The theme of the year—defining the intelligent museum—investigated among visitors using a new scientific approach.

For some time now, on the main page of this site, the logo of Network Museum People Social has been visible: the first social network dedicated to those who visit and frequent museums.

Why an independent social network, free of advertising and “spying” algorithms that track user behavior, without profiles and case histories to be used for commercial purposes or resold for profit?

To answer, we must go back in time nearly twenty years, when within INFOGESTIONE, through the “spin-off” dedicated to the study of communication called Comunicazioni Culturali, the approach known as “Integrated Strategic Communication” was born from a series of research projects and experiments. This method identified a new criterion of interaction based on three peculiar aspects:

1 – Complementarity in the application of new communication technologies.

2 – Interaction between the real and digital dimensions.

3 – Constant consideration of the directions (verses) for every communication flow.

While the first represented a particular evolution in the use of then-recent digital technologies in the communication sector, defining a tactical aspect of particular scope and complexity, the second anticipated an increasingly marked imbalance due to the use of new equipment and applications. This imbalance affected not only communication methods but also, more severely, relational, social, and anthropological dynamics. The alarmist view regarding job losses due to the massive adoption of new technologies, whether right or wrong, as this is not the place to deliberate on its merits, is not merely an economic or social issue. It is becoming, and will increasingly constitute, a critical anthropological aspect: what can human life become if deprived of the means to secure survival, one of the three cornerstone principles of every individual’s biological existence? The third aspect is the reason for writing this cover story, due to its fundamental role in determining the theme chosen for this year: how a “smart” or “intelligent” museum can be defined.

Every communication, or every piece of information passing from an emitter to a receiver, is determined not only by one or more directions but also by a series of “verses,” at least two: an outgoing and a return flow, to crudely simplify the theory. Usually, except in statistical applications, only the active verses of communication are considered. Attention is paid to the passive verses only through some application of so-called “finalization” or “realization,” measured in terms of the volume of services or goods produced, or economic results. Rarely have we observed the deliberate creation of information flows aimed at analyzing a response spectrum, in both qualitative and quantitative terms. This category includes, for example, market tests and surveys, which, however, are usually not characterized by a stable system framework that lasts over time and, above all, is capable of feeding its own investigative paradigm with the research and measurement of new parameters derived from the ongoing analysis. Furthermore, they are usually disconnected from the typical operations of the system and cannot provide any benefit beyond data collection.

One must not confuse an “Integrated Strategic Communication” system with mere profiling: not only because of the possibility of acting on populations with disaggregated data and in full anonymity, but because of the management of a system that requires, as an application paradigm, the use of extremely diverse techniques, means, and activities to capture unhomogenized or unknown aspects and behaviors. At this point, I find it appropriate to insist on the term “behavior” and the study thereof. The “Integrated Strategic Communication – CSI” approach allows for the identification, observation, measurement, and study not only of isolated and a priori described “behaviors” but also the identification of new ones, expressing attitudes and actions that escape a closed detection system.

In a more mundane but certainly effective way, we can define “one-way” communication, to be clear, the kind from which we expect a pre-identified result, like those people who meet us and talk without listening to what we have to say. Seeing that they have no effect, they then hold us back by talking much more, flooding us with words and proposals. Unsatisfied, they begin to raise their voices, thinking there is a reception or distraction problem, eventually turning their communication into an activity on the verge of violence and illegality. It is useless to speak Piedmontese to an Eskimo, trying to sell him ice, when he has come to Italy to stay in the sun, learn Italian, and enjoy visiting our museums.

In doctrine, referring to the Configuration Theory, whose elementary relationship is:

fC = (fI / fE · fA) · fP

the cognitive field

fI / fE,

namely the ratio between the impression function and the expression function, becomes congested due to an immoderate increase in fI.

The relationship therefore becomes:

lim (fI → ∞) ( fI / fE ) = ∞ for fE → 0

meaning that from an analytical-qualitative point of view, a “function saturation” is generated, and from an operational point of view, a “system congestion” occurs.

If, instead, we focus our attention on the remaining part of the relationship:

fC = (fI / fE · fA) · fP

specifically on the association function fA and the permanence function fP, we can notice how, by allowing an active role for the receiving entity (the public, for example), communication is enhanced in terms of quality as well as quantity, and above all, balanced between the two functions in the ratio.

In this regard, there are management processes that can benefit from such attention: among many, those of loyalty building (fidelization), segmentation, and the repositioning of a product or service, including temporary exhibitions, to be concrete in museum terms.

The opening reference of this cover story to our independent and proprietary social network is perfectly clear: such a communicative stronghold is part of the Implementation Paradigm of an Integrated Strategic Communication System, which currently includes 12 other elements.

Social media platforms, with all due respect to those who assiduously write post after post, convinced they have a vast audience, give nothing to anyone for free. They use and feed on our data and content, allowing visualization based on their algorithms, intercepting our attention, or rather, our compulsion, in favor of their promotional load. The alternative is to pay for a result that depends heavily on what one wishes to convey through social media.

The approach to the strategic problem with an Integrated Strategic Communication System involves using an independent and proprietary social medium as a privileged observation point in the process of aggregation, constitution, loyalty building, and development of a cultural community. From this, certainly, more data on visitors and their behaviors can be obtained, for example, transforming them from mere “visitors” into “frequenters.” This involves analyzing, in qualitative and quantitative terms, evolutions in their demand. This analysis should not be used cynically just to structure a satisfactory offer, but primarily to understand one’s mission and a whole series of very useful elements to understand one’s role as a museum. All this is achieved by letting our guests talk and interact with each other and with us, the museum. The aspects that can be discovered will be many and varied; but, above all, it will be possible to understand with whom, about what, why, how, and when we are speaking.

On this aspect alone, one could write much more, but I am more concerned with bringing the communication device just described alongside the theme of the year: museum intelligence.

If we consider the direct and metaphorical etymology of the word “intelligence,” we might encounter three aspects that the aforementioned social network expresses.

Intelligence as “intus legere“: to read deeply; as “inter legere“: to read across; and as “intra legare“: to bind together. From here, the aforementioned functions of segmentation, loyalty building, and, above all, mission introspection become the constituents of museum intelligence.

Let them speak, then!