51
Speaker
And then we started doing online tours via Zoom. And I think we were, um sorry, there was a little bit of imposter syndrome saying in there, but I think we were one of the first people to, first people to do it.
00:12:02
Speaker
um I think we were one of the first, if not the first. i need to check my sources on that and again, get over saying that, but I'm pretty certain we were. And we use Zoom and Zoom links and we were doing that every every week and every month.
00:12:16
Speaker
And we continued doing that all through 21. And we started building that with talks and specialist tours based around different books and different novels. And we still continue to do them once a month.
00:12:28
Speaker
We don't do them in the peak summer months now because nobody nobody in June and July wants to sit in and watch a virtual event. So we pause them in peak season. But through particularly that January to May 2021, which seemed like a more intense somehow than the first one, we were all still working from home and to be able to be kind of sitting in various spare rooms across Hampshire and having these amazing dialogues and conversations and sharing this space with people across the world.
00:13:01
Speaker
It wasn't just inspiring, it was incredibly motivating, actually, and that sense of community and sense of place and spirit of place and importance of place was so key to growing.
00:13:15
Speaker
Everyone who works a museum knows it's special. We all know it. We all love it. We love these places. It's why we're there. We dedicate ourselves to them. They become as much our lives as anything else. And think occasionally we have to remember that there is not just a future, there's also a present and not live lives through the past, but we all do it in museums.
00:13:32
Speaker
And doing that connection was so beautiful. And I think it really helped with helped me it helped with resilience so it's really difficult time to be continuing to share this but you know the main house was shuttered it was quiet we didn't have any visitors at some points we didn't even know when we were going to be able to reopen and to log on having you know 100 people on good days sometimes it wasn't always that high but people coming and and being able to share that was was just glorious and kind of in some ways mission chaining and mission defining because
00:14:06
Speaker
We're so rooted in bricks and mortar often and things. And I think one of the things I've really realised over the past five years here, both through doing the digital and through looking back at the history of the house, is it is the stories that matter.
00:14:25
Speaker
It's the stories that really, really matter. I mean, we have literal stories, so that say that helps, but the stories are things that matter. You know, people were coming to visit this house on on pilgrimage,
00:14:36
Speaker
when there was, when it was just a house, you know, when the drawing room had a billiard table in it and all of these different things and it's recorded when there weren't, for want a better word, the relics.
00:14:48
Speaker
So it is the stories, it's the stories and the, for want what the stuff adds another beautiful, enriching layer, but it is those different things and being able to share the images of the place and share the stories and also to take on and receive other people's stories.
00:15:07
Speaker
was empowering, enlightening, community building. Yeah, it was extraordinary. Yeah, and I think this is something that um I really wanted to focus on in this episode is is how much you used that opportunity to really build that online audience and how, you know, even now where we are back in in-person meeting and like you say, looking more towards that in-person visit and those tangible visits,
00:15:36
Speaker
That actually that that investment that you've given and you've put into your online audiences has been remarkable. And the growth that you've seen in in those in those engagements is incredible. and And I just wondered whether you could talk a bit more about kind of that, because it from what you were saying, i mean, obviously COVID did...
00:15:58
Speaker
force people to react and you know nobody could really predict what what was going to happen there you couldn't I don't think you could have written that into your forward plan thinking oh we ah global tribe and now they yeah we've learned some lessons from it haven't we absolutely but um but you know so initially it was reactive yes but but yeah over over the last five years um like you say, kind of building it in and and actually building on the experiences that we've had and what what you particularly have had within Jane Austen's house. Can you talk a bit more about how that's changed over time?
Impact of Social Media on Museums
00:16:34
Speaker
So certainly we, I think one of the really key things, and it's coming back to that stories, and I apologise if any point I sound like a self-help book and I apologise about it advance, but it's kind of, it's looking at everything holistically.
00:16:49
Speaker
We have a tendency in museums to kind of silo different things and look at things in different ways and to think particularly kind of like social media marketing. It's something outside of what we do. It's something extra. But actually, when we were shut down, the only way we could tell our stories was through these digital outputs. It had to become an outreach of curation.
00:17:12
Speaker
And that hasn't really changed. And I think that's how we, it's it's not just curation. I mean, I use the words in inverted commas, marketing tool, because we have to look at everything, you know marketing and curation should be fundamentally interlinked. Our marketing should be linked to our curated stories.
00:17:30
Speaker
And we started doing, and we've always been doing them we had fantastic marketing team at JAH for a very long time, um who deeply understand books and storytelling, writing and communicating the written word.
00:17:43
Speaker
But that was amplified over COVID and certainly, in So in 2022, I think I lose track of time. Anyway, the algorithms were changing on Instagram and it became very clear that video was the way forward. And no matter how many beautiful images you have of the house and of these different things, we needed to be able to invest in communicating videos and reels.
00:18:10
Speaker
And we didn't have enough staff capacity to be able to do that. It takes time. It takes thought. But luckily we were in a position because we had had a good post-COVID recovery to be able to employ another brilliant member of staff who is very creative and is just has a vision and and takes it on. And that has really helped. And when we saw i significant increase in our social followers as soon as we adopted that policy. As soon as we started working
00:18:42
Speaker
We brought somebody else into the team to increase our capacity, to be able to show those reels, show those videos, essentially following the market demand for information and to be creating bite-sized videos about the history of art. And we're not alone in this. you know Museums pivoted to TikTok.
00:19:00
Speaker
They did it brilliantly. you know The Black Country Museum were just doing astonishing things, sharing their stories, sharing those different ways. I think the really thing I really, really want to underline with this because it happens so often when things get tight, marketing budgets get cut.
00:19:17
Speaker
And I think if I could say to anybody who is running museums and decision-making museums, marketing is not about selling events. Marketing is about communicating your purpose.
00:19:30
Speaker
And that is best done now, in my opinion, through social media. you A leaflet is is not going to hack it in the same way. A 30 second reel, a 10 second reel can communicate the atmosphere, your sense of place, why you matter in a way that can be shared across the world. A real moment for us was in June, June 23,
00:19:56
Speaker
you know, we'd moved to going back to seven days a week. And i was sitting there thinking, we got all the right on Google because this is not as busy as I would expect it to be. Our brilliant, brilliant Jessica put together 10 second reel, 10 second reel that just got the house perfectly.
00:20:13
Speaker
Within a couple of weeks, it had reached a million views. And we then went on to have one of the busiest summers we'd had all the way back to 2017, which was the previous anniversary year.
00:20:23
Speaker
So this does help. This does matter. There are direct correlations between sharing your stories and getting it out in the world, building community, building a motive. you know Okay, so not all those million people are going to come and visit. Of course they're not, but they'll bookmark you. They remember you. They're part of you. You build that community. And it is so, so important. It is just not a case of if you open, they will come.
00:20:49
Speaker
It's not a case of you putting out a flyer They will come. It's about who you are and what you are. And if times are tough, get out there and say your why. i i hasten to underline that we were already in a position where we could make that change.
00:21:06
Speaker
And i am very aware of that, that we were able to do it. But this also is vital. That growth in 2023 supported us in 2024 through that cost of living crisis.
00:21:18
Speaker
It also helped fundamentally with fundraising. And this is another, but we, we've also fixed the roofs in the last couple years. We've done quite a lot. We needed to repair our roofs at the house.
00:21:29
Speaker
And one of the ways that we helped with the fundraising with this was we sold roof tiles, original roof tiles off the roof. And we did this on the main house, which is what I'm sitting in now, is why I'm putting my hands up.
00:21:40
Speaker
And ah we did this in December, 2021, we sold 200. and we sold two hundred And we thought they'd take a couple of months. They sold out in 36 hours.
00:21:52
Speaker
At that point, we had something like 25,000, 35,000 followers on social media. We did it again in February 2024.
00:22:03
Speaker
And they sold out in 11 hours. At that point, we had 75,000 followers on social media. So there is actually a direct correlation between...
00:22:17
Speaker
the speed of generating income and those social media followers. So it is not a flash in the pan. It's not something meaningless. It is an active extension of your curation, of your fundraising, of your storytelling.
00:22:31
Speaker
It's not just simply about filling events for us. And it has it it has been transform it has been transformational and building resilience as well.
00:22:42
Speaker
I'm very passionate about this. I think it's very important. Invest in your mark-ons. Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think you also, i know you've said it before yourself um and, you and maybe some visitors some listeners will be thinking the same, as like but but, you know, you're Jane Austen's house, so, you know, you already have that following. you or Like you say, you already have those stories to tell or you have stories that you can connect to.
00:23:07
Speaker
um But from my point of view, I'm very much of the mind that actually, yes, you do have those to your you know in your back pocket, but you could still have got it very wrong, you know, and it could, you know, or museums, you know, you could...
00:23:24
Speaker
You could you know not not have built on what you had learned. You could not have done all of those things. and So you know from from your point of view, if you were you know a museum that didn't have Jane Austen in your back pocket, is there something that you would say, i know you've said you know you do need to investor invest in your Marcombs, but...
00:23:43
Speaker
Is there kind of a top tip, I suppose, that that any museum could take from this and and, you know, that you could just give us a little kind of soundbite, if you like, of what they could do, regardless of what their collection is or what their story is or whether they're run by five volunteers or have a a team of 300? Yeah.
00:24:01
Speaker
not sure if there are any museums that have that many stuff. Again, I'm going to risk sounding like a self-help book, but it's share your passion for this place. That's what's important. You know, whenever we look across things that work so well, when we look at something and go, oh, I love that, it's because it's somebody else who's sharing what they love about this place.
00:24:23
Speaker
Everybody who works in museums has an abiding, passion and drive for what they do and what they look after and those sites and the special, you know, these are incredibly special places. They are preserved for a reason.
00:24:40
Speaker
And it is about communicating that reason, why it matters to you. And the other thing is keep it really short. People's attention spans are super, super short these days.
00:24:52
Speaker
You know, keep it short, keep it sweet. You know, it it doesn't have to be, you don't have to try and sum up the entire, you know, know there's amazing museums and I read like 50,000 objects in your collection, like boil it down to one thing. You know, you can tell a story with a bedpan.
00:25:07
Speaker
You know, you can do these different things. It's about, really highlighting that essence it's the essentiality of what makes your place special we record everything and edit it on on smartphones you know there's no high-end technology here so it is it is it is relatively straightforward all of our online events we just set up a zoom link and we do it we do it through through that way so i think it's when i say invest it's It's as much about time and thought as much as it is about about money. It's about setting aside that this isn't something extra. This isn't something you have to do on top of all the other things. if if Effectively, it's a form of digital curation and it's a form of digital exhibitions. If you actually think about your social feed, your Instagram, your TikTok, and don't do all of them because then you'll go insane.
00:26:05
Speaker
do what you Do what you can, find what works for you. Some museums still Facebook works, others Instagram and others are TikTok. Find what works, pick it and do that well. But it's about carving out a little bit that time to make a digital object label.
00:26:21
Speaker
You know, what is it about this? It's it's it's digital curation and storytelling and exhibitions. Every little square on that feed is a micro exhibition that's continuing to share your story.
00:26:34
Speaker
Yeah, and I think that's a really important thing to consider as well for, you know, small museums that might have small collections or have small spaces. So they can't display that many objects.
Visitor Experience and Income Generation
00:26:45
Speaker
You know, there is a big focus on having kind of, I don't know, your collection, having your collections database digitised and having it accessible. But actually, this is a way of doing that at such low cost. I mean, it takes, obviously, it does take the time and time is cost. Yeah.
00:27:00
Speaker
But actually putting it out on social media is a really good way of unlocking that collection and and expanding the work that you're doing. If you're thinking of it as an additional exhibition or additional curation, and i think that's a really, really interesting kind of this way of describing it.
00:27:15
Speaker
And I think also the other thing I was going to say is that that I feel like with your museum, particularly this this idea of taking time and not kind of. ah kind of rushing all the things that you're you're doing online something that has been reflected in the way that you have managed your visitor numbers as well because you you are after covid you didn't increase your visitor numbers daily visitor numbers again you kept them at ticketed yeah and and there's been quite a big impact on on that side of things as well isn't there yeah that's been absolutely transformational so we um as everyone did
00:27:49
Speaker
Post-COVID, we, we, we, previous, so previous to COVID, we didn't have a pre-booking ticket system. It had definitely been talked about. And actually we were very luckily in a position that a procurement process had been gone through. So it the final decision to go for that hadn't been made, but a lot of the thinking around it had been done and then COVID happened and we had to go for it.
00:28:11
Speaker
And we kept the time tickets afterwards. We noticed that when we had the time tickets, our spend per head went up, our secondary spend went up, our visitor feedback was more positive.
00:28:25
Speaker
The rooms here are kind of, I say domestic again, I don't live in anything this big, they're large domestic size. And as soon as you have more than about four or five people in those rooms, they start to feel cramped, especially to enjoy them.
00:28:39
Speaker
And being able to have a clear visitor flow, being able to know that the visitors can have their experiences with these objects and within these spaces, it it fundamentally increased visitor satisfaction.
00:28:55
Speaker
It increased dwell time because people weren't, you know, I now have just a hatred of places that you shuffle through, you know, because we're you know, you can wander around here. There's ah space. We also have a very small shop and to get down to what Jane Austen called pewter, you know, money matters, particularly at the moment and particularly when,
00:29:16
Speaker
Funding streams are more difficult to access. There's more competition for funding. You know, we needed to fix our roof. Places that will just give you money to fix a roof.
00:29:28
Speaker
and And believe me, I've tried. Trying to find interesting outreach and engagement programs around fixing a roof is quite hard. um So we needed to um make some money. And I think, again, another thing that I think is you often see, I can see feeds and I can see discussions around like museums making money.
00:29:47
Speaker
Making money is just fundraising. It's just something different. Why do we have within the sector this kind of dissonance between fundraising and making money? It it you know it comes back into the same pot. We can write a grant and get £1,000 in, or we put a new range in the shop and we get £1,000 And people who have bought that pencil. Let's give a pencil ex example. 1,000 people have bought that pencil, take it home, and they take to their workplace, and they keep it as a momenta yeah It's still fundraising.
00:30:19
Speaker
It's just done through a different stream. And I would also argue it's not just fundraising. It's marketing as well. Anyway, I digress. When you have a smaller number in a smaller shop space, people have more time to shop. They have more space to browse.
00:30:34
Speaker
Our shop space is an old stable. It is not where you'd put a shop if you wanted to. And by restricting those visitor numbers, Conversely, we have generated more income.
00:30:46
Speaker
We have been able to fundraise more because people have had a better time, because they've been able to have that emotive response to it.
00:30:58
Speaker
They have more time and more space to shop and they are more inclined to to buy things. And I think we should also consider secondary spend as a marker of the visitor experience.
00:31:12
Speaker
I know that when I'm a museum visitor, when I go into the shop and I want to buy something, it's because I've had a good visit. And actually often i want to buy something and I go into museum shop and there isn't something to buy.
00:31:25
Speaker
So actually, it's actually a marker of an emotive experience. If people are prepared and want to and give you their money it's a sign they've had a good and they want to take part of your visit home.
00:31:38
Speaker
So actually, the whilst we look at these things as being commercial, they're not, there's also that sort of bad thing. It's about meeting a visitor and a visitor expectation and it's marketing, it's outreach and all those different things.
00:31:52
Speaker
And for us, you know, we now, and we've tried various different variantations. At one point we had, think it was 10 visitors every 15 minutes. And I think that was in,
00:32:05
Speaker
22 and that felt too busy and actually 23 we put down to 12 every 20 so we have slots on the hour 20 past 22 we have increased that capacity and do a dizzying 14 this year just because the demand is higher um but we but that still means you have that flow you have that space to be with the objects uh you know this is a place that's a bucket list visit for people. you know it's It is a pilgrimage of sorts. It's places that they want to, as well as just people just dropping in, but everybody should have that same quality of visit, whether it's something that you've just seen the sign and thought, oh, let's go there for the afternoon, or it's like a once in a lifetime trip to still be somewhere that's you know crowded and over.
00:32:54
Speaker
mean, also we spend ages writing those panels. We want people to be able to see them, you know the work that goes in. So it's it's all those different things that that come into one. And it's work for us. And I think I am a aware of the discussions that I have with myself.
00:33:11
Speaker
We are here to communicate and share our histories. And that's really, really important. So there is an element of wanting to do that with as many people as possible. However, we do also need to look after this site. It's fragile and we need to be able to make ends meet. So there is always that tipping point between visitors, conservation. At what point does that split? And I think one of the things we have kind of changed, and I know this will be, make some people's toes curls and will be a little bit icky, is bottom line.
00:33:47
Speaker
You have to look at the bottom line as much as footfall. And it's actually quite, you know, it's okay to not be pushing numbers up and up and up all the time.
00:33:58
Speaker
But it is good to balance the books and make a small surplus and bring those things in. And actually, an increased income can come from an increased visitor
Physical and Digital Visitor Strategy
00:34:12
Speaker
experience. They're not mutually exclusive. I still need to do some thinking on this and I am aware, am very aware that we're educational. We've got to be sharing our stories.
00:34:21
Speaker
but then there's also digitally, there's also this other outreach. So you have to, it just comes back to looking everything as a whole. Sorry. Yeah. A bit rambling. No, no, I think it's brilliant because again, i think that it leads us back to this um fear perhaps that some people have about, you know, if you put too much stuff online, then people won't come and visit your site.
00:34:41
Speaker
And, and, and from what you're saying for you, it's just not been that way. You've kind of given them that teaser. You've, introduce them to the site, you've made them have that desire to visit.
00:34:53
Speaker
yeah and And more and more, then you're feeding that need to have that in-person interaction, to have that tangibility of a museum um and then have that memento. So again, it's that like you said, that holistic view of, you know, introducing people to your place, bringing them in, giving them that experience and seeing it as this this big circle of...
00:35:17
Speaker
yeah Lovely museum-ness. I think, oh, yeah, I think that's awesome. And I think it's also about looking back at your own behaviour. You know, I know that there are places that I follow, I mean, I follow places on social media for years and then I will eventually go.
00:35:30
Speaker
You know, I'm an engaged supporter. I was in Paris last week and I went to Shakespeare & Co. I followed them on social for ages. I have a jumper that's Shakespeare & Co. that I got sent over from Paris. And last week I went because I am, you know, I think we can have engaged supporters,
00:35:47
Speaker
that are not on site, that are not regular visitors. And again, am aware I am saying this, you know there are so many different sorts of museums. I'm saying this very much from position of a destination museum rather than a museum that is the heart and, you know, it's we're not an amenity, we're not in that kind of centre of a community and meeting all of those amazing, vital things that so many museums are doing. And I, am you know, as a personality led museum, rather maybe a place centred museum,
00:36:15
Speaker
that is different. And i am I am aware of that.
Strategic Planning for Museum Longevity
00:36:21
Speaker
But if a cat in Skeg Nest that goes to Tesco's can have its own social media following and sell merchandising, I think I would argue that everybody, everybody can.
00:36:32
Speaker
ah Absolutely. Absolutely. And I think, you know, this has been such a an interesting discussion and really, you know, it's so good to kind of hear how things have kind of evolved over time. And, know,
00:36:46
Speaker
And I think there is that mix here as well of what you're saying between that kind of being reactive to some things, you know, like COVID that just couldn't have been predicted, but actually now really learning from that and and turning it into a strategy.
00:37:00
Speaker
And ah I suppose i I'm very interested in that balance because I think for a lot of small museums, it's very hard to move from being entirely reactive to being, you know, to being led by your strategy.
00:37:15
Speaker
And so I just wondered if you had any sort of advice on taking that step, because so many people are just desperately trying to keep their doors open still, that taking that time, again, we're going back to this idea of yeah giving yourselves time and giving your visitors time and space.
00:37:31
Speaker
But what do you have any, don't know, recommendations, ideas, suggestions or things that just, you know, personally you've. Yeah, possibly sort of my personal response that is absolutely about taking time.
00:37:44
Speaker
It's about taking that step out. And again, i was, and I am going to use the word, I was lucky to start in the middle of that lockdown because it meant I was, I had to, i was forced to go straight into why this place mattered.
00:37:58
Speaker
It was straight into strategy. It was straight into that kind of survival, you know, how, what's the plan for the next six months, writing those down, communicating it with people that weren't here, you know, and with working with trustees really closely,
00:38:13
Speaker
which was an absolute godsend. I you know cannot thank both the board of trustees that we had at the time through COVID and my existing board enough. Working closely together with that is is so important.
00:38:24
Speaker
Working with the team, you know it is is about communication. It's about listening. It's about taking on all those different things. But it's then also about taking the time to step back.
00:38:36
Speaker
I have a favourite local coffee shop that every so often i will kind of leave early on a Friday And I'll just decant, like, what should we do next? I have these various different notebooks and pages where I'm like, right, these are these things.
00:38:50
Speaker
And again, it is coming back to keeping it simple. You know, you don't, we can't fix the world in museums. As society changes and evolves, there is increasing desire from the people who work in museums to kind of like, what can we do? How can we help fix this?
00:39:07
Speaker
we look at the past we know what went on before how can we use what we've done to try and stop things doing again and we shouldn't and we can do that but sometimes we just need to take that step back and go how do we get through the next year ah what do we do then after the next year and I think it's about thinking slowing taking that time out so anybody who is in sorry, hate the story of leadership position.
00:39:36
Speaker
I need to get over something, but in that leadership, like taking an afternoon out, go to your favourite coffee shop, Get pen to paper and like, what matters? What do I want to do What would we want to achieve?
00:39:48
Speaker
Where do we want to be? Go to as many other sites as possible. Steal ideas with pride. Go and see what works. You remember, you are a visitor. If you go somewhere like, I love that.
00:40:01
Speaker
That's brilliant. Someone will love it at your site. If you go somewhere and hate it, you know, it's probably on your own site. There's probably stuff that you're missing as well. it's It's an hour.
00:40:12
Speaker
And I know people are really busy and it's really hard, but take an hour, go and grab a coffee, write down the things that are worrying you, the things you want achieve, brainstorm what you can do and then refine it.
00:40:26
Speaker
Send it to somebody else, send it to your chair, send it to somebody, go, this is what I'm thinking and have those kind of evolved decisions. Every kind of six months or so, I'll do like a brain dump.
00:40:38
Speaker
Yeah. I'll send it out. I'm like, what? And then Mason's like, you're insane. And it comes back. But it's about it's about having that. you You have to take that time to learn um time to listen and then time to to put it put it down, um I think.
00:40:59
Speaker
i think I think that's an excellent recommendation. And I am certainly going to take away from this that I need to, when I'm planning things, create a flow chart that's oh my view I'm going to take a flow chart and I'm going to turn it into this big cycle so I have I take that time to make that plan do a flow chart so it all fits together in this kind of holistic view of of my activity I would also add to that actually because based on that flow chart which I think you're absolutely right is and this is why we're at such an interesting point so when I first got this job which was in
00:41:31
Speaker
I got it in the early February 2020. I was still in start April and I was having quite an initial amazing conversations. I knew from February 2020 that I had 2025 to work towards.
00:41:43
Speaker
So I knew that it was this big anniversary that I was working towards, had a kind of sense of what we wanted to achieve from it. It was there. So I'd been working, building, we've been working and building towards that from then, you know, putting in programming and putting in that.
00:41:58
Speaker
So now, without those anniversaries, what we as a team and as a board and as you know as a community have to work out, what does 2030 look like? And that's the thing.
00:42:09
Speaker
And then circle circled back. So ah that's the next stage of the planning that I'm going to work us What do we want 2030 to look like? And there... So right, what do we need to put in place in 29, 20, but work backwards?
00:42:24
Speaker
And that's that's the approach that kind of we're looking at taking is rather than what do we want to do next year? What do want the year after? What do we Because that's reactive.
00:42:36
Speaker
You will have to react because as soon as you write it it's all nonsense and something will change and you have to do it all over again anyway. But if you can still look at, right, this is where we want to be in X amount of time and that will change for every museum and it will change for every team because every team works differently. Every team has different motivations. You know, for some people, it you know it could be, where do we want to be in December?
00:42:58
Speaker
Right, what do we want be, right, okay, so what do we need to do work back? So like for us for 2025, we wanted to have various different festivals. Right. So we also knew we didn't want to do events untrusted in a busy year.
00:43:12
Speaker
So let's start. We started programming in 21. We built on it in 22, 23. So that actually when we were coming into this big year, there weren't too many surprises.
00:43:24
Speaker
And so that's, you know, I think that flow chart analogy is absolutely perfect. You start with where you you know, and also, you know, break it down. It doesn't have to be, we want to be the best museum in the world. It's like, right by 2030, I want better toilets.
00:43:38
Speaker
nice So what do I have to do to be able to get to the better toilets in, in 2030? And if you do that, you know, you, if you take an hour a week and go, right, I just want to focus on toilets next week. I want to focus on exhibitions the week after that it's marketing and you set yourself up and how do you build it year by year?
00:44:00
Speaker
then you can move forward.
Conclusion and Reflections
00:44:03
Speaker
And that sounds like a perfect, perfect place to end the the interview. I think um it's been really insightful and enlightening for me. um and And, you know, I wish you and everyone at Jane Austen's house and all the visitors that you're going to see in this incredible year, um all the best, because I think, um you know, it is a really wonderful place to visit. So for any listeners there, do do go and visit Jane Austen's house.
00:44:25
Speaker
ah remember to book your tickets. And also don't forget there is Life Beyond 2025. So it's okay like he to come and see us in the future. Yes. um And obviously follow you on Instagram. yeah um Because because yeah if you can't make it in person to Jane Austen's house, then at least you can see and get a flavour for what Jane Austen's house is all about by seeing their digital curation on Instagram.
00:44:52
Speaker
So Lizzie, thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure. And um thank you for being my first interviewee on Make Me a Museum. It's an absolute privilege, so thank you for asking.
00:45:05
Speaker
So there we have it. A short venture into life at Jane Austen's house. And for me, loads to take away. Perhaps the most important ones for me were including digital marketing, social media, retail, all as a core part of your exhibition planning.
00:45:22
Speaker
And... challenging the feeling that it's an add-on. And the other one is taking time, something I predict will feature often in upcoming episodes.
00:45:35
Speaker
So important to take that time out and think and plan an hour a month. It's totally doable, right? But now it's time for me to draw a close to this first episode.
00:45:46
Speaker
I really hope that you've enjoyed it and found it interesting. Please do leave me comments and suggestions and feedback. But now it's time for me to go and grab that coffee and get started on my flowchart.