Mike…I’m on contentious ground here – and actually this is a post in itself – but I’ll push it a little bit.

I think one of the inherent problems with our sector is that we don’t actually push ourselves nearly hard enough. We see issues where often there are none; we wait for huge batches of funding when actually that funding isn’t needed; we build contingency and costs into every turn when in reality things can be done for free or for cheap.

This is the basis to my perspective on innovation. We miss opportunity because we, in many ways, aren’t naive enough. We have lost the ability to just try things, fail at some, win at others.

Some would argue that this kind of risky undertaking is not the domain of museums. I’d argue that this is exactly the kind of space we should be occupying. As well – of course – as the “classic” best practice stuff that we’re already good at.

Back to the point. Imagine for example if every site funded by the NOF digitise project had gone one tiny step further and provided their search results in XML. This is maybe half a days worth of technical work: literally a new template for displaying results and object data. Think about what an opportunity that would have been for developers out there looking for fabulous, real data. How much use would our digitised material have had by now?

I think the idea about a nationwide platform is a great one. The idea about a 2 year moratorium on development is the worst idea I’ve heard in some time 🙂