What is the real price you pay for not opening up to digital transformation?

A week ago MOMA announced in an email sent to all freelance educators working for them that “it will be months, if not years, before we anticipate returning to budget and operations levels to require educator services.”

With this one sentence all freelance educators got laid off- indefinitely!

The decision was due “the unprecedented economic crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the Museum’s closure,” said the email.

“I am heartbroken and devastated,” one freelance educator, who asked to remain anonymous, told Hyperallergic. “I’m not sure what a museum is without education, especially a closed museum for which I would argue education is even more crucial.”

“We had already spent hours doing administrative work for April and beyond, such as signing up and booking tours,” she said, adding that MoMA educators are paid $115 per 60–75 minute class. “Because all prep work is included in our teaching rate, we will not be compensated for the work we have already done in preparation for April.”

MoMA’s email ends on a disconcerting note: even when the museum does re-open, “it will be months, if not years, before we anticipate returning to budget and operations levels to require educator services.”

Institutions across the world are closing to public, with milions of dollars worth of art exhibitions and creative property becoming unobtainable to the human experience.

Social distancing and mobility restrictions have driven thousands of art and education institutions to close, resulting in massive financial disadvantages.

Many institutions hope for governmental funding to ensure survival.

According to the president and CEO of the American Alliance of Museums, Laura L. Lott, museums in the US are currently losing at least $33 million per day.

MOMA, is among the world’s wealthiest museums heavily dependent on earned income such as entry fees.

As a result of the pandemic it already had to lay off museum workers, now also letting go of all freelance education staff.

If no alternative action will be taken and the institution keeps looking at its business model one sighted, there will be no future other than a gigantic financial loss.

And money is not the only thing that will come at a cost of this change.

If unfunded a detrimental effect on the art and cultural heritage will follow.

Eventually also negatively impacting education.

And that is just a shame.

Because, lets look at it from a whole new perspective.

Like it or not, the effect of COVID19 resulted in everyone around the world staying at home and working remotely. Most of the world works form the laptop, exposed to information shared online.

People hadn’t only turned online with work, but also for pleasure and social reasons.

Many theaters, operas, liblaries and online education platfroms had opened their content to general public. Some of them allowed free access, others extended their subscription offers to these pandemic months, others expanded their serviced to accommodate for potential new users, whiles others in fact, turned into ways to generate completely new income out of the situation.

All of those methods are good, considering the value that has been provided by the institutions in subject.

So why doesn’t a word class museum see a benefit in opening up their resources online- to a general public?

The issue lays deeper than we can see with a bare eye.

It is in fact a combination of ignorance, lack of knowledge and understanding of a grand business potential hidden behind such strategy.

The current global pandemic very much divided the world into two groups: businesses and individuals that are eager and willing to adopt, and those who pay a high price for sticking to their old ways.

What comes at a shock in reality is that highly admired and well established institutions fail to make the transition, even when higher good is at stake.

The effects of those stubborn decisions are unfortunately detrimental to not only the economy, the users but with most such case also the culture as a whole.

And the price is being paid collectively, with the decline of the institution; we see a decline of value and monetary reimbursement to all contributors (be it artists, scholars, educators, curators and many more) who in fact are the core contributors into the existence of those institutions.

It is a collective responsibility to proceed into transformation.

And the world of digital value provision is rich and beautiful.

In the past week alone, I have watched some of the most respected and highly valued architectural movies of all times, entertained myself by free online Broadway shows, and even have paid for watching live drag queen performances.

All that: among heightened accessibility to education, library resources, and even exclusive publications of interviews with experts often too busy to be attainable.

The world had already changed and these changes prove to mean more than a temporary situation.

With Covid crisis around the corner, we will see changes in economy affecting more of the environment we accepted as “normal”, some maybe permanently.

Today we are at home, away from our every day life. We think of the world as we know it. The real shock is yet to come, when we get back to living, back to work and start seeing the world around us changed.

You don’t know it yet, but maybe, your favourite restaurant has gone out out business. Maybe your co-working place had to close permanetly.

Your personal trainer at the local gym might have been laid off, and some of your team members will permanently change their approach to work, post pandemic.

The world has changed already, even if you’re not there to witness it yet.

So, strategies such as digital transformation are there to show you a different way.

Yes, most of businesses and individuals find themselves at a very beginning of this journey.

But with time, some will master this path and thrive perhaps even better than ever before, as a result of adapting to change.

Question is, who will survive and who will go down, taking with them much more than just what they represented.

As you see, we can not rely on the big players to decide for us.

This turns out to be a personal game changer and its people like you and me who have to make the decision as to what to do next.

Will you open up to change or will you stay behind?

If you are an expert architect, a scholar, a tutor, a consultant who find themselves in uncertainty today, here is one solution:

Join my mailing list at Architecture-Masterclass and start learning about principles of digital transformation. I am here to help you build an independent stream of income. Also, don’t forget to connect with other architects on Facebook here.