In February 2026, our project group gathered once again—this time to take on the final stretch of the project: writing the concluding report. Meeting in person always brings a special energy, and sharing snacks from our different countries has become a small tradition we all look forward to.

Working side by side gave us the space to collect our thoughts, revisit the case studies, and reflect on everything we’ve learned along the way. It was a moment to see the bigger picture and shape it into a coherent story.

We also took the opportunity to plan the upcoming March webinar, where we’ll present our findings and share the knowledge gained throughout the project. We’re excited to open the conversation and hope many will join us

Lessons from the Unexpected – What We’ve Learned When Things Go Wrong

It is easy to feel disheartened when things don’t go as planned but it is important to see that mistakes are not setbacks—they’re stepping stones. Throughout our digital image collecting project, we’ve encountered challenges, missteps, and moments of confusion. But each one has taught us something valuable. By sharing these experiences, we hope to help others navigate similar projects with more clarity and confidence.

Here are some of the most important lessons we’ve learned (the hard way):

1. Time always takes more time

Even with careful planning, things rarely go exactly as scheduled. Delays happen—people work at different paces, priorities shift, and unexpected hiccups arise. Our advice: whatever time you think you’ll need, double it. 

2. Summer is a black hole for communication

Vacations, scattered schedules, and quiet inboxes make summer a tough time for outreach. Plan around it, and don’t expect much engagement during those months.

3. Initial Enthusiasm Doesn’t Guarantee Participation

Early excitement from groups and individuals can be misleading. People may love the idea but still not contribute—because they’re unsure, forget, feel too busy, or don’t think their material is “good enough.” Follow-up and support are key.

4. Inclusion Starts Before the Planning

When working with minority communities, don’t just invite them to participate—invite them to shape the project. Co-creation from the start builds trust, relevance, and stronger outcomes.

5. Social Media Alone Won’t Reach Everyone

Even the most compelling project can get lost in the noise. Algorithms limit visibility, and not everyone is online. Combine digital outreach with real-world connections.

6. Digital Doesn’t Automatically Mean Democratic

While digital tools can broaden access, they can also exclude. Not everyone is comfortable with technology, and some communities may be missed entirely if we rely solely on online platforms.

7. Face-to-Face Still Matters

In-person meetings bring energy, clarity, and connection. Whether at libraries, workshops, or events, talking directly with contributors helps build trust—and makes it easier to support them with technical steps like uploading images.

8. Clarity Builds Confidence

Participants often prefer clear guidelines over open-ended instructions. Detailed examples and specific requests help people feel they’re “doing it right” and encourage more contributions.

Every challenge has been a chance to learn. By documenting and reflecting on what didn’t go as planned, we’ve gained insights that will shape our future work—and hopefully yours too. So here’s to the lessons learned, and to doing it better next time

Collecting Social Photo meeting 1.-2.9.2025 at The Finnish Museum of Photography, Helsinki, Finland; Karolina Hedström, Renée Göthberg, Felicia Sjölin, Arran Rees, Max Fritze, Sofia Lahti ja Leena Sippone 

During 2023 new museums joined the Connect to Collect family, and some of us decided to apply for Opstart-money from the Nordic Culture Fund together. And we got the money! 

The money made it possible for us to meet up in Oslo and work together for three days, planning a future project. This project group consisted of Anni Wallenius, Finnish Museum of Photography; Arran Rees, University of Leeds; Bente Jensen, Aalborg City Archive; Kajsa Hartig, Västernorrland Museum; Karolina Hedström, Stockholm County Museum; and Renée Göthberg, the Gothenburg Natural History Museum. 

After the three days we had a joint application to the Nordic Culture Fund to further develop the Connect to Collect tool and to make 5 different case studies. As you already know, we got the funding and we met up in Stockholm about a year ago, to discuss our ideas for our case studies.

Meeting in Helsinki: A look at the current situation

Now it was finally time to see each other again, and during the first three days of September the project group met up in Helsinki. The group looked a bit different now. Life happens and a couple of participants have changed. Felicia Sjölin now represents Västernorrlands Museum, and Sofia Lahti and Leena Sipponen are with us from the Finnish Museum of Photography. This was the first time that the group in its current form met in real life after countless online meetings. Bente Jensen could unfortunately not join the rest of us in Helsinki but joined via Teams for the discussions.

The meetings were held at the Finnish Museum of Photography in Helsinki, and we also visited and borrowed the meeting rooms of our colleagues at Helsinki City Museum and the Architecture&Design Museum. During three days, we discussed our ongoing case studies and technical issues and met new users of the Connect to Collect web app

Most of our individual community collecting projects are still ongoing, but some conclusions could already be drawn and observations made from the experiences. A shared insight was that plenty of time is needed for the participants and the institution to get to know each other before the actual co-collecting and co-curating can properly begin. 

It soon became very clear that we all had our challenges, and that most of us had to reconsider initial thoughts and replan the case studies. It’s been especially hard for the institutions that didn’t already have a relationship with the group one wanted to work with. We all know it takes a lot of time to build a relationship between an institution and the public, especially when it comes to new target groups. We also know that one shouldn’t be alone at an institution, working on projects like these. But sometimes that’s what reality looks like, and it’s a very real challenge for many archives and museums in our countries. Some case studies are almost finished, while others are in need of a new start this autumn. We have all learned a lot, both through successful processes and less successful ones. And that’s what these case studies are all about. 

While comparing our case studies, it was interesting to see how different groups and individuals require different approaches to become engaged and motivated to participate in contemporary co-collecting initiatives. While some are motivated by a chance to learn and to get to know the museum or archive ”behind the scenes”, others are looking for a chance to make a difference and gain new visibility or representation for their topic or peer group through the collecting project and the platform. Many contributors were primarily inspired by an opportunity to meet and collaborate with their peers, and some groups were best motivated by organising competitions with a chance to win tempting prizes.  

Even for motivated and interested participants, there have been challenges: some potential participants have not found the time to contribute. There are also many reasons that make participants hesitant to upload their photographs to the collecting platform: for instance, they often fear that their images will be misinterpreted when seen out of their original context. This is easy to understand, since context is indeed essential for the heritage institutions as well; as professionals of contemporary collecting, we always strive to document the relevant context of the collected photographs as richly as possible. But communicating the context of our collecting initiatives, our intentions and methods to the participants is important, too – and as stated earlier, we must allocate enough time for that.

In between project meetings, the team had meetings with new CTC members from Helsinki City Museum and Tampere Museums and former members from Architecture and Design Museum. Sharing thoughts, ideas and experiences is so helpful and gives us all a push forward in so many ways.

All in all, it was a very productive and fun 3 days in Helsinki. Getting Karelian pasties for breakfast at the hotel was also certainly a plus. 

A look forward

We are now all back at our respective institutions, and the work continues. Arran is conducting interviews with us all, one on one, during October, and those interviews will be of big help for us writing the report. 

We will have one more meet up in January, where we will plan the final webinar and the end of this project. We hope you all will join us for the webinar and learn more about our work.