MA Conference Thank You!

We just wanted to say a quick thanks to everyone who came along to our 'Social Media Manifesto' workshop at last weekend's Museums Association annual conference in Cardiff. We were amazed your enthusiasm and fantastic ideas, glad we could all come together to have a laugh and think critically about social media! For those of you who weren't able to come along, we will soon be working to publish the Manifesto we compiled just as soon as we can!

A very special thanks to Adrian Murphy from the Horniman Museum and Garden who provided such a fantastic case study of how the Horniman is putting the social in social media.

And let's not forget our fantastic venue, the Norwegian Church Art Centre. If you are ever in Cardiff, be sure to check them out for events, exhibitions, or just to see the amazing building, built in the late 19th century for the Norwegian sailors who came through the port.

So watch this space for the Ministry of Curiosity's Social Media Manifesto!

The Unorthodox Unconference at Open Culture 2014

Here at The Ministry of Curiosity we’re feeling pretty excited about Collections Trust’s Open Culture conference in London next week. The line-up for the two day collections loving bonanza not only stimulates all of our museum senses but also, we get to chair our own unorthodox session!

We will be curating our Unorthodox ‘Unconference’ on Day 2 (Thursday the 26th) of Open Culture. It may sound a bit strange, but essentially its a space for people to get creative and a little off the wall with their ideas. We’ll be calling for participants to sign up on Day 1 (Wednesday the 25th) and propose presentations, talks, or anything else to contribute to the Open Culture 2014 theme – putting your collections to work. We recommend coming up with an idea that should take you about 10-15 minutes of stage time. In true Ministry style, we are looking for participants to think critically and push one another to think creatively. 

This is your opportunity to ‘fight for collections management in your organisation!’ Sign up on the whiteboard at the back of the main conference room by 3pm on Day 1 and we at The Ministry will get to work selecting three talks which we think say something original and challenging about the conference theme. These will be presented in a session moderated by us at 10 am the following morning. Please provide as much information as possible including contact details and twitter handle so we can contact the successful delegates in time for a briefing on Day 2 before the session.

Now is the time to get your collections management cogs whirring! What are some new and exciting ways you could get your collections to do some heavy lifting for you? Think about what you might like to discuss, chat to your peers or be inspired by the speakers on Day 1, lets challenge our collections and put them to work! Please feel free to send us messages via twitter or curiositycollect@gmail.com if you have further questions. 

Find out more and sign up to attend Open Culture here

Read Nick Poole’s blog post about the conference here

Can't wait to see you there!

The Ministry of Curiosity on how to be a museum social media guru and not get fired.

Hello all you lovely followers! The Ministry offices are buzzing and we are so absolutely thrilled to be heading up to Manchester to give our keynote at the Museums Association’s Moving On Up seminar (#mou2014). We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about what we could share of our experience as young museum professionals and museum bloggers and came up with a talk that focuses on self-branding in the sector and how to live the social media highlife and not get fired.

Manchester we are coming for you...

Let’s be honest - these days social media and museums go hand in hand. There is already an amazing, dynamic and established online community of museum people. Add to this the number of museums that have fantastic, engaging social media accounts (big up to the Horniman, Grant Museum, Barts Pathology and Science Museum) and it seems like a no brainer that all museums would love their staff to be repping them online. (Cough- no, false) For the most part navigating the waters of working in museums and tweeting about what you do is very risky business. Let’s not forget that most young people are on short-term contracts and a disciplinary measure for something online could well…be the end of your already tenuous position.

In our experience floating around the museum sector, we’ve noticed that actually most museums don’t have very detailed or well thought out social media policies for their staff. It seems easier somehow to shut it down all together, and allow the Press or Marketing team to guide the institutional voice online. But come on, are we still really at that stage? Haven’t we questioning the authoritative voice of the museum enough? Allowing multiple voices to engage with the public is more welcoming, accessible, and in the end likely to bring positive attention to your museum!

On the other hand, we know it’s scary and there are very legitimate security reasons for worrying about behind the scenes staff and their online accounts. But fear not, there are plenty of museums doing fantastic work that you can look to for guidance. For the Ministry’s part, we’ve come up with a few top tips on how to have an online presence and not get fired that we’ll be sharing with everyone up on Manchester. Not to give too much away of course (I mean you are coming right??) but we’ll start you off with this to ponder:

If you are tweeting about your museum work, be sensitive to your collection. It sounds like a simple concept sure, but you’d be surprised how nuanced it is to combine museum best practice with a social media approach. If you work with human remains, well, let’s be honest talking about what you do in the day is going to be tricky (and that’s probably for the best). If you work with incredibly expensive art, you are going to need to take care to not reveal any confidential information that could compromise safety. If you work with a collection full of weird and fun scientific do-das – for the love of god tweet that all the time! Respect your collection, think before you tweet.

In case you’ve missed it, we’ve also written a short commentary piece to accompany the talk that’s out in the Museums Journal now! http://www.museumsassociation.org/museums-journal/comment/01022014-why-you-should-listen-junior-staff