(Obviously the budget cuts are hurting the MCG servers a bit as this message took forever to get to us down here in the colonies)

Anyway, on that FOI, the question that was asked was only about revenue for online licensing. It would entirely make sense that that figure was very low - because most, if not almost all, of the revenue in image licensing comes from *offline* licensing. And the ~12K quoted in the response pales in comparison to the ~300+K for overall image licensing from the annual accounts on their website (http://www.npg.org.uk/about/corporate/accounts.php).

I'm just pointing that out because none of us should jump to financial conclusions about other institutions.

And to clarify some of our own figures . . . . I know it has been said that we are making **profit** since we engaged with Flickr etc. Let me categorically say that we are NOT. These have been misquotes. 

Taking a year on year approach, in the initial years we had a rise in income (**but not profit**), and we certainly didn't have a drop in income. 
But this year that is not the case. Cause and effect are not clear cut. 

And of course we're only talking one business unit's income. This doesn't include all the costs involved in digitisation.

Certainly I know Paula Bray, who manages the digitisation and image sales teams at the Powerhouse, would argue that the museum has benefitted greatly from releasing images but mainly through *indirect income generation*, organisational change, as well as all the 'social good stuff'.

Seb



Sebastian Chan 
A/g Head of Digital, Social and Emerging Technologies
Powerhouse Museum, Sydney, Australia
s - 500 Harris St Ultimo | p - PO Box K346, Haymarket, NSW 1238
t - +61 2 9217 0109  | m - +61 (0) 413 457 126
e - [log in to unmask]  | w - www.powerhousemuseum.com/blog



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-----Original Message-----
From: Museums Computer Group on behalf of James Morley
Sent: Tue 30/11/2010 9:40 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: Re: Cost of sales
 
Very quickly ...

The cynic in me totally agrees about making sure true costs are counted, and I highly doubt anyone is making any money.  But countering that I also think that as with any business, some up front effort and cost has to be taken on the chin with a view to the longer goals.  And peripheral benefits can be had too - for example simply sorting out images to go into our online licensing system (http://images.kew.org) means they are suddenly so much more accessible internally and we can even use the system to facilitate easy access for free-to-use end users like press, taking out a lot of the hassle of sourcing and delivery, even though there's no hard cash involved.

James

PS, a thought when I was looking at this evolving on Twitter last night - has institution which has images on Flickr made them available to license through Getty (http://www.flickr.com/help/gettyimages/ ) and have they ever had a request through from this? 



----------------------------------------------------------------------
James Morley                       [log in to unmask]
Website Manager                    Tel. +44 (0)20 8332 5759
Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew         www.kew.org
-----------------------------------------------------------------------


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Museums Computer Group [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of
> Mike Ellis
> Sent: 30 November 2010 10:19
> To: [log in to unmask]
> Subject: Cost of sales
> 
> Me again
> 
> Jim Richardson kicked off another interesting conversation last night
> on Twitter - kind of related (in my head, anyway, because it is all
> about how value becomes distributed) to the previous one about open
> data.
> 
> He started it here:
> http://twitter.com/#!/SumoJim/status/9359205274222592 ...and then it
> ended up here: http://twitter.com/#!/SumoJim/statuses/9379548655263744
> *
> 
> The suggestion was we pick it up again in some other forum, and I think
> all of the people represented in the conversation are also on the MCG
> list so I thought I'd repost.
> 
> The conversation (correct me if I'm skewing this!) seemed to centre on
> the fact that museums are ok at measuring revenue on things like image
> sales but seem to be vague about the *costs* associated with these
> sales. So in the FOI example which Jim cited (http://bit.ly/ezPqOC),
> the NPG says this:
> 
> "The Gallery has not calculated the cost of specifically administering
> the online rights programme exclusive of other Picture Library
> activities and therefore it does not hold the information you have
> requested"
> 
> ..in other words - again, if I've understood it correctly - they know
> the revenue (£12k in 2008/9) but don't know the direct costs associated
> with this revenue.
> 
> There are clearly layers and layers of complexity associated with
> working out financials around online sales of any kind (people in the
> Twitter conversation talked about grants, "social" value beyond sales,
> giving, donations..etc) - but it strikes me that this is exactly the
> kind of stuff we need to get better at, especially if Nicks "..it is
> time to be serious" UKMW keynote (http://bit.ly/fM0XeC) holds any
> truth.
> 
> I guess part of the problem is that any conversation like this tends to
> polarise - talking about financials immediately gets lots of people
> very cross in cultural heritage - but I'd be really interested to hear
> of any other opinions, studies, figures, real-world costs, etc...
> 
> Maybe the question "Are you making PROFIT from your cultural heritage
> assets, and if so, HOW?" is a good starting point...?
> 
> Thanks!
> 
> Mike
> 
> * ...there's something amusing about the fact that the more people who
> take part in a Twitter conversation, the less room for conversation
> there is...but anyway...
> 
> Mike Ellis
> Research & Innovation Group
> eduserv
> t: 01225 470522
> m: 07017 031 522
> twitter: @m1ke_ellis
> calendar: http://mikeellis.youcanbook.me
> 
> www.eduserv.org.uk
> 
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> For mcg information visit the mcg website at
> http://museumscomputergroup.org.uk/
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> http://museumscomputergroup.org.uk/email-list/
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