In these unfamiliar times, the urgency of sharing impactful actions and knowledge that help strengthen communities could not be higher. As a first step, we invite you to contribute to DigitalASO Ecosystems Map and help us visualize the inspiring diversity of digital champions and resources in Canadian arts and culture from coast to coast to coast. Learn more about DigitalASO Ecosystems Map below or start the Ecosystems Survey beginning September 15, 200 (link will be here soon).
Introduction
One of the most frequent requests received by the team at DigitalASO has been to help individual arts workers and organizations alike become more aware of, and connected to, impactful digital efforts rooted in diverse communities across Canada.
Canada’s arts and culture community is large and multifaceted with pockets of human/digital experimentation and innovation percolating in every region from coast to coast to coast. Currently, it is a difficult task to discover digital activities and resources that address the needs of specific communities in arts and culture, or to connect and share inspiring stories of success and foster collaborative networks for the benefit of all.
DigitalASO Ecosystems Map strives to respond. As a first step, we are pleased to share a user-friendly survey that will help visualize baseline information on the wide array of digital initiatives and resources that are leading the way toward a bright digital future in Canadian arts and culture. We want to hear from you whether you are involved in, or have been inspired by, a digital project that is recently finished, presently active, or at the bootstrapping or ideation stage.
Interactive resources
Rather than disseminating results in a printed report or as a static dataset to plow through (who has time for that?), we want to make sure the information you share is presented and visualized in a way that is insightful and easy to use. Such an interactive resource will take time to create to ensure maximum usability. Over the next several months, we will share ongoing results with high-level visual summaries and filterable datasets in Excel and Tableau. Into 2021 and beyond, we will create opportunities to co-design a more robust and responsive mapping tool with stakeholders such as yourself.
Matchmaking
The information we are gathering through this survey is designed to help answer burning questions of individual arts workers and small to mid-sized arts organizations: Who is doing impactful work in the digital sphere serving my communities or disciplines? What are the transformative digital projects and resources that align with my values or vision? Who are the digital pioneers and thought leaders we have yet to hear about? What are the most urgent needs and opportunities for working more collaboratively together to realize a positive digital future?
Into 2021, we intend to use this information to develop a digital ‘matchmaking’ service to help better connect impacted equity-seeking communities to digital champions that can respond to their specific needs. The same tool will also help digital leaders to discover other digital projects and potential partners with mutual interests.
Knowledge sharing
The survey also includes questions about the digital leaders, projects, and resources that you have found inspiring. By making this information more widely available, we want to promote visibility and access to valuable insights and experiences that others may be looking for. With a focus on equity-seeking groups that are core to our mandate, please take the time to share your digital inspirations from Indigenous, Black, Brown, 2SLGBTQ+, disability arts, and other racialized and marginalized groups, including youth, women, New Canadians, and more.
Future thinking
Interactive matchmaking and knowledge sharing are just some of the possible initiatives that the data you share with us through the survey will serve. More will emerge as we conduct workshops to share the data with the community and identify additional ways in which it can be used.
As stewards of this data, we are conscientious of various data privacy considerations that are specific to the arts sector. While we are still in the early days of finalizing our ecosystem mapping activities, we are developing data privacy policies that will enable individuals to be intentional about the nature and scope of the consent they give around the use of their data.
As we develop a clearer idea of how interactive matchmaking and knowledge sharing services as we describe above might look like, we will reach out to all data contributors to update their consent to reflect actual usage. As an immediate benefit for the arts community, we will request consent for select data that you provide to be made available as an open dataset.
The information we are gathering is in great demand for individuals and organizations who wish to create a variety of online tools and services for a more connected arts sector. We will make sure that we obtain clear consent as to which part of your data will be published as such, and what will be available only internally to DigitalASO for research purposes.
Are you interested in being a partner in our ecosystem mapping initiative? Get in touch at hello@digitalaso.ca.
Ready to help build a more connected ecosystem in the arts? Mark your space on the DigitalASO Ecosystems Map beginning September 15, 2020.
