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.

Getting more down to earth, I would say that “strategic” and “lightweight” tend to be directly correlated to how your resources (ie money) are distributed. If resources are limited but ongoing people tend to create lightweight with the idea that it might not be right but that they can change it afterwards. If resources are project based so you get nothing followed by lots which needs to be used right away then people get more strategic. This is to make the best use of resources because they know they won’t get them again for a while.

Ultimately this gets very political, so worthwhile goals for us “makers” are either to try and not let to our development model be dictated by resources or to make a convincing case to the money people why they should allocate resources in particular ways.