MA Conference (T)wittering Awards

In my attempts to let the world understand the true voice of unreason I use Twitter as my main method of communication. In the old days I suppose I would have been found ranting on street corners and being quietly moved on by the local constabulary. Now I am a respected sage in 140 characters or less.

The time to step up to the plate and bear my tweeting teeth came at the MA Conference 2012. I vowed to tweet as much as my RSI would let me. However I quickly realised I would be up against true professionals - could a yokel from somewhere south/north of Yorkshire mix it with top twitterators?

To begin with I noticed many tweets were quotes from sessions with an added 2 or 3 words of analysis  - if you were lucky. The brief for speakers at next year's conference should be to keep sentences to 100 characters or less to help us tweeters. The problem is that this instruction may reduce the clarity of the message by making speakers' sentences a bit too sh

In the end I only managed 20 tweets, a meagre 10 a day. Let's put this into context. I met my new tweeting hero @MarDixon and she had tweeted 4,123,345 times before lunch on the first day with insight, engagement and above all enthusiasm. I was truly humbled. Her best tweets? Perhaps these two as part of a conversation with MannyC?

MarDixon,"Audience are embracing weird and wonderful - why aren't museum people / museums?"
mannyc,"@MarDixon embracing and encouraging a culture of change can be a long, hard process. Not an excuse to avoid it though..."
MarDixon, "@mannyc Culture change should come from within an I haven't seen much change there. The public has changed & is bored waiting."

Biting, perceptive and a too rare perspective from outside of the museum world.

Anyway, having gone through the #museums2012 and not slept for 10 days I have now come up with my own
                                              Museum of Unreason Tweeting Awards                                
* Note I have edited the hashtags out of all the tweets in the interest of sanity

Best suggestion?
Lynz_M_Anderson, "Philanthropy session: Museum Staff should ALL donate to their museums... "
I'll be using that little morale booster at my next team meeting.

Best food for thought?
ee_ve, "Engaging session on conflict in museums. Is it ok to display conflict but not ok to have internal conflicts?"
I think I've got it the wrong way round in my museum.

Best reason to work?
Sharonheal, "Emma Varnam in cultural rights session; why do we go to work in a morning? It's all about social justice."

Best reason not to work?
RachelCockett, "If you work in an organisation for more two years you are complicit. Can you live with it?"
Well to be honest - yes

Best food reference?
AustenJocelyn, "Keith Nichol: 'The UK spends more on cheese than charity.' Love cheese, but a sad statement."
As a cheese based life-form I might be partly responsible for this

Most honest tweet?
museumsrepublic, "Worryingly in the last session I put my hand up by mistake and then saw a microphone coming towards me.."

Most Medieval?
Acuity_Design,"They spent years meticulously making beautiful copies to put on shelves." "Monks?" "No, museums."

Most Excluded?
leehutchinson, "My BlackBerry died (seemingly self-destructed). Consequently, I felt marginalised at MA conference as a non-smartphone user."

The Museum of Unreason Holy Moley award
TamsinRussell, "I loved the Jar. of Moles!"
Great use of a full stop for effect

My best tweet? It gets the 'reducing social media to school playground competitiveness' award

MuseumU, "last tweet 13 seconds can anyone beat that?"


If anyone would like to share their favourite tweets from the conference, or come up with their own awards, I'd be happy to hear from you.
Perhaps together we can put pressure on the MA to come up with some official awards of their own at the next conference.

Museums Association Conference 2012 - The Keyhole Speeches (more career ending thoughts)

As I slowly defrost in the temperate climes south of Yorkshire it's time to reflect on my two days in Edinburgh. A frantic round of coffee drinking, luncheoning, avoiding people you owe money to and having an occasional sit down while somebody on a stage said something they assumed I might be interested in.

As the comfiest seats were in the main hall I was occasionally woken by hordes of museum types wanted to listen to keyhole speeches. It made a change as last year I was perpetually late for the speeches, this year I was perpetually woken up by them.

First up was Fiona Hyslop who seemed to be Minister for Scottishness. I have never heard such sentimental twaddle in all my life as she pulled out cliche after cliche about Scottish identity. You'd never find us bulldog Englishmen getting so worked up about our green and pleasant land of cricket on the village green.....hmm perhaps we are alike after all.

Next up.. a lawyer (better be a bit careful here) Aamer Anwar. This is going to be controversial. Phew! He gives a nice little talk on 'museums I have visited with my kids that I like 'cos I'm a social justice lawyer'. I look forward to a miner's reflection on pit museums he's visited at next year's conference in Wales.

Woken from my slumber (is it Friday already?) by.. Basil Fawlty? I thought it was meant to be Martin Roth. Is this a new strategy for national museums? Will the V&A be renamed the Sybil & Manuel Museum and become the S&M? Hmm...perhaps not. My reverie led me to hoping that Captain Mainwaring will be taking over the Imperial War Museum and Alf Garnet would be an ideal candidate for the British Museum.... then the talk was over, I assume he didn't mention the war, or that he did once but got away with it.

One more to go -  Mark O'Neill (Director of Policy and Research at Glasgow Life) argued that we are too professional. I've suspected that all along. That's why my amateurish museum is ahead of its time.  He stridently argued that everyone needs access to the core collections. Having left Big Baz (see previous blog) in charge  of the museum whilst in Edinburgh - he seems to have fully accessed the coin collection.

Time to go home, but wait who is this? Donald Smith - a storyteller? It can't be a keyhole speech because its a brilliantly informative and entertaining summary of the conference. What a waste of 2 days! All I needed to do was pop in for an hour at the end (make mental note to self for next year).

This year was certainly the digital year - so next week I'll reflect on 2012 - the Twitter Conference

Corrected Correction Corrected

A short but blunt 'phone call from the Editor of 'Inuits Today' magazine about this morning's blog A Corrected Correction was somewhat negative. Upon re-re-re-reading the blog I realise that even more grammatical errors on my very new intern's part may have led her that conclusion. I have therefore sacked her (recently recruited from the Antarctic Bugle) and replaced her at short notice with my new intern (who asked me to buy his Big Issue on the way to work this morning) to correct the corrected corrections as follows:

1.  "I used to regard the East Midlands as a sort of geographical barrier between the Arctic and civilisation i.e. anywhere warm. A sort of regional Hadrian's Wall. It has proved surprisingly good at its main (only) job as I am never assaulted on a regular basis by Inuit dialects when strolling through the leafy thoroughfares of warm places without snow all year round." 

should have read,

 "I used to regard the East Midlands as a sort of geographical barrier between the Antarctic and civilisation i.e. anywhere with polar bears. A sort of regional Hadrian's Wall. It has proved surprisingly good at its main (only) job as I have never seen any penguins strolling through the leafless suburbs of Nuuk."

2. "..Robin Hood an Eskimo? Unlikely, although it might explain the strange smell of fish "

should have read,

"..Robin Hood a penguin? Not even in a Disney cartoon!"

I hope that any, every and all misunderstandings are now resolved in the confident knowledge that penguins are not avid museum visitors, and even if they were, the absence of fingers and a good internet connection in the Southern Ocean will keep them quiet

My new intern has proved such a help that I have given him the key to the museum while I am at the Museums Association Conference - so if you are in the area pop in and Big Baz and his little mongrel dog Osborne will give you a welcome you won't forget.

Corrected Correction

The reaction to yesterdays blog A Correction from the people of God's Own City (London to you and me) has been somewhat negative. Upon re-re-reading it I realise that a few more grammatical errors on my intern's part may have led some to that conclusion. I have sacked my new intern (from the Yorkshire Post) and replaced him at short notice with my new intern (recently made redundant from the Antarctic Bugle as her articles lacked warmth) to correct the corrections as follows:

1. "I used to regard the East Midlands as a sort of geographical barrier between London and civilisation i.e. Yorkshire. A sort of regional Hadrian's Wall. It has proved surprisingly poor at its main (only) job as I am assaulted on a regular basis by fruity southern vowels when strolling through the leafy thoroughfares of Doncaster." 

should have read,

 "I used to regard the East Midlands as a sort of geographical barrier between the Arctic and civilisation i.e. anywhere warm. A sort of regional Hadrian's Wall. It has proved surprisingly good at its main (only) job as I am never assaulted on a regular basis by Inuit dialects when strolling through the leafy thoroughfares of warm places without snow all year round."

2. "..Robin Hood a Londoner? Surely Londoners take from the poor to give to the rich."

should have read,

"..Robin Hood an Eskimo? Unlikely, although it might explain the strange smell of fish "

I hope that any misunderstandings are now resolved and we can all go back to ignoring the north south divide.

Now I can go to the Museums Association Conference confident in the knowledge that my interns have offended everyone equally.

A Correction

The reaction to this weekend's blog More East Midlands Heritage Madness from the people of God's Own County (Yorkshire to you and me) has been somewhat negative. Upon re-reading it I realise that a few grammatical errors on my part may have led some to that conclusion. I have blamed my intern (recently made redundant from the Guardian as a copy editor) so I've given the job to my new intern (recently made redundant from the Yorkshire Post as a t' editor) to make the corrections as follows

1. "I used to regard the East Midlands as a sort of geographical barrier between Yorkshire and civilisation i.e. London. A sort of regional Hadrian's Wall. It has proved surprisingly poor at its main (only) job as I am assaulted on a regular basis by flat vowels when strolling through the leafy thoroughfares of SW1." 

should have read,

"I used to regard the East Midlands as a sort of geographical barrier between London and civilisation i.e. Yorkshire. A sort of regional Hadrian's Wall. It has proved surprisingly poor at its main (only) job as I am assaulted on a regular basis by fruity southern vowels when strolling through the leafy thoroughfares of Doncaster." "

2. "..Robin Hood a Yorkshireman? A Yorkshireman knows too much the value of 'brass' to give it away."

should have read,

"..Robin Hood a Londoner? Surely Londoners take from the poor to give to the rich"

Any offence caused was entirely intentional and any resemblance to person or persons is truly remarkable

More East Midlands Heritage Madness

Last week my attention was drawn to the strange world of East Midlands heritage, so I've made it my mission to keep an eye on it so that the rest of you don't have to. However I'm quickly coming to the conclusion that there is something strangely great about this part of the world - but more of that later.

I used to regard the East Midlands as a sort of geographical barrier between Yorkshire and civilisation i.e. London. A sort of regional Hadrian's Wall. It has proved surprisingly poor at its main (only) job as I am assaulted on a regular basis by flat vowels when strolling through the leafy thoroughfares of SW1.

I hasten to add I do not regard the West Midlands in the same way, things seem to happen there. They've had this Shakespeare bloke producing plays for posh people for ages. Slade and Wizard invented the Christmas party in 1973 with 'Merry Christmas Everybody' and 'I Wish it Could Be Could Be Christmas Everyday'. The world would certainly be a poorer place without Ozzy Osbourne and Robbie Williams. However after a short mental drive up the M42 I could only come up with Paper Lace's 'Billy Don't Be a Hero', a moving celebration of cowardice. At least they had the word lace in their name.

At last I realised they've got Robin Hood, an international signifier of fairness and the struggle of  people for justice. They must be shouting about him from the roof tops. Hmm... apparently not. The best I could find was a celebration of the Sheriff of Nottingham at the Galleries of Justice Museum  - the baddie! This has allowed Doncaster to try and claim him, but Robin Hood a Yorkshireman? A Yorkshireman knows too much the value of 'brass' to give it away.

Then suddenly local BBC website is crowing about 2 multi-million pound Robin Hood extravaganzas. A £13m development at Nottingham Castle and a £13m development in Sherwood Forest.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-nottinghamshire-20146713

Instantly local academics are questioning their sustainability. It's slightly surprising they are not complaining that it's not the King John Visitor Extravaganza.

However look a bit more closely to see the peculiar East Midlands madness at work.

It seems Nottinghamshire County Council want to build a castle in Sherwood Forest and Nottingham City Council want to recreate Sherwood Forest in the castle. If they want each others assets that badly why don't they just do a swap and spend the £26m on a Paper Lace museum?

Better still - have Nottingham City noticed they haven't got a castle? Spend the £13m knocking down that hideous modern bungalow masquerading as a castle and put up a proper one. Has Nottinghamshire County noticed that Sherwood Forest is down to about half a dozen trees and a 'major oak' held together with concrete and steel girders. Spend the £13m planting trees to recreate the splendour of the original hunting grounds. Problem solved and there may still be a few ££ left over for the Paper Lace museum.

Next week it's the Museum Association conference and I'll be reporting on that extravaganza in my next blog. In the meantime those of you going to Edinburgh this year from Museumland (London) and you are flying over the East Midlands or your train is briefly stopping at Grantham, look out the window and wave at a place of unassuming madness we should all celebrate - the EAST MIDLANDS.