@Joe – I’d agree, but I’d also say that life shouldn’t be like that, and we should be working harder to fix it. My biggest criticism of the way museums online are run is that projects tend to be exactly as you describe – big pots of cash that need to provide X by date Y. Often these projects are strategically at odds with what exists already, but (understandably) museums feel they have to say yes, because any money is good money..

How this should work IMO is that these budgets come along (either from funders or internal shuffling) and the projects are then specified and built within a framework of strategic thinking. If the funders’ view is at odds to the museums’ online strategy then the funding should be turned down: it sounds hard (and is!) but is exactly what would happen if this happened in the “real” museum.

When we’ve done this with funders, they’ve actually reacted pretty well to it: rather than walking away without providing money, they often appreciate a “push back”, and the project becomes all the better for it.