Museums Association Conference 2014 - Twitter Awards

And so another Museums Association Conference closes and the museum world waits in anticipation for the announcement of the 3rd Annual Conference Twitter Awards. Wait no more - it is here. But first some reflections on the twitter performance of the delegates.

Twitter numbers seem to be down again from last year, why is this? I have decided that it is due to more than speaker ill discipline. Surely by now the MA has passed on my recommendation to all speakers to keep sentences to 100 characters or less? Perhaps audiences are listening to speakers and reflecting more on their content before tweeting. This is preferable to the soundbite sugar rush that has my twitter feed pinging manically during an interesting conference session. A more reflective and questioning approach to tweets is a trend I heartily endorse and long may this continue as it gives the Twitter Jury less to get through when judging day comes.

My own tweeting was also down this year, I think it was down to riveting sessions, serious subject matter (less suited to the Museum of Unreason perspective) and a sprained thumb sustained hitchhiking down the country to Cardiff.

Now for the awards.

Best Excited Conference Anticipation Tweet

"Looking at the guide the first #museums2014 session should really be 'how to be in more than one place at once'... Can't wait!"@juliafrancess

Somewhat apt for a conference at the home of Doctor Who


Best MA Conference of the Future Tweet

"The good thing re. going to conf on twitter is that you get to 'curate'(!) your own experience and get to all the right things! #museums2014 "@alexwoodall

MA take notice - this is the future

Best Comment on Crowded Conference Sessions Tweet

"Can't move in art and science of curation! Maybe it's a metaphor for a museum store.." @ArchaeoMuse

I hadn't thought that my being squeezed into the back of a session was actually the result of the MA's conference delegate aquisitions policy.

Best Acknowledged Session Irony Tweet

"In the #museums2014 happiness debate. @tonybutler1 and I are finding the questions - ironically- rather taxing" @e_chaplin

Next year a Museum Taxing session with happy questions?


Best Session Criticism Tweet

"Frustrated again #museums2014 surely we all know museums can support social justice. How can this be an argument/ discussion for conference? "@cladle

Beautifully brilliant and blistering - here here


Best Aren't Museums Wonderful Tweet

"Museums can cause wonder and thereby enable visitors to experience the world more intensely - Martyn Evans"@artfund

Thanks to the Art Fund amongst others for sharing this piece of inspiration from Martyn


Best Philosophy For Life Tweet

Beautiful signoff @martindaws at #museums2014 "Be bold. People love you. I know as an artist when u have passion, there is no other option" @NickPoole1

Don't give people an option - make them love you (I'll start with the newsagent tomorrow morning)


Best Conference Compliment Tweet

#museums2014 2 days 1 unbelievable key note speech and 1 unbelievable key note performance. In a decade the best conference I have attended.@1969DMS


Calm down dear It's only a conference


And to finish


Best Biggest Mystery of the Conference Tweet

"Why are there aubergines in the microwave @thecardiffstory"
@RebeccaA_MA

Suggestions wanted on a postcard please.

If you think there are better ones please let me know, otherwise congratulations to the winners and see you all next year in Birmingham where we can perhaps get together over a kipper tie.

Museums Association Conference 2013 Twittering Awards

How was the conference for you? Tweetful?

I sensed this year was a less intense twittercasion than last year. My own tweeting was down 70% and that includes my less than informative, "#museums2013" tweet. At least it proved I knew where I was and what year it is - could the same be said of all the speakers?

The first conclusion to jump to is that tweeting has peaked. Is twitter now on the slippery slope towards unfashionable desuetude?

There were a tremendous amount of retweets this year, I would suggest the majority of the #museums2013 hashtagged tweets were in fact retweets. Good snippets of information  were great especially from the simultaneous sessions, but many tweets were like buses they came in a rush all at once. Was this due to the intermittent wifi at the conference centre? I spent many a frustrated hour trying to send 140 characters of great pith and moment into the ether rather than listening. Goodness knows what the speakers must have thought as their great insights into museums were being received with scowling faces and phones being waved in the air.

I suppose this is a long winded way of saying the choice was more limited for awards this year.

There is usually a plethora of food related tweets from the conference. Pleasingly, yeast featured this year. Yet I believe my first award nicely sums up the entire reason for conference attendance for me.

Best reason for conference attendance tweet
@Purcelluk Good to see you @GM_Museums at the MA conference and thanks for the cupcakes! #museums2013

Meeting colleagues, having a good time and eating cake.. oh and there were some talks as well


Best excuse not to tweet
@nwestrep_ma Feeling happily tired and glad to be home after two brilliant days at #museums2013 - sorry been far too busy to tweet during conference :-)

Aren't MA reps are well trained, hardworking and corporately 'on message' - It must bring a manly tear to Mark Taylor's eye.


Best I've learned a new word tweet
@RachelCockett Museums Association conference #tweetup for museum tweeps. Non-tweeps welcome. #museums2013.
A 'tweep'?


Best hope for the future tweet
@GaladrielBlond7 the first time in my life visited the museum. it's cool. 

Surely the holy grail is for museums to be cool for the next generation  - and at least one has succeeded


Best advice to cope with budget cuts
@iainawatson Maurice Davies building future museum out of cardboard and string!

Will the next Museums Journal be made from sticky back plastic?


Best big brother is watching you tweet
@marktaylor_ma 1500 people attend #museums2013 and not one person from DCMS. No wonder they are out of touch.

"I counted them all in and back out again"


Best worst maintenance of equilibrium under stress tweet
@MuseumGeoff I am NOT advocating violence towards another person. But if I get my hands on them #museums2013

Prize to person who can make the best suggestion for how to finish the sentence


Best the more I read it the stranger it becomes tweet
@EastMidsMuseums "More love, less loss" - promote what audiences can do to help the environment w ur dead animals, not make them feel helpless #museums2013

A plea to love dead animals? A suggestion to ask for audience ideas as to what to do with dead animals? Are audiences helpless or dead animals? OR all of the above at the same time?


Best suggestion for what to do with an animal skin...ever
@ErinHillforts Quote of the day: "if you'd never seen a walrus & all you had was the skin, you'd stuff it til it was really fat and smooth!" #museums2013

I don't think it has to just be Walruses, just think of any cute animal with strangely shocked faces  - perhaps this is what @EastMidsMuseums had in mind for the previous tweet.


Lastly, criticism was thin on the ground but there were compliments a-plenty. "great session", "excellent session", "fun session" etc. But what was the best of the best compliments?

Best Complimentary tweet
@NickPoole1 Totally brilliant introductory role play on Board problems at #museums2013 from @Cubists great stuff!

Congratulations @NickPoole1 that is a proper complimentary tweet if I ever saw one and congratulations @Cubists for earning it.


And so the conference closes for another year. If any of you have come across better tweets, or better categories then do let me know.

Next year, will we have our tweetfaces on again? Or will it continue to fall? I suspect the quality of Welsh wifi may answer many of those questions.

eich gweld y flwyddyn nesaf