Unlocking the secrets of the universe: an interview with Natural History Museum Interim CIO Ian Golding

The Natural History Museum's interim CIO Ian Golding will leave his role later this year, and talks about the challenges facing his successor

The Natural History Museum (NHM) in London is both a physical and scientific landmark: if not for the nearby Victoria & Albert Museum, its terracotta facade would dominate the major thoroughfare that is Cromwell Road; and the institution's research work is key to expanding our understanding of the natural world on a global scale.

Interim CIO Ian Golding, who will leave his role later this year when the Museum completes its search for a new permanent member of staff, faced all of the challenges that might be expected in an institution approaching its 150th birthday - as well as some that are unique to the very specialised environment that he manages.

"The Museum has its own ‘Mandala of Systems', with some legacy challenges as many organisations do," he says. "It's important to see, in enterprise architecture terms, what those systems are, and understand which provide the greatest value or benefit, or sometimes pose the greatest risk.

"It is possible to map out the current state, review - with clear criteria - with the business owners involved to understand trade-offs, and force prioritisation across the Mandala [of Systems]. So over time, these can converge into more useful adaptable, fit-for-purpose platforms for use across the organisation to replace the legacy individual systems."

He is quick to point out that such sweeping changes - always challenging in large organisations - do not need to happen in a single transformation. It is more realistic to implement a rapid evolution, "swapping technologies in and out at the right times, with clear vision and a roadmap behind it that is very cost-effective."

Gathering data can be very helpful to create quick wins and solve existing problems

The NHM is in the middle of just such an evolution, pursuing multiple technical projects to enhance efficiency and the user experience. One example is its construction of a digital twin environment, using data pulled from the thousands of IoT sensors across the 100,000m² estate. These sensors monitor security around the Museum's entrance and exit points; supply the data needed to maintain the right environmental conditions for both visitors and the collection; and, through consensual WiFi tracking, show the most popular areas in which people are lingering as they walk the Museum's galleries and retail space.

"Gathering the data to define problems clearly and create solutions with the teams themselves is very empowering, and relies on strong partnerships with technology experts and users across the Museum," says Golding. "It can be very helpful to create quick wins and solve existing problems, rather than getting too conceptual in solving all of the challenges in one go, which is impossible."

He adds, "The new Digital Twin Technology Vision will help the next CIO take the Museum on its next journey up to its 150th Anniversary in 2031, and engage with audiences in new and even more brilliant ways; this is a great time for long-term visionary planning."

Unlocking the secrets of the universe: an interview with Natural History Museum Interim CIO Ian Golding

The Natural History Museum's interim CIO Ian Golding will leave his role later this year, and talks about the challenges facing his successor

Another part of the evolution is the Digital Collections Programme, an ongoing project to digitise the 80 million-item collection - less than one per cent of which is on display at any given time. Work is slow but steady, with about 4.3 million exhibits - mostly insects - already digitised.

These high-resolution images and scans, combined with the rest of the Museum's data - from sources including IoT sensors, scientific research and routine enterprise IT - fill almost three petabytes of storage. Most of the scientific data, especially that which needs to be immediately accessible, is stored on-site, with off-site backups. However, there is a move towards adopting cloud-based systems, while continuing to upgrade the on-premise infrastructure.

Plans are underway to update most of the network backbone with 60 miles of fiber-optic cabling

"Increasingly, in common with virtually all organisations, more and more of the corporate and enterprise-type systems are hosted by cloud providers. The Museum uses BOX.com and Office 365 extensively, as well as other enterprise solutions.

"By volume the cloud-hosted data is relatively small compared to the data that relates to the science and the collection, although I expect that will change over time as cloud hosting and high speed networks overcome some of the current challenges. The underlying network infrastructure within the Museum also has to perform very well for this reason, and plans are underway to update most of the network backbone with 60 miles of fiber-optic cabling, which will be powered by Cisco's next-generation software-defined networking infrastructure."

The incoming CIO will need to oversee this project, and many others. One of their major priorities will be one common to all IT leaders: managing the Museum's technology infrastructure and services, though they will also face more specialised challenges of scale, inertia and meeting the needs of the Museum's ambitious science programmes.

On top of this, the new CIO will need to align with the NHM's aim to create advocates for the planet. It is not a campaigning organisation, but its area of expertise gives it a unique perspective on the challenges facing our world. Helen Hardy, who leads the Digital Collections Programme, says:

"That means, of the 5 million visitors [to the Museum annually], thinking...what percentage of them will continue to engage with our digital presence afterwards? How many will carry on reading our content or sharing it on social? And then which smaller percent of those might take part in a citizen science project, or in some kind of active engagement, or become members or sponsors at the Museum in the future? Just using the data to understand those journeys would be a really great thing to do, but it requires joining up business intelligence from different systems, which at the moment are not connected."

"That's a great example to illustrate the way we're working from the strategic goals of the organisation," Golding adds. "Getting the right platforms and solutions in place that can be used by the relevant teams in their own ways...requires a lot of engagement with teams across the organisation and a lot of planning, but never losing sight of the overall strategy. I advocate a Technology Vision with supporting plans, but not a separate ‘IT strategy'. The Technology Vision has to be completely aligned with the strategy of the organisation, whether it's at the Natural History Museum or anywhere else."

Golding describes his time at the Museum as "a great privilege," with people who are "wonderful, calm, thoughtful, progressive [and] very open to new ideas."

He adds that his replacement's role "is going to go way beyond the running of standard enterprise-type solutions."

"It will really be helping to unlock the secrets of the universe," he says. "There aren't many places you can work and say that!"