COMMUNITIES OF OWNERSHIP & INTEREST IN CONTEXT

In the 1970s it was fashionable to consider “stakeholders” in planning and management processes. At the time “stakeholder” was intended to be an inclusive notion but very quickly some of these stakeholders began to assert precedence over others. Consequently they were claiming some kind of exclusive interest and privileges to match. Furthermore, they tended to demand a ranking – a place in a pecking order – and privileges to match their ranking. 

In some situations, but not all, this view/understanding had some veracity and especially so in regard to some planning processes. Very quickly stakeholders’ concerns were accommodated and as a consequence before anyone could be considered a stakeholder they needed to demonstrate a ‘legitimate interest’ – someone with a pecuniary interest, someone with an ownership of some kind (freehold, intellectual property, cultural), someone who is at risk of suffering loss of something, whatever, all of which were subjectively assessed. 

Stakeholdership quite quickly became at once an elastic concept and an idea in retreat – more often than not, one that served some more than others. Rarely does the idea of ‘obligation’ come into current stakeholder equations but ‘rights’ are regularly asserted – albeit so often self defined. 

Stakeholdership is an untidy and contentious idea to say the least! It is especially so if you are left out of the loop and you see yourself as having  a connection to something or somewhere. Very often stakeholders are in competition with each other in persuit of 'a specific outcome'.

However there is another way, and a more inclusive way, to think about all this. If we think about say Museums & Art Galleries (Cultural Institutions & Cultural Enterprises) as having Communities of Ownership and Interest (COI) – layers of cognitive owners including stakeholders – COI members might then begin an interesting conversation with each other in regard to resource management and the cultural values invested in the ‘place’ and institution.

 Members of a COI are ideally in partnership with each other and over time share an interest in a range of outcomes attached to a place, institution, event, whatever.

There is no need to invent and then market this idea as if it were some new idea. However, clearly Public Museums and Art Galleries have an extraordinary COI. as do many 'cultural institutions' – schools, religious order, special interest society, etc.  All that really needs to be done is: 

• Identify the COI membership – individuals, groups, institutions, communities; 
• Acknowledge and celebrate the COI's presence; and 
• Begin the conversation! 

That might seem to be a job for a consultant but not really. It isn’t rocket science! It is simply about making a list and being prepared to continually add to it and act upon it. 

Mapping the ‘ownerships’ shared in the cultural and intellectual property – cultural knowledge – enriches them rather than diluting or downgrading them. Nonetheless the tensions between Freehold Property, 'The Crown', Cultural Property and the Public Domain will not dissolve. However, they may be managed in more productive ways when these layers of ‘ownerships’ are acknowledged alongside all others in the cognitive ownership layering.

Do institutions shape our culture? Or, do our cultural realities shape our institutions? 

Acknowledging a COI is a cultural mindset. It is not a bureaucratic process – rather it is a participatory process. The cognitive ownership model demonstrates the richness of places – museums here – as an alternative to the poverty of perspective embedded in adversarial and unconsultative bureaucratic planning processes.

Indeed, individuals within a place’s, an event's, a space's, a knowledge system's COI will almost certainly have multiple layers of ownership and interest in it. The ‘truth’ in the ownership and interest here is ‘cognitive,’ a matter of ‘lore’ rather than ‘law’ – that which is taught; hence to do with wisdom; concerning cultural knowledge, traditions and beliefs. It pertains to cognition, the process of knowing, being aware, the acts of thinking, learning and judging. 

If we take a museum as an exemplar, museums are to do with cognition – musing; the contemplative; the meditative. If we look at courts, then they are to do with power over conduct; enforcement and authority; control and regulation, guilt and innocence – none of which have a place in musing places, nor much to do with musing.

An audit of cognitive ownerships would reveal the ownership confluences and likewise conflicting in ownership claims. If we abandon the notion that there can be a hierarchical structure to the ownership of place, – museums here again – it is possible that managers of cultural property can begin: 

• To work towards accommodating competing claims in the context of coexistent cognitive ownerships and interests; 
• To resolve conflicts and tensions over usage and access; and 
• To establish appropriate planning processes and management systems that engage with the diversity of the COI.

Who are these cognitive owners? The simple answer is almost everyone may be but to be useful the COI list must be inclusive rather than exclusive or privileged. Likewise, it must be an ‘open list’ and possibly more important than knowing 'who the owners are' is knowing what their interest and ownerships are – and the cultural context in which an ownership is claimed.

It is important to consider that COI members may well have multiple ownerships/interests and for some ‘owners’, some ‘ownerships’ may well be in conflict with another. 

‘Membership’ of a Community of Ownership & Interest is always determined and assessed subjectively and importantly there is no functional hierarchy or ranking of membership even if any one group imagines it affiliation as being 'very important'. Each person’s, group’s, affiliated body’s membership is notionally equally important and normally individuals will have multiple, and multifaceted memberships – some possibly in conflict with each other. Ideally a members’ relationship with the institution will be positive but not by necessity always so. 

Those engaged in some kind of dispute or conflict with the institution will be equally a part of its COI as another who may be in complete accord with it. Acknowledging difference and diversity allows for the accommodation of inclusive and holistic planning and management processes and by extension more dynamic programming.

Most importantly, the review and documentation of a COI is potentially an institution’s key marketing tool and the foundation upon which to build an effective and inclusive marketing program.

AUDIT METHODOLOGY FOR MUSEUMS & ART GALLERIES

While the payment of, or the receipt of, fees or dues does not by necessity determine the ‘membership’ of a Community of Ownership & Interest of an institution, those who do pay fees and/or are in receipt of salaries, wages, honorariums, retainers etc. relative to the institution will typically be COI members – but not by definition or exclusively. 

A fee may be required for some reason to be a member of an auxiliary or affiliated group but this does not rank a membership in any way given that individuals will often have a diversity of parallel and/or coexisting ownerships and interests. 

COI members may also be members of affiliated and connected groups, organisations and institutions. 

That group of people often referred to as “the audience” will typically be COI members. Likewise, researchers with an interest the institution’s collection, or a component of it, will be included in the membership along with people whose work is held in the collections, intellectual property owners, donors, sponsors, funding agencies et al.

Compiling a COI membership list is a useful marketing exercise but more importantly doing so is in large part a marketing technique. Knowing and identifying the scope and characteristics of an institution’s COI offers multiple marketing options and opportunities. 

By necessity a COI Audit is a desktop research exercise with the COI membership being subjectively assessed for the purposes of ‘policy development’ and the institution’s ‘management & marketing’. Generally, research is the organised and systematic method of finding answers to questions. It needs to be systematic because it is a process broken up into clear steps that lead to conclusions. 

An audit needs to be planned and structured in order to reach a useful conclusion – or set of conclusions. A COI audit can only successful and useful if ‘cognitive owners’ and interested parties are identified, whether or not they are imagined as sympathetic or empathetic. Albeit counterintuitive, 'antagonists' need to be included/identified in the COI mix in order to manage their relationship to the institution in future marketing strategies.

COI audits are focused on identifying relevant, useful and important ‘players’ relevant to the institution’s raison d’être. If there are no COI members there can be no institution. Likewise, if the COI membership is ambiguous then the institution’s marketing is likely to be less cost effective than would be ideal. 

Desktop research – sometimes described as secondary research – involves developing a summary, collation and/or synthesis of existing research rather than primary research, where data is collected from, for example, research subjects or experiments that leads to the discovery of new knowledge.

Typically literature searches are desktop research projects devised to better understand existing knowledge and understandings plus the knowledge systems all this is founded upon.