9 steps to a successful digital project

1. Know your target audience

   Inger: 'As an adviser I am always on top of trends in education. The educational sector is making a massive effort to become more flexible and more personal. Digitisation plays an important role in this. There is a need to redesign cultural education in a more digital manner. And the corona pandemic has hugely intensified that need.'

2. Organise budget

   'Yet the Culture menus that I was coordinating contained very few digital materials. So I started creating these materials on my own. Through ICO, the art centre where I was working, I applied to the Cultural Participation Fund for a grant to support this effort. If you start creating digital materials using the standard available budget, you risk running out since this budget simply doesn’t take account of this new need. That would force you to lower the bar or to drop the project altogether. But that’s a shame, because there is a lot of money earmarked for this purpose. You just need to know where to find it', Inger says.

1. Wakker het vuurtje aan

   Heb je een goed idee? Ga er met mensen over praten. "Vind bondgenoten", adviseert Inger. "Probeer de juiste mensen om je heen te verzamelen. Ik heb bij een van mijn projecten bijvoorbeeld een schoolbestuurder betrokken. Een enorm bevlogen, charismatische man die heel enthousiast was. Zo iemand kan een woordvoerder voor je worden. Hij kan helpen anderen te overtuigen."

'Even if there’s just one wall still standing, with the aid of digital technology you can bring a medieval convent back to life, so that it becomes exciting for children.'

Inger van Til

1. Know what you don't know

   'I am a digital immigrant,' Inger says; 'I grew up in the pre-internet era.' She wanted to create something that would stimulate children’s curiosity, and herself became curious about the escape rooms that suddenly started popping up like mushrooms. And she was already aware of the power of storytelling. Inger: 'I took an existing project about a medieval convent in Assen and transformed it into a digital escape room. I wanted to show children what the convent actually looked like. Unfortunately, all that’s left of it today is one wall. That’s much too abstract for children. But with the aid of digital technology I was able to bring the convent to life again, in a way that children could actually stroll through it.'
   

1. Bring together the right people

   But then how do you actually do that? Inger: 'I have zero programming skills, but Demi Tanalepy, who is a game expert at ICO’s Digital Art Factory, was happy to join the project. I also got the provincial archives (Drents Archief) on board. They have a lot of experience with incorporating gaming in their projects. The fact that they backed my plan really boosted my confidence. Together we created the scenarios. I also set up a sounding board group which included cultural experts and a school educator.'

1. Maak het proces zichtbaar

   "Zo’n klankbordgroep is niet alleen fijn omdat ze met je meedenken, maar het zorgt er ook voor dat je hen op de hoogte houdt van wat je aan het doen bent’, zegt Inger. Als je mensen tussentijds mee laat kijken kunnen ze je niet alleen helpen, maar creëer je ook begrip. Ze snappen waar je zo lang mee bezig bent."

2. Wees niet bang voor weerstand

   "Ga altijd het gesprek aan", adviseert Inger. "Veeg bezwaren niet van tafel. Niks hoeft, als je maar laat zien wat er kan". En ja, het kost best wat investering. "Maar het levert je zoveel op", zegt Inger. "Voor Stichting Kunst en Cultuur ontwikkelde ik een trainingsprogramma voor kunstdocenten over digitaal werken. Sommigen zijn bang dat het digitale het zintuigelijke werken zal vervangen, maar niemand zegt dat je niet meer met tastbaar materiaal de klas in mag. Het digitale zorgt voor een mooie aanvulling."

'I believe we shouldn’t be afraid of experimentation. If you think everything has to work perfectly right away, then you’re really pushing the bar too high.'

1. Experiment

   'I spent ages testing the escape room. Then we’d have all the pupils at their laptops, ready to go – and all the laptops crashed. They just couldn’t handle it. And so we had to rethink the whole thing. It can be frustrating, but I believe we shouldn’t be afraid of experimentation. If you think everything has to work perfectly right away, then you’re really pushing the bar too high.'

2. And go!

   Inger: “When I discovered that there was still an intact convent in Ter Apel, I rang to ask whether we could film there. They were fine with that, and that’s how we were able to bring the convent to life in the escape room. The actors are my daughter, one of her friends, and myself.'