This week was pretty ‘social’ and therefore flat out with meetings and social media!
I kicked off the week with an introduction for one of our casual staff about museums on the web and the opportunities for the service. I used this as a way to see what level of support I could roll-out to a large group of people who are curious about the web but are very much digital visitors or who rarely use the web. The lesson I took away from this session was to make NO assumptions about how others view the web and to listen to each member of staff THEN I can slowly provide the right responses, hopefully at scale but i am fully prepared to go one to one if I need. A seed of an idea also arose around producing guidance under a creative commons licence that perhaps other museums could re-purpose (sounds like Jisc for the museums!).
Next I had to grapple with a project that would have me pulling out my hair if I had any….
Tuesday was a visit to the Safety team for my part 1 Health and Safety for Managers training. I feel confident about our process but there isn’t any room to be complacent and I have several minor things to iron out.
On Wednesday I met with several others to finalise our Museum Social Media principles which should give staff the guidance and confidence to begin helping us use our social media and importantly know who to turn to. A blind spot for us is the weekend but several weekend staff have agreed to cover the fort which i feel is worth a ‘fist pump’. I met Stef Goodchild for lunch as I wanted to hear how his mind-blowing work on music stages could perhaps be used for temp exhibitions. Think lasers, sound, smoke, LEDs and projection. If you want innovation, experimentation for engagement and R&D Dear funders let me and Stef cook up something!
In the evening M Shed hosted a debate called ’50 years since the bus boycott – what has changed?’ which was enjoyable and packed. The event was live broadcast to a local radio station too so a recording will appear very soon. I played roving mic ha.
On Thursday I spoke with Apple about the finer detail of purchase vs leasing of iPads which I need to expand out into a post on its own. Needless to say I am being very cautious as I don’t want one of those famous cupboards full of obsolete devices in 2- years. Khio Vinh wrote about this in Build not to Last.
I met with two different potential partners for 2014-15 projects around digital engagement.
In the afternoon I headed over to Sift Digital for the regular ‘South West social media meetup’ and really enjoyed hearing Jukesie ranting about the social media landscape. Slides and details are over on his weekly post.
Friday morning I had the pleasure of hearing a visiting resident to the museum talk about how we can help Chinese visitors enjoy the museum. Lots of food for thought around international tourism to the region.
Then I spent the rest of the day at the Watershed REACT heritage sandbox which was an opportunity to network and learn from others in the digital sector beyond the local authority. There was some interest in collaboration and partnership which i see as fundamental to getting things done whilst including Bristol people.
Looking back it was a packed week ending in the bonus Sunday afternoon preparing for my recruitment training in the office!
I think I may have even found a little bit of time to pop home.