Symbiosis update

A Symbiosis project feedback form was distributed to the group of museums that attended the workshop at the London Transport Museum at the start of the year.

The standardised questionnaire is listed as well as a sample of responses :

How much time per day/week have you invested in engaging with industry?

Responses ranged from none through to one day per week. Our experience at MoDiP is that a lot of time, up to two days per week has to be put into the engagement process to develop meaningful leads and discussion with target organisations.

How have you engaged? Email, telephone or letter?

Engagement methods range from telephone or email or combination of both as we have used at MoDiP. One museum organisation used a letter with a poster sent to over 200 organisations.

Have you visited any companies following your engagement activity?

A number of organisations made no visits whilst some considered that they should have done. Some museums made visits to existing contacts whilst others have hosted visits to their museum. At MoDiP we have made visits to organisations that have expressed a real interest in working in collaboration with us.

How have companies responded to your initial engagement activity? Five is very positive, zero is very negative.

The response to this question was mostly positive, although one museum found the response to be quite negative. The response we have received at MoDiP has been a mainly positive 4.

Have any collaborative projects been generated via your engagement activity?

In many cases collaborative projects have been generated, however some museums have struggled to generate interest. Following an extensive engagement effort and contact made with over 50 organisations, MoDiP has secured a number of projects although these are generally small in scale due to a general reluctance by organisations to invest.

How many collaborative projects have been generated?

To date a total of 23 collaborative projects have been developed via engagement activity since the meeting at the London Transport Museum.
What have you learnt so far from your engagement activity?

A number of very interesting responses were received with regard to this question including:

“Maintaining relationships can be difficult”

 
“Need more face to face activity particularly after mailshot”

 
“Have to work hard to get companies on board”

 
“Something concrete is required to help potential partners visualise the offer”

 
“The shear amount of effort required to engage and build relationships”

 
“Relationships can take time to develop”

At MoDiP we have realised that a tremendous amount of time and effort is required in terms of engagement activity in order to generate leads and develop projects.
Would you be interested in attending a Masterclass event to be held in early March at the BPF in London? The Masterclass will review the activity undertaken with regard to the Symbiosis Project.

In total 9 museums have expressed an interest in attending the Masterclass that will be held at the BPF in March.

Jeremy Pingstone, Industry Consultant