Day 4
Fri 16 October

© Canadian War Museum, photo Harry Foster

CANADIAN WAR MUSEUM

The Canadian War Museum is a national museum located on the banks of the Ottawa River in Ottawa, dedicated to preserving and sharing the stories of Canada’s military history.

Address: 1 Vimy Place, Ottawa, Ontario, K1A 0M8

Break

Program subject to change

BREAK

9:00 AM – 9:30 AM

Tea and Coffee Break

Morning • Digital Transformation

PLENARY SESSIONS

FROM 9:30 AM

VISIONARY KEYNOTE

The Real Thing in an Artificial Age: AI, Trust, and the Human Future of the Arts

Robert Stein 🇺🇸, Chief Information Officer, National Gallery of Art in Washington, DC

  • The backlash against AI is real, and in the arts, it cuts especially deep. For many audiences, especially younger ones, creative work touched by AI feels disingenuous and is quickly dismissed. Opinions and speculation about AI are all around us as the world tries to understand the impacts of these powerful tools on our creativity, the economy, and the planet. But cultural leaders can choose a different approach than either rejecting these tools outright or surrendering our creative agency to them.

    This talk explores how AI can help us distill, rather than dilute, the human-value of art: listening more deeply to audiences, identifying the experiential elements that make encounters with art feel essential, and concentrating human effort around interpretation, presence, perspective, and humanity. Used with judgment and restraint, AI does not have to flatten cultural expression toward a global average. It can help us bridge digital and physical worlds, personalize without pandering, and create more resonant encounters with the real thing that build memories and value for our audiences.

KEYNOTE

Bridging the Gap: Audience Discovery, Trust, and First-Party Data in the Age of AI

Jonathan Courtney 🇬🇧, Head of Digital, AKA Agency

  • Cultural discovery is being mediated by AI faster than most institutions can track. Audiences who once arrived through a search result are increasingly meeting cultural organisations through summaries written by systems they do not yet fully trust. Institutional visibility is rising, but the click-throughs and the direct relationships that have always sustained the sector are harder to build and harder to measure.

    This session is built on audience research with thousands of respondents across AKA's UK and US panels, with fresh waves of fieldwork running into the weeks before the conference. The data tracks how audiences are using AI for cultural decisions, what they trust, what they avoid, and how those answers are shifting over time. Audiences are curious about AI and reaching for it for convenience, but they still anchor their decisions in people and institutions they already know.

    For cultural leaders, the practical question is shifting. It is less about how to win AI search and more about how to maintain a direct relationship with an audience that increasingly encounters you through intermediaries you do not control. As the discovery layer becomes more automated, the bridge between an institution and its audience has to be one the institution itself owns. The session looks at what our audience research tells us about changing customer behaviour and what that means for our industry.

    Attendees will leave with a clear read on what is shifting, what is steady, and where to focus institutional effort over the next year.

LEARNING FROM PRACTICE: SIMULTANEOUS SESSIONS

Each session is 1 hour long, featuring 2 case studies and live Q&A.

CASE STUDY SESSION 1

Building Trust through Data and Storytelling

Rooted and Resonant: Building Trust Through Nature-Based Art and Digital Storytelling
by Joe Luckett 🇺🇸, Marketing Director, Art Farm at Serenbe

  • How do rural arts organizations build trust across both hyperlocal and global audiences—especially in an age of digital noise and cultural fragmentation? In this presentation, Joe Luckett shares how Art Farm leverages nature, digital storytelling, and live performance to foster meaningful connection.

    Rather than using technology as a distraction, Art Farm uses digital tools to guide people back to nature—amplifying the voices of artists, curating immersive events, and fostering dialogue that bridges place, culture, and community. From seasonal film showcase weekends and multi-genre performing arts projects to year-round social content, email marketing, and virtual access strategies, Joe unpacks how his team crafts compelling narratives that resonate both locally and abroad.

    This session explores the unique tensions of marketing a rural performing arts venue: low walkability, limited transit, inconsistent Wi-Fi, and seasonal attention spans. Joe will offer honest insights into overcoming these hurdles—using intentional partnerships, community trust-building, and an adaptive content strategy. He will also spotlight specific performing arts initiatives that embody this approach, including immersive site-specific productions and international artist residencies in Serenbe’s forested setting.

    Attendees will leave with a practical framework for integrating place-based storytelling into their own marketing, regardless of geography or size. Joe’s approach emphasizes that rural does not mean remote—and that small, intentional organizations can serve as models for how to connect authentically, creatively, and sustainably in a changing world.

The Art of Connection: Using Data and AI to Bring People Closer to Culture
by Yvette Pratt 🇦🇺, Executive Director, Art Gallery Society of New South Wales

  • The purpose of our work is simple but powerful: to show how data and AI can deepen human connection. At the Art Gallery Society of New South Wales, we believe that technology isn’t just about efficiency: it can help people feel seen, valued, and part of something bigger.

    Over the past two years, this belief has guided a transformational journey that has reshaped how we understand and engage with our 38,000 Members. What began as an attempt to untangle messy, fragmented data systems has grown into something far larger: a new, human-centered approach to building community.

    For too long, our Members’ stories were scattered across different platforms — ticketing, CRM, booking systems — making it impossible to truly understand who they were or how they engaged with the Art Gallery of New South Wales. Instead of replacing those systems, we brought in a data analyst and built a robust Power BI ecosystem that finally allowed us to see our Members clearly.

    And the impact was profound.

    We could suddenly map behaviors, attendance patterns, interests, and preferences, and we changed the way we communicated because of it. The results spoke for themselves: in 2024, membership grew by 16% to 38,000 and retention rose from 69% to 78%. We no longer look at “categories” of Members. We speak to people — real people whose engagement we now understand deeply.

    This transformation naturally led us to the next step, creating the digital Members Hub, a world-first initiative designed to build trust, foster loyalty, and bring different communities together in one personalized space.

    The Members Hub is built around three key ideas:

    • Consistency and clarity: A reliable and trustworthy digital home where Members can easily find events, benefits, stories, and information.

    • Personalization: Tailored content that reflects what Members love — artists, programs, and genres — so each person feels recognized, not reduced to a number.

    • Connection: A place where long-term supporters, our 6,000 young Members under the age of 25, Australian artists, regional audiences, and international art lovers can all coexist and meet, even if they never cross paths in person.

    When the Members Hub launches in July 2026, it will demonstrate what we now know to be true: data, when used with care and creativity, can be a powerful connector.

    It can bring people closer to art, to each other, and to the Art Gallery itself. It can transform a large membership base into a vibrant, interconnected community.

CASE STUDY SESSION 2

Bridging Worlds through Immersive Experiences

Case study
by Martijn van Schaik 🇳🇱, Director, Broken Egg

Curating an Algorithm: When AI Transforms History into a Conversation
by Nicolas S. Roy 🇨🇦, CEO, Founder, and Executive Creative Director, Dpt.

  • Museums are increasingly exploring artificial intelligence as a new form of cultural mediation, but with that exploration comes a central challenge: trust and integrity. This talk presents a case study of the Joe Beef AI avatar, an interactive digital interpretation of Charles McKiernan, also known as Joe Beef, developed for Pointe-à-Callière Museum (Montreal). The project set out to answer a simple question: how can an AI-driven character engage visitors conversationally while remaining historically rigorous, transparent, and credible?

    Rather than focusing on AI as spectacle, the talk examines the system as a curatorial instrument. We will unpack how historical sources were selected, structured, and constrained to prevent hallucination, speculation, or anachronism. Particular attention is given to the tension between open-ended dialogue and controlled knowledge domains: how much freedom an AI should have, and where hard limits must be imposed to preserve institutional authority.

    The presentation also addresses what did not go as planned. On the technical side, we encountered challenges in 3D reconstruction and character presence: balancing realism with performance constraints, lighting variability, and hardware reliability in a public gallery. On the AI side, early iterations revealed unexpected visitor behaviors, including attempts to provoke the avatar or push it beyond its historical scope. These moments exposed gaps in content moderation, tone calibration, and failure-state design.

    Crucially, the museum context forces a rethinking of success metrics. Engagement alone is insufficient; accuracy, consistency, and explainability matters more. We will share lessons learned about curatorial oversight, versioning of knowledge bases, multilingual interaction, and the importance of clearly signaling what the AI can, and cannot, claim to know.

    The talk will address practical strategies for museums considering similar initiatives: governance models for AI content, collaboration frameworks between historians and technologists, and design patterns that preserve visitor trust while embracing conversational interfaces, suggesting how museums can adopt AI responsibly, without compromising their role as stewards of historical truth.

CASE STUDY SESSION 3

Bridging Worlds through Digital Transformations

Pillars, Partners, People: Driving Digital Transformations in Museums
by Robyn Jeffrey 🇨🇦, Director of Digital Transformation, Engagement and Brand, Canadian Museum of History and Canadian War Museum

  • Digital transformation in museums is no longer optional—it is fundamental to expanding access, enhancing visitor experiences, and ensuring cultural relevance. Yet despite near-universal consensus about the importance of digital innovation, the way forward is not always clear. Museums cannot go it alone in a fast-paced, rapidly changing world. So how do we as museum and arts sector leaders navigate uncertainty and establish a clear vision? How do we build meaningful partnerships—both inside and outside our sector—to accelerate digital transformation and remain relevant to our audiences? And how do we organize our institutions and teams to support that vision? In short: how do we bring clarity to the chaos?

    This presentation will share the pillars established by the Canadian Museum of History and Canadian War Museum to support its digital transformation, unpack our approach to partnership, and discuss how the Museum has organized its teams to work horizontally across the institution. The framework will be illustrated through concrete examples, demonstrating how the right pillars, partnerships, and people alignment can help drive successful digital transformation. And because digital change is constant, we'll also explore the challenges we’ve overcome—and those we’re still working through—as we continue on this journey.

CASE STUDY SESSION 4

Building Trust in Peripheral Contexts

Culture in Motion: How Viscosa Cultural Factory Fosters Connection and Trust on a Baltic Island
by Ülle Puustusmaa 🇪🇪, Senior Consultant, Strategic and Service Design Lead, Project Manager, Viscosa Cultural Factory

  • his presentation explores how arts and culture organizations can operate as spaces of connection and social meaning in peripheral contexts, using the Viscosa Cultural Factory on the island of Hiiumaa, Estonia, as a distinctive case study.

    Viscosa Cultural Factory is located on a small Baltic island with fewer than 10,000 inhabitants, limited year-round access to diverse cultural experiences, and strong seasonal fluctuations driven by tourism. Emerging from a formerly closed industrial complex, the transformation of Viscosa into an open cultural and creative industries environment provides an opportunity to examine how mission-driven cultural institutions can take root in places where cultural infrastructure has historically been scarce and trust in closed communities towards external initiatives is fragile.

    The first focus, Mission & Universal Values, addresses how Viscosa positions art and culture as a shared space of connection. The organization’s mission emphazises participation, openness and dialogue, using culture as a bridge between local communities, visiting artists and wider cultural networks. In this context, building trust becomes a foundational cultural practice rather than a secondary outcome.

    The second focus, Engagement & Social Impact, examines how geo-location and an exceptionally diverse audience mix—local residents, schoolchildren, artists, tourists, cultural professionals, and public and philanthropic partners—actively shape the institution’s voice and communication strategies. Viscosa’s institutional narrative is balancing accessibility and artistic ambition, local identity and international exchange, community needs and cultural leadership.

    By analyzing how remoteness functions as both a constraint and a strategic advantage, the session demonstrates how cultural organizations can maintain balance between cultural, social, economic and tourism logics without losing symbolic capital. The Viscosa case offers transferable insights for arts organizations seeking sustainable, inclusive and socially grounded models beyond metropolitan centers.

Speaking Up at the Edge: How a Remote Arts Festival Builds Connection through Community Engagement
by Louisa Gordon 🇦🇺, Chief Executive Officer, The Unconformity

  • The Unconformity is a biennial contemporary arts festival based in Queenstown as well as year-round creative explorations on the remote west coast of Lutruwita/Tasmania. Shaped by a post-mining landscape, the organisation works at the intersection of art, community and place.

    Across 14 years and seven festivals under the same leadership, the organisation built a strong foundation based on experimentation, deep listening and responsiveness to place. This approach extended to communication. In a crowded media landscape, The Unconformity chose to speak sparingly - only when there was something meaningful to say. This created a clear and distinctive presence, but it also assumed a level of familiarity.

    As the organisation grew, this became a challenge. New audiences, local communities and stakeholders didn’t always have clear or consistent ways to connect with the work. In 2022 the organisation invested further in its digital capability, through the Creative Australia Digital Strategist-in-Residence program. A full audit of the organisation's digital capability led to a new digital strategy and communications plan. This laid important groundwork for future online programs, but the overall approach remained relatively restrained.

    In 2024, new leadership stepped in and delivered the 2025 festival during a period of organisational change. Communication needed to shift from being occasional and tightly controlled to something more consistent, open and engaged. The focus moved to showing up regularly, building relationships and making it easier for people to understand, question and take part in the work.

    This case study looks at how that shift was put into practice. Monthly Open Halls created a regular space for conversation, where community members could meet the team, ask questions and share ideas. Collaborations with local songwriters and students opened up new ways for people to get involved and brought the organisation into different creative networks. These face-to-face moments were supported by a more active digital approach, helping maintain visibility and connection between events.

    Together, these changes made communication a central part of how the organisation works - not just something that supports the program, but something that builds trust, relationships and shared ownership. This was especially important during leadership transition, when clarity and visibility mattered most.

    Early signs, including increased participation, broader engagement and community feedback, suggest a stronger and more connected relationship with audiences.

    This session shares what was learned from the 2025 festival and explorations. It shows that in regional contexts, communication needs to be consistent, visible and ongoing. It’s not enough to speak well - you also need to be visible. The experience of The Unconformity demonstrates that real impact comes from staying connected to place and people, especially during times of change.

CASE STUDY SESSION 5

Building Trust through Shared Histories

Return to the Sámi Homeland: Repatriation as a Process of Building a Resilient Society
by Elina Anttila 🇫🇮, Director General, National Museum of Finland

  • An intensive and successful repatriation process carried out between 2017 and 2021 returned Finland’s largest and oldest Sámi collection to the homeland of the Sámi Indigenous people in Northern Finland. In total, 2,200 objects of cultural heritage accumulated in the collections of the National Museum of Finland over centuries were transferred to the full ownership of the Sámi Museum Siida.

    The return was significant and meaningful for the Sámi. Less discussed, however, is its transformative impact on “the other end of the bridge”: the non-Sámi and the National Museum as a state institution traditionally perceived as representing the mainstream of Finnish culture and history.

    Initiated through a mutual memorandum of understanding between the two museums, the project encompassed a government approval process, a comprehensive inventory of the collection, the physical transfer of the objects, data migration, and the joint production of the exhibition Mäccmõš, maccâm, máhccan—The Homecoming, accompanied by public programmes and staff training.

    The decision to repatriate was grounded in our professional mission to promote diversity and to strengthen the role of museum collections in identity-building and social inclusion. The subsequent collaborative process further deepened our understanding of Sámi perspectives on society and history and clarified why our responsibility extends across generations. Moreover, it encouraged wider perspectives and questions on our work and institutional role more broadly.

    The entire process was characterised by close professional cooperation between the National Museum of Finland and the Sámi Museum Siida. This collaboration proved to be a core strength in navigating a project shaped by a history of asymmetrical power relations, strong aspirations, differing roles and positions, personal commitment, and powerful emotions.

Forged in Response: How the American Civil War Shaped Canada
by Tim Foran 🇨🇦, Curator, and Claire Champ 🇨🇦, Creative Development Specialist, Canadian Museum of History and Canadian War Museum

  • Close to Conflict – Canada and the American Civil War is a special exhibition developed by and currently on display at the Canadian War Museum. The exhibition examines the enduring legacies of the American Civil War for Canada and Canadians.

    The exhibition’s thematic structure, immersive design, artefacts, and images bring visitors into the Canada of the mid-1800s – a time when the threat of violence from south of the border was a catalyst for transformative change. The Civil War accelerated the development of Canada’s Armed Forces and political system; Black Freedom Seekers crossed the Canada-US border in search of legal freedom and launched struggles for equality that continue today; and treaty relationships with Plains First Nations – and the meaning of the border itself – shaped lives, identities, and responsibilities then and now.

    At the core of the project’s development was our commitment to sharing authority with external experts and community members. The involvement of co-creators from Black and Indigenous communities ensured accurate and respectful presentation of history and framing of difficult subject matter.

    Our presentation highlights how building relationships with co-creators and working collaboratively were critical to conveying to visitors the enduring legacies of the Civil War as well as to presenting complex, cross-border histories in clear, engaging, and inclusive ways, connecting past events to Canada’s identity today.

PLENARY SESSION

KEYNOTE

Closing Keynote

Break

BREAK

1:00 PM – 2:00 PM

Networking Lunch (included) at the Canadian War Museum

Afternoon : DEEP DIVE WORKSHOPS

Choose 1 or 2. Each session is 1 hour long. Workshops are repeated.

FROM 2:00 PM

DEEP DIVE WORKSHOP 1

Leadership Behaviours that Build Trust and Bridge Worlds

by Michèle Meier 🇨🇦, ICF Certified Leadership Coach, Michèle Meier Coaching and Consulting

2 sessions
A workshop exploring the leadership behaviours and self-awareness needed to build trust, foster collaboration, and create meaningful connections across diverse communities in times of change.

  • In times of disruption and transformation, cultural institutions are increasingly called upon to serve as spaces of connection: places where communities can rebuild trust, engage in dialogue, and imagine shared futures. Yet the ability of cultural organizations to fulfill this role depends greatly on how their leaders show up.

    What leadership behaviours strengthen trust, inspire collaboration, and create conditions for meaningful connection? And which behaviours, often under pressure, can unintentionally undermine them?

    Through practical examples, reflection exercises, and dialogue, participants will explore how cultural leaders can cultivate the self-awareness and behavioural agility required to lead across differences, navigate complexity, and create environments where people feel safe to engage, contribute, and connect.

DEEP DIVE WORKSHOP 2

From Spectators to Stakeholders: Fandom as a Force for Audience Activation

by Ivonne Chand O'Neal 🇺🇸, PhD, Researcher, Cultural Strategist, Member of the Board of Directors, Minnesota Opera

2 sessions
What transforms a casual visitor into a passionate advocate? What turns a single encounter with a cultural institution into a lifelong relationship? The answer, increasingly, is fandom — and cultural leaders can no longer afford to leave it to chance.

  • What transforms a casual visitor into a passionate advocate? What turns a single encounter with a cultural institution into a lifelong relationship? The answer, increasingly, is fandom — and cultural leaders can no longer afford to leave it to chance.

    This workshop examines fandom not as a fringe phenomenon reserved for pop culture, but as a powerful, transferable model for deep audience engagement in arts and cultural institutions. Drawing on strategies from entertainment, sports, and digital communities, participants will explore how the mechanics of fandom — identity, belonging, co-creation, and emotional investment — can be deliberately cultivated to activate audiences at every stage of their journey.

    As cultural institutions grapple with questions of values, mission, and how to demonstrate impact across communities and generations, fandom offers a framework that bridges both. When audiences move from passive consumption to active participation — sharing, interpreting, defending, and extending the cultural narratives of an institution — they become co-creators of meaning and trust.

    Participants will examine real-world case studies of institutions that have successfully leveraged fan communities to build loyalty, expand reach, and measure engagement beyond traditional attendance metrics. The session will also address how digital transformation and social platforms amplify fandom dynamics, enabling cultural organizations to foster dialogue that extends far beyond the gallery wall or concert hall.

    Aligned with the conference's exploration of how cultural institutions can foster connection, empathy, and understanding across communities, this workshop offers practical tools for cultural leaders ready to reimagine their audiences as stakeholders — not just ticket holders. Attendees will leave with a fandom activation framework adaptable to institutions of any size, along with strategies for measuring the impact of community-driven engagement.

    No prior fandom expertise required — only a commitment to building deeper trust between institutions and the people they serve.

DEEP DIVE WORKSHOP 3

The Dopamine of Discovery: Rethinking Access in a Gatekeeping Institution

by Peter Aerts 🇧🇪, Head of Communication, Audience Development and Visitor Experience, S.M.A.K. – Municipal Museum of Contemporary Art

2 sessions
A workshop exploring how museums can rethink access and audience engagement by balancing curatorial depth with new approaches to attention, discovery, and meaningful visitor experiences. (Max 15 delegates per session).

  • Contemporary art museums are built on slow authority. Their legitimacy accumulates through collections, artistic research, programming, scholarly judgment, and curatorial consistency, to name a few. This slow authority is not incidental — it protects artistic ambition and gives the institution its credibility.

    At the same time, museums are increasingly asked to move fast, stay relevant, and remain financially resilient in a world shaped by fragmented attention, shifting urban communities, and unequal access to arts education. These demands do not wait for scholarly consensus. They require institutions to be agile.

    The friction between slow and fast legitimacy surfaces around authority, standards, and access — and often rests on an implicit institutional belief: that curatorial intent, depth, and quality must be upheld in the same way across every touchpoint, from exhibition texts and communication to digital experience, spatial design, mediation, and visitor encounter. This talk addresses that belief directly. Holding a strong curatorial line does not require guarding every threshold in the same way. Designing differentiated access can strengthen rather than compromise artistic integrity.

    Drawing on the evolution of S.M.A.K.MOVES into a structural pillar at S.M.A.K. in Ghent, this session explores how museums can create different conditions of encounter without reducing artistic ambition or compromising artistic autonomy. The model looks outward, connecting fields that study the same people from different angles: behavioural science, human resources, and service design. Together, these perspectives illuminate what makes people pay attention, tolerate difficulty, and experience reward.

    At the centre of the talk is a simple principle: effort deserves meaningful gratification. When audiences invest attention, museums must design moments that make that effort worthwhile. But how do you know what’s rewarding? The session introduces an experimental working model that helps teams identify points of resonance and design more rewarding routes through contemporary art. This is not about making art easier. It’s about making complexity more accessible through deeper insight into attention, gratification, and reward.

    Rather than a finished framework, this case study shares an institutional experiment in progress and asks whether the tension between depth and accessibility is a real constraint or a false choice we have learned to accept.

    Note: This topic will be presented both as a case study session and as a 60-minute working session. Delegates interested in participating in the workshop are encouraged to attend the case study presentation as well, in order to be better prepared for the working session.

DEEP DIVE WORKSHOP 4

Presence Builds Trust: How You Show Up Shapes How You’re Believed and Received

by Gail Green 🇺🇸, Founder and President, Gail Green Learning

1 session
A workshop exploring how leadership presence, communication behaviours, and self-awareness can strengthen trust, credibility, and connection with diverse audiences and stakeholders.

  • People don't just trust your message—they trust how you deliver it. This dynamic and experiential session explores the powerful connection between leadership presence and trust. Participants will discover how body language, vocal delivery, emotional alignment, and nonverbal communication influence perception, credibility, and impact. Through interactive exercises, practical application, and real-world examples, attendees will identify the subtle behaviors that strengthen—or unintentionally undermine—their effectiveness.

    In today's fast-paced and highly visible leadership environment, your presence communicates you: solid, credible, genuine, and trustworthy long before you speak. Whether you're presenting to donors, leading staff, engaging community partners, navigating change, or influencing stakeholders, how you show up directly impacts how your message is received.

    Designed for museum, cultural, and communications leaders, this workshop provides actionable tools to increase executive presence, communicate with greater confidence, and build stronger connections with diverse audiences. Participants will leave with strategies they can immediately apply to enhance influence, deepen trust, and lead with greater intention and impact. When presence and purpose align, trust follows—and trust drives results.

DEEP DIVE WORKSHOP 5

The Currency of Trust: How to Build, Repair, and Sustain It In Today’s Workplace

by Gail Green 🇺🇸, Founder and President, Gail Green Learning

1 session
A workshop exploring how leaders can build, repair, and sustain trust in the workplace through stronger communication, accountability, psychological safety, and meaningful relationships.

  • In this engaging and interactive session, Gail Green explores why trust is no longer a "nice-to-have" leadership quality, but a critical driver of performance, engagement, retention, collaboration, and innovation. Participants will gain a deeper understanding of how trust is built, what causes it to break down, and what leaders can do to intentionally strengthen it every day.

    Trust is the foundation of every successful workplace relationship—and one of the most valuable assets a leader can cultivate. Yet in today's rapidly changing environment, trust can feel increasingly fragile. Organizational change, competing priorities, hybrid work, communication breakdowns, and uncertainty can erode trust faster than many leaders realize.

    Through practical tools, real-world examples, and meaningful audience participation, attendees will learn actionable strategies for creating psychological safety, increasing accountability, strengthening communication, and rebuilding trust after conflict, change, or disruption. Whether you lead a team, manage stakeholders, or influence across an organization, the ability to cultivate trust is essential to achieving sustainable results.

    Participants will leave with a clear framework for building stronger relationships, fostering greater connection, and creating workplace cultures where people feel valued, respected, and empowered to do their best work.

DEEP DIVE WORKSHOP 6

Design Thinking for Brand Strategy: Co-creating Brands to Build Trust

by Debbie Spence 🇬🇧, Strategy Director, MHM

2 sessions
This workshop is a hands-on rethink of how brand strategy actually gets made and why the usual top-down approach so often produces something worthy… and widely ignored.

  • In a sector under pressure to be relevant, inclusive, and trusted, many organisations are rethinking their brand. But too often, arts brands are reduced to awkward away days about logos or developed behind closed doors rather than built as a shared ambition.

    In a world where audiences are sceptical, distracted, and spoilt for choice, that’s no longer enough.

    This workshop is a hands-on rethink of how brand strategy actually gets made and why the usual top-down approach so often produces something worthy… and widely ignored.

    Drawing on MHM’s work across the globe Debbie Spence Director at MHM will take you through a practical, design-led process for building brand strategy with people, not for them.

    Together, we’ll explore how to move:

    • from brand as identity to brand as lived experience

    • from polished statements to ideas people actually believe in

    • from “the strategy” to something that drives decisions for your organisation

    Expect to get stuck in. This isn’t a passive listen.

    You’ll work through the building blocks of brand strategy — ambition, purpose, audience, proposition using exercises designed to unlock thinking and surface tensions.

    You’ll leave with:

    • practical tools you can use straight away

    • a clearer process for co-creating brand strategy

    • and probably a healthy suspicion of your current brand guidelines

    The brands that build trust aren’t the ones that look good on paper. They’re the ones people recognise, feel, and choose to be part of.

Evening

FROM 7:00 PM

Farewell Drinks at Fairmont Hotel

(Optional networking reception; drinks not included)

 

Canadian War Museum
1 Vimy Pl, Ottawa, ON K1A 0M8, Canada