Ideal Gift for a Curator?

It's the curator's birthday next week and I was looking for something inspirational that challenges his/her* way of thinking. So I searched for 'entrepreneurial gifts' on the internet and came across www.startupvitamins.com purveyor of trite/inspirational soundbites in physical form. A quick perusal of their merchandise revealed this gem. If nothing else, if the curator follows this mantra it will free up some space in our stores.

I've not seen him/her for many months and to be honest I've forgotten

Will the last one to leave please turn the lights off

*Adapted from an image in a The Atlantic article 'A World Without Work' July/August 2015 
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2015/07/world-without-work/395294/

Top Ten Things You Shouldn't Say To A Curator

"What budget do you need for future acquisitions?"

"Clear your accessioning backlog by the weekend."

"I need you to give a half hour talk to the 65 seven year old school kids from the local inner city school on our early Twentieth Century Vorticist art collection tomorrow."

"Can I borrow your stuffed badger from the natural history collection for a stag party I'm having this weekend?"

"Can you show the St.Vitus Dance tour group around the ceramics open display?"

"Please let me see inside your store, just once, go on, you know you want to."

"Do you wear your nitrile gloves in bed?"

"Handling collections are important too"

"Can't you sell it on Ebay?"

"Your round!"

What does your museum role say about you?*

It is readily accepted that, in the museum world, the only people you think are normal are the ones that you don't know very well. But does the role you play in the museum say something about you? The following is based on the staff and volunteers at the Museum of Unreason. Any similarity between them and the rest of the human race is entirely coincidental.

Museum Marketing - Outgoing Alcoholic - you possess a degree and had the reputation of being rarely sober and throwing excellent parties at University. Your general belief is the job requires more of the same. You are ambitious and believe that you can drink your way to the top. Also, you believe that the marketing budget is never big enough and that if you handed over all the cash to the marketing team and employed competent sales employees 'they will come'.

Museum Sales - Paranoid Loner - you don't possess a degree but had the reputation of attending all the same parties at University as the museum marketer before dropping out. You avoid customers like the plague in order to work on the 'strategy'. As a result you have a very low golf handicap and you hate the marketing department for wasting all the museum money.

Museum IT Specialist - Uncontrollable Geek - you have no detectable personal life but are in complete command of everything that happens at the museum. Possibly foreign, or at least in possession of a language degree, because no-one can understand a word you say. You even have acronyms for acronyms. The Chief Executive comes to you for advice and does everything you say.

Museum Accountant - Fearsomely Insane - you talk softly and wield a big spreadsheet; immune to gossip, office politics and disorganisation. You are approached with trepidation and your extreme personal wealth is probably the product supreme income efficiency.

Museum Human Resources - Grim Reaper's Less Pleasant Younger Sibling - you are rarely seen, except when bad news is expected. Your ability to seemingly float along the corridors is often commented upon. Nobody has ever seen your reflection in a mirror and as a consequence you are never invited to the pub, but you know all the gossip - how?

Museum Manager - Spineless Cutthroat - you are in your job for life as you're unemployable elsewhere. You measure success by the number of meetings held and decisions avoided. But, you are still invited to the pub, if only to pay for the drinks.

Visitor Service Officer - Cheery Suicide Risk - you are perpetually torn between having a break down and sleeping with the manager to get a promotion. Your relationship with the public is 'complicated' and you feel undervalued by the senior staff. However, solace is found in excessive shopping and cocktails.

Museum Curator - Insecure with a God Complex - you are the blue riband employee of the organisation. You are the most valuable person in your own mind, but the most expendable in everyone else's. To justify your existence you simply mention 'accreditation' and 'backlog' and retreat to the stores for a week when in reality you actually are running a restaurant on Corfu.

Museum Chief Executive - A Lucky Lucky Bastard - you got to the top because you thought you would, but your inability to use a computer, or know what accreditation is, suggests you are more lucky than brilliant. You have innate good sense to move on before your cock ups are noticed and the museum is forced to close.

Museum Volunteer - The Willingly Unwilling Martyr - you know the museum wouldn't function without you, staff knows the museum doesn't function with you. You know there are useful things you do, the staff know all the things you don't/won't or can't do. You know the staff are ungrateful but you are careful to let the staff know you are doing everything for free and giving up your free time to do this.

*This blog was written sometime ago and following the latest staff review the museum volunteer is now the marketing/sales/visitor services manager, the Chief Executive has 'moved on', the accountant has retired to Worthing, the human resources manager now runs authentic ghost tours in Milton Keynes, the curator hasn't been seen for some months and the IT Specialist was actually found to be a Bulgarian immigrant looking for work who thought the museum was the local YMCA (he now runs a car washing service on the High Road). In the meantime I continue to fulfil my role as museum manager with due diligence and professionalism.

Inspirational Museum Quotes for 2014

Enough New Year reflective nonsense for the time being. Reading some motivational quotes for New Year* I have been inspired to inspire you to greater efforts in 2014 by sharing the wisdom of great thinkers throughout the centuries. Had any of them been museum managers this is what they would have said:

"An artefact cannot be polished without friction, nor a curator perfected without excellent accreditation documents." Seneca

"Don't go around saying the heritage sector owes you a living. The heritage sector owes you nothing. It was here first." Mark Twain

"Enthusiasm, backed up by nonsense and persistence, is the quality that most frequently makes for a museum." Dale Carnegie

"It doesn't matter whether the Dow is 5000 or 50,000. If you're an idiot, there is no bad time to start a museum." Guy Kawasaki

"Opportunities to find deeper powers within ourselves come when the museum visitor seems most challenging." Joseph Campbell

"The problem with many a museum is that it takes away the requirement to set your own visitor route, to explore your own learning, to find your story." Seth Godin

"You are your museum's greatest asset. Put your time, effort and money into training, grooming, and encouraging your greatest asset." Tom Hopkins

"It is only necessary to have storage, for artefacts without storage facilities are useless." Casanova

"If money is your hope for survival you will never have it. The only real security that a museum will have in this world is a reserve of knowledge, experience, and ability." Henry Ford

"Museums that are unable to motivate themselves must be content with mediocrity, no matter how impressive their objects." Andrew Carnegie

"If you have no confidence in your collection, you are twice defeated in the race for visitors. With confidence, you have great exhibitions even before you have started." Cicero

"It is not the strongest of the museums that survive, nor the most intelligent of staff that survives the cuts. It is the ones that are the most adaptable to change." Charles Darwin

*All quotes gleefully ripped off and improved from Inc. on-line magazine. 

If you want to read the actual quotes they can be found here. http://www.inc.com/geoffrey-james/12-great-motivational-quotes-for-2014.html

10 Words to Cut From Your Writing*

In my constant efforts at self improvement I was drawn to an article on 'lean writing'. The thrust of the article suggested that you could easily cut out 10 unnecessary words from your sentences. The words in question were:

Just
Really
Very
Perhaps/maybe
Quite
Amazing
Literally
Stuff
Things
Got

I'm sure you have written a sentence with all of them in before. I have.

'Just a short note to really thank you very much for all the quite literally amazing stuff you've donated to the museum which we've already got, so perhaps you maybe want to retrieve your things from the skip out the back''

Now try that sentence without the unnecessary words.

''A short note to thank you for all you've donated to the museum which we have already, so you can retrieve it all from the skip out the back'''

It works! So not everything you read on the internet is bad advice.

But the larger point is that we can be prisoners of our language, free up some words and free up your mind. Can this liberating effect be applied to museums? What words can a museum do without? What would be the effect? Here are some suggestions in no particular order:

Backlog
Accreditation
Trustee
Friends
Curator
Concession
School
Conservation
Object
Volunteer

Abolish those words and instantly your museum is a happier place. You don't have a backlog! Yippee. No objects and no conservation issues means we don't have to have a curator, instantly creating savings. With no concessions you can charge full price all the time. You'll have no friends (nothing new there), but no trustees telling you what to do either. They just turn into greying busybodies and therefore indistinguishable from the paying public. With no volunteers they'll just become unpaid staff, and therefore you can now sack the staff who have the temerity to ask for pay - yet more savings! No school groups means no graffiti in the toilets and no headaches at the end of the day from all the noise. Finally, no accreditation and heritage nirvana is surely reached while the dustbin will be full of unloved and unused paperwork.

Just reflect on that for a moment and don't pretend that I'm not offering you a seductive vision of the future for your museum.

I might apply this to my personal life, and after the week I've had I'm going to abolish the following:

Rain
Queue
Tax
Breathalyser
Fine
Mortgage
Arrears
Cholesterol
Erectile dysfunction
Hangover

Happy Friday 13th to one and all!

*http://www.entrepreneur.com/article/229369

Iffy

If you can keep your collections when museums around you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on budget cuts,
If you can trust your staff when the board doubts you,
But make allowance for their doubting too;
If you can accession and not be tired by the backlog,
Or being loaned an item, don't deal in valuations,
Or being dated, don't give way to dating,
And yet don't display too well, nor label too wise:

If you can budget - and not make grants your master,
If you can drink - and not make alcoholism your aim;
If you can display a Triumph and Bentley
And treat those two cars just the same;
If you can bear to re-read the panel you've written
Criticised by the public who are a rod for your back,
Or watch exhibits you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make a major bid for your museum
And risk it all on one turn of HLF funding,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about it to your boss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your public long after closing time,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Go home!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your sanity,
Or walk with councillors - nor lose the common touch,
If neither board nor friends groups can hurt you,
If all men work with you, but none too much;
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Museum and everything that's in it,
And - which is more - you'll be a Curator, my son!

Rudyard Unreason (1865-?)

Ideal Christmas presents for museum staff

As a museum director you probably used to be above sending gifts to staff. Unfortunately due to the spate of redundancies you now have half the staff you had at the beginning of the year. As a result, may I suggest, there will be morale issues to address. You've already given yourself a pay rise to compensate for the stress of making people redundant (at least I have). What better than a thoughtful gift from you to show you care. But if like me you struggle to remember the names of the people who work for you and rely on 'Oi you there!' as a standard form of address to underlings, you need to admit you need help.

Never fear help is here. Specialist gifts for 'special' people

1. The Curator
An increasingly rare beast, a shadowy figure seen furtively blinking in natural light. I must admit I haven't seen mine in years. We leave food outside the door to the stores and it disappears so he is still alive. We had Kate Humble in for a pilot for a new programme 'Curatorwatch' but she failed to confirm a sighting of him let alone catch him mating. I understand that is the real reason she has resigned from the BBC.

So what to buy him? With green issues and sustainability in mind how about this? It is practical and symbolic of the regard I have for him. It'll help keep the stores clean as well.

2. Outreach Officer
An increasingly rare beast, a shadowy figure rarely seen outside of the pub. I must admit I haven't seen mine in years. She seems determined to save the planet from behind a large gin and tonic. She seems to have taken to claiming her increasing collection of tattoos on expenses as well. Her latest one is designed like a necklace with the words 'smile if you hate the boss' which seems to have helped morale. I've had 'laugh if you hate the staff' tattooed on my left buttock - it doesn't seem to have had the same effect.

So what to buy her? How about an edible can of endangered species? She can challenge her phobias whilst chewing on her ethics - perfect.

3. Visitor Services Officer
An increasingly flustered beast, rarely seen smiling at visitors. Her visitor 'focus' usually involves glaring at the foolish public who dare to cross the threshold until they go away thus performing a valuable service to the protection of our collections. What can you get such an outgoing and friendly individual? How about a nice pair of earrings?

4. Cleaner
An increasingly angry beast rarely seen cleaning. Although responsible for putting up the latest exhibition and delivering the learning associated with it, she could at least have mopped the floors while doing it. Is that too much to ask? Buy her something that gives her a sense of self worth. Nothing says that more than a pug t-shirt.

4. Museum Cat
An increasingly rare beast, a shadowy figure rarely seen when its not feeding time. How about making it not just rare but mythical with an inflatable unicorn horn? I see a new TV programme 'Mythwatch' in the new year.

Thus Christmas is celebrated, the team is bonded, staff morale and self worth suitably challenged. Somehow I feel another personal pay rise coming on.

How I Wish This Were True

Paleoanthropology Division 

Smithsonian Institute
207 Pennsylvania Avenue
Washington, DC 20078

Dear Sir:

Thank you for your latest submission to the Institute, labeled “211-D, layer seven, next to the clothesline post. Hominid skull.” We have given this specimen a careful and detailed examination, and regret to inform you that we disagree with your theory that it represents “conclusive proof of the presence of Early Man in Charleston County two million years ago.” Rather, it appears that what you have found is the head of a Barbie doll, of the variety one of our staff, who has small children, believes to be the “Malibu Barbie”. It is evident that you have given a great deal of thought to the analysis of this specimen, and you may be quite certain that those of us who are familiar with your prior work in the field were loathe to come to contradiction with your findings. However, we do feel that there are a number of physical attributes of the specimen which might have tipped you off to it’s modern origin:

1. The material is moulded plastic. Ancient hominid remains are typically fossilised bone.
2. The cranial capacity of the specimen is approximately 9 cubic centimeters, well below the threshold of even the earliest identified proto-hominids.
3. The dentition pattern evident on the “skull” is more consistent with the common domesticated dog than it is with the “ravenous man-eating Pliocene clams” you speculate roamed the wetlands during that time. This latter finding is certainly one of the most intriguing hypotheses you have submitted in your history with this institution, but the evidence seems to weigh rather heavily against it. Without going into too much detail, let us say that:
   
   1. The specimen looks like the head of a Barbie doll that a dog has chewed on.
   2. Clams don’t have teeth.

It is with feelings tinged with melancholy that we must deny your request to have the specimen carbon dated. This is partially due to the heavy load our lab must bear in it’s normal operation, and partly due to carbon dating’s notorious inaccuracy in fossils of recent geologic record. To the best of our knowledge, no Barbie dolls were produced prior to 1956 AD, and carbon dating is likely to produce wildly inaccurate results. Sadly, we must also deny your request that we approach the National Science Foundation’s Phylogeny Department with the concept of assigning your specimen the scientific name “Australopithecus spiff-arino.” Speaking personally, I, for one, fought tenaciously for the acceptance of your proposed taxonomy, but was ultimately voted down because the species name you selected was hyphenated, and didn’t really sound like it might be Latin.

However, we gladly accept your generous donation of this fascinating specimen to the museum. While it is undoubtedly not a hominid fossil, it is, nonetheless, yet another riveting example of the great body of work you seem to accumulate here so effortlessly. You should know that our Director has reserved a special shelf in his own office for the display of the specimens you have previously submitted to the Institution, and the entire staff speculates daily on what you will happen upon next in your digs at the site you have discovered in your back yard. We eagerly anticipate your trip to our nation’s capital that you proposed in your last letter, and several of us are pressing the Director to pay for it. We are particularly interested in hearing you expand on your theories surrounding the “trans-positating fillifitation of ferrous ions in a structural matrix” that makes the excellent juvenile Tyrannosaurus rex femur you recently discovered take on the deceptive appearance of a rusty 9-mm Sears Craftsman automotive crescent wrench.

Yours in Science,

Harvey Rowe

Curator, Antiquities 

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