Tweet To Who

It is time to reflect on the Twitter experience.

The Museum of Unreason has been active in social media for 84 days. Why is this significant? 84 days was the record breaking amount of time for a man to spend in space (Jerry Carr on Skylab in case you were wondering). So as we are poised to break his record for time spent in (cyber)space where is the Museum of Unreason in this brave new virtual world?

46 out of 100 must do better
www.tweet.grader.com has marked the museum as 46 out 100 - we fail! Although I'm sure the modern education system does not allow failure, so we can claim alternative success. Further inspection bears this out.

5,902,876th out of 175,000,000 go to the top of the class
The Museum is ranked 5,902,876th is this good? Yes, why?
Twitter claims 175m. accounts. This puts the Museum in the top 5% (3.37%) of users. Success!
There are 56 million people following no-one. The Museum is following 31. Success!
There are 90 million people with zero followers. The Museum has 30 followers. Success!
Over 50% of accounts have 2 followers or fewer. The Museum is therefore in the top 50%. Success!

Best Tweeters starting 84 days ago

Hats of to @austinadderley1 7,795 followers and 10,507 updates (125 tweets a day) (1 every 5 minutes). Epic commitment and he deserves all the followers he gets. This is a 100 out 100 tweeter.

Hats off to @CondeElevator 88,663 followers from only 36 updates (2,462 followers for every tweet) based on things overheard in lifts. Has a museum tried this?

Hats off @andrewtmccarthy 7,982 followers from 390 updates. Alright I've only included him as he is a famous person that started the same day as the museum. The world should be grateful to him for 'Weekend at Bernie's' anyway

Best museum Tweeters

Hats off to @TacomaArtMuseum 5,062 followers for 786 updates. The top museum scoring100 out of 100 using the tweet.grader.com system

Hats off to @smithsonian 535,732 followers from 5,074 updates. epic numbers 100 out of 100

Museum of Unreason Social Media Forward Plan

The Museum of Unreason plans to be the best the museum on Twitter therefore we will have to have 600,000 within another 84 days. How?

We will tweet every 4 minutes, about the things overheard in a museum, whilst making a comic B movie about a dead body.

MA Conference - President's Abba inspired speech (apparently)

My accident prone conference experience meant that I missed the Presidential Address (needless to say a manhole cover and a pair of rollerblades were involved), but I was led to believe her speech was inspired by Abba after which she led the audience in a tribute singalong. So in the noble tradition of historians who accurately describe events at which they were not present and of which they have no knowledge, here is a verbatim transcript of the President's introduction which led to the sing along.

"Fellow conference delegates, since the last general election change has been the name of the game. Nothing is certain; the sector has tipped head over heels and is under attack. Has the museum sector met its Waterloo in the shape of Ed Vaizey? The cuts go on and on and on while he continues to be obsessed with the visitors. I say to the Minister, does your mother know what you're doing? Why not give her a ring. Ring her and I wonder what she will say? I do, I do, I do, I do, I do really think the winner takes it all culture is alien to museums. We do not want to encourage a gimme gimme gimme frenzy for hard pressed heritage organisations.

I can reflect back on the pre-election landscape. The day before you came, unaware that this would be our last summer of certainty, I dared believe museums were making a difference. The eagle of hope soared. As the Rugby Union world cup is being held in New Zealand can we be inspired by their badge of identity, the fern, and do the impossible by surviving the next five years? Is it possible that I have a dream that these good times will return? Or is it now just pub talk nostalgia in the way old friends do when they meet?

Am I a Cassandra? When all is said and done museums are something you can take a chance on. Me? I believe it strongly. I plead with the Minister that museums are super. Trouper that he is, I'm sure if we tell him about the great work museums do he will fight our cause in Government more strongly. As President I hope for all museums that you will be persuaded to lay all your love on. Me? I will work hard to deliver an SOS on behalf of the sector. I won't give up knowing me. Knowing you I am confident you will all back me up on this.

I say to the Minister one of us is here to stay and it is the museum sector. In five years you will be gone and we will be dancing. Queen of culture the V&A will be saying 'so long' Vaizey in a new exhibition titled 'The Departure'."

"So can I ask you all to stand and circle your handbags  and sing along with me.....

'I work all night I work all day to pay the bills I have to pay, ain't it sad.....' "

Taste and decency does not allow me to describe the 70s inspired gyration that followed.

(Prizes available to guess the number of Abba tracks referenced in the speech)

MA Conference Reflections 1 - The Keyhole Speeches

Supreme fortune befell me in the dying days of September. To cut a long story short a botched bank robbery in the High Street enabled me to attend (for the first time) the Museum Association's Annual Conference in Brighton on 3rd-4th October.

It was such an amazing experience that it may take several blogs to do it justice. So I will concentrate on the main keyhole speeches in this blog.

Starting first thing on Monday morning, in my haste to be on time I had a near death experience involving a megaphone and an old age pensioner. I entered the auditorium a little flustered, a little late and a little deaf. Placing myself strategically on the floor I asked my neighbour who was the man speaking on the stage. The whispered reply seemed to be 'Edge Vaguely Sinister Couture' -well at least that explained his tie. But he helped me define that a real museum spent ££££ to get 000s of visitors and did not waste its time engaging with communities, making collections accessible and generally providing 'culture'. What a relief. My ears cleared to discover it was Ed Vaizey our Minister for Culture. Oops

I wanted to attend an ACE briefing which turned out to be less exciting than it sounded. In my haste to be on time I had a  major incident with a canister of helium and a contrabassoon. I entered the auditorium a little flustered, a little late and a little deaf. A dapper gentleman seemed to be suggesting you would be popular if you had a designated collection. I asked my neighbour who he was. The whispered reply seemed to be 'Deadly Swine' which I thought was a little unfair. Anyway I took his advice and stuck a label to my forehead saying 'I have a designated collection' to see if it would make me more popular (for some reason people tend to avoid me). I abandoned this idea after a slightly frenzied encounter in a toilet cubicle with the Head of Service from a neighbouring district. During this incident I discovered the dapper gent in question was Hedley Swain Director of Museums and Renaissance for the Arts Council. Oops

It was going well so far. In my haste to be on time for the next speech I had a  minor scrape with a shopping trolley and a pneumatic drill. I entered the auditorium a little flustered, a little late and a little deaf. My neighbour on the floor informed me it was a Trim Ship from the Garden of Eden (surely its marketing campaign should say 'World's Oldest Museum'). But I was in time to hear that we should 'fake rusks'. I think that constitutes child abuse. However he seemed to go down well so I suggested to my boss that we are only selling plastic food on our children's menu from now on.  Much later I now realise it was Tim Smit from the Eden Project who wanted museums to 'take risks'. Oops

The final keyhole intrigued me as it was to be from the first green imp in Brighton (what colour are they usually?). In my haste to be on time I got a little confused with a tube of superglue and a cd of the speeches of the Reverend Ian Paisley. I entered the auditorium a little flustered, a little late and a little deaf. Confusion arose as the imp was taller and whiter than I had presumed (note to self - must attend more equality and diversity training). I must have really mis-heard this time when the imp mischievously expressed more concern for museums and the planet in general than all the humans I had mis-heard previously. Demon logic? No longer will I indulge in cloudy thinking I will now pursue 'demon logic'.

My report back to the boss after the conference has suddenly left me on extended gardening leave. This will give me much more time to reflect on the rest of the conference for next time.