Recently however I’ve been doing some organising myself -

Walsall Council in the form of Dan Slee has been using social media, with particular focus on Flickr as a tool for community engagement. Courting the Walsall group via Lee Jordan and arranging exclusive behind the scenes trips to some of the councils buildings – the first of which was at the Council House:

After that meet the talk turned towards the museum and a  potential project there, or rather in the area the public never gets to see – in their stores.

Dan went away and approached the museum and it seemed there was a couple of concerns the curators had regarding copyright, and this is where I stepped in. As I work for a  media centre, which includes exhibition spaces I perhaps better understood some of the copyright issues regarding the photography of  other peoples art and artefacts and it was decided by Lee that I was best placed to liaise on this venture.

A meeting was arranged and Walsall museums sent me a copy of their permissions form to preview… It was archaic to say the least ,I had my work cut out for me!

The restrictions they’d placed,  that they wanted us to sign away copyright of our images and retain the right to demand us to delete our images off Flickr at any time, were going to be a problem – No member of the group would be willing to go on a shoot under these terms so it would be a none starter, yet we (Dan and the Walsall Flickr Group) were still eager to get behind the scenes.

So what did we do?

In principle the Museums team were o.k for us to visit the stores but in practice it seemed to me that they didn’t fully understand Flickr and “the internet” so maybe wouldn’t really the bigger picture and the benefits a visit like this could bring  to them. The only way I could see around the problem was to find a precedent for museums allowing photographers into their “domain” and also find good examples of another museum or arts institute using Flickr.

Also I knew if I was going to ask them to let go of the reins I also was going to go prepared to offer something in exchange – I got researching!

Where to start…..

My first port of call was of course Google, I started searching for names of  UK museums + Flickr – looking for official groups – set up by the institutions and not by an enthusiastic member of the community or museum websites with direct links to Flickr, within minutes I struck gold with The V&A. .
They have a flickr group which they invite visitors to post their photographs to, they’d set it up themselves and had a very good level of activity within the group  -  so there was my precedent of a Museum using flickr and not only allowing, but actively encouraging photography.

Now what could I offer to Walsall that would make this idea more appealing….

Marketing – I work as a digital marketer so the idea of using the internet as a marketing tool isn’t new to me so all I had to do was sell it to the museum, so when I met with Dan, Jennifer and Catherine I went prepared, I printed off the V&A’s own guidelines to their flickr group from their website and the pages I wanted to use to highlight our perspective to the museum and I set out with a plan.

I asked the museum to loosen the reins it wanted on us putting forward a few less constraining rules as alternatives and  then put it to them that they could set up it’s their group on Flickr group BUT include a disclaimer saying any images added COULD be used for marketing purposes, We could then choose to add our photos to it if we wished. By doing it this way the museum has another point of web presence with Flickr – a pool of photographs to advertise the museum and more importantly a tool at their disposal to encourage interaction with their visitor on another level.

I suggested that once the group was established they could even invite photographs to be added to the pool to coincide with exhibitions – Having a show featuring 1970’s toys? – Get the community to add photos of their toys to the pool and then if they wanted set a laptop/projector up in the museum with with access to the Flickr group page OR a power point presentation of the images submitted – complimenting the exhibits the already have on show and encouraging visitors to see if their photo made it into the gallery!

Success

My ideas went down well – I liaised with the Walsall team and put forward my suggestions and met with no resistance what so ever. I explained the benefits for the Museum and for us in the group and why and how I thought it would work. I answered a few questions and asked a couple of my own and left the meeting on a real high – and with good cause, within days a new, less prohibitive permissions form had been drafted and a date for the visit set.

So on a cold spring morning this  is how it came that a group of photographers met in an undisclosed location and were allowed access to an area of Walsall that wouldn’t normally be opened to the public and the Museums opened their world up to a whole new marketing opportunity!

Since then Dan has informed me that the Walsall Museum Flickr Project and received national profile and was flagged up as best practice by the IdEA – this is the government organisation that seeks to raise standard across local government.

I call that a win for the Museum, a win for the Flickr group and a win for the Council!

Walsall Museums Flickr Group.
Dan Slee’s own post on the same project.

As an animal lover I agree because I feel animals should only be dealt with through reputable sources – guaranteeing the welfare of the animal along the way – but if one were to be offered in a group I am a member of I wouldn’t feel it my place to say anything as that’s what the moderators ARE there for, which is why when this following post appeared today it amused me so much – why anyone would want to take it up on themselves to have issue with another member is beyond me but to get it so very wrong along the way is just absurd – I saw the initial offered posting so I know this is accurate:

I have just had the most rambling email of a J**** S****** about my treatment of animals, as follows:

“Sorry, but I have to say what so many others are thinking. You should be ashamed of yourself, rehoming a living creature, on a site like this, to what I presume was a stranger! You know the rules, along with everyone else on Freegle, and they are there for a reason! You obviously didn’t care about the dog, otherwise you would of rehomed it in one of the appropriate, and more caring, ways!”

Which was in reply to my offer as follows:

“I have a large dog teddy, its real cute bout 4 ft long, cost £60.00 Would look great in nursery/kids bedroom. Needs a wipe as some coke was accidentally dropped on it, collection asap or off down the tip.”

Please if your going to complain and make a fool of yourself J**** then read it first.

Thanks M****

I’ll have some serious saving to do if I ever want one of my own.

Between now and then however I’ll be putting it to use as often as I can and whilst getting to grips with how it handles I shot this of my street, sky, pavements, road, houses all of it in shot – oh how I love this 10mm lens!

….and yes my Mom did tell me not to ever play in the road – but she also told me not to talk to strangers and it doesn’t stop me using Twitter now does it!

Can you please remind your presenters and guests on all of your programmes, but specifically the breakfast and news presenters, that we don’t elect a Prime Minister, we elect the party,and they appoint a leader, who if is still the leader at the time of the election, becomes our PM.

It’s so annoying to hear repeated claims that we (the electorate) have elected a PM!!!

There is enough confusion and apathy without the BBC making it worse by misrepresenting our electoral system.

Of all the news outlets the BBC should be the one leading the way to encourage people to look at and vote for policies, not personalities!

Thank you.

Why? Well because I could, BUT why then specifically? Because of this: 4amproject. The 4amproject is the brainchild of Birmingham photographer Karen Strunks, she was driving home one morning at 4am and realised just how different her world was at that hour and decided to document it, on it went from there taking the rest of the world with her.

I really wanted to take part in the first 4am project, I set my alarm and everything but when it went off 12 months ago I woke looked out of my window thought hell where do I go as a none driver to take “interesting” photos around here now? and went back to bed. When I rose the next morning and explored Flickr for some of the results I could have kicked myself – I could have just literally walked out of the front door and shot my empty street if I’d wanted as at 4am that IS interesting, so this year I was determined that I would join in.

I made plans with Rich to drive into Birmingham, but we decided that it might be more fun to join the Wolverhampton group,  but then on the afternoon of the 3rd he realised he was maybe being a “little” ambitious trying to take part in the 4am project with me and then driving his wife to Manchester for their flights to Egypt at 5am – so what should I do? Go alone but James wasn’t happy with the idea of me walking around town looking for a taxi once I’d finished with the Wolverhampton 4am-ers , but nor did he want me out on my own locally either, he even offered to get up with me and we’d take TBK out with us so I didn’t miss out. While trying to decide what to do  I tweeted:

Trying to decide; @4amproject is it worth taxi fares to get to town as my ‘driver’ can’t make it, do I go local, or do I just sleep through

Twitter is full of amazing people and the ever lovely Lee Allen saw my dilemma and made me an offer of a lift home – (Thank you again sir) – So I set my alarm for 3am, booked the taxi for 3.30am charged my camera batteries and that was me set.

I met up with some lovely people Lee, Adrienne (and her much coveted LensBaby), Dave (T), Dave (B) and Dale – some of whom I had briefly met before some I hadn’t. We encountered one bemused security guard, one amused cyclist and one confused man topless covered in blood and his lost ambulance.

Lee made a video of us doing our thing:

4am Project in Wolverhampton from Lee Allen on Vimeo.

-Adrienne and Dave (T) have written about it on their own blogs, and despite being told I was crazy by everyone who was tucked up warm in bed at 4am Sunday morning I can’t wait to do it all again next year – which  Rich for the record there will be no backing out of

]]> http://www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk/blog/2010/04/06/my-4am/feed/ 0 http://www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk/blog/2010/04/05/my-mix-tape/ http://www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk/blog/2010/04/05/my-mix-tape/#comments Mon, 05 Apr 2010 20:35:18 +0000 Steph http://www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk/blog/?p=713 I have been “eavesdropping” in on a conversation on twitter regarding mix tapes,  Dan Slee has done a wonderful job of summing up the “history” of mix tapes so I don’t have to but I love the whole idea of them being the original Social Media – THE way to share in the 90’s and it got me thinking about some of the tapes I received as teen as Dan puts it:

They could be a love letter, a  sign of friendship or the grandstanding of musical knowledge.

…and I couldn’t have put it better myself.

When I was in senior school I used to swap mix tapes with my friend Jess. We were, in our opinion, the optimum of cool and shared  a mutual love of all the artists and bands the supposed “in crowd” hated, Nirvana, Hole, PJ Harvey, Chilli Peppers, to name a few and with our mix tapes playing through the earphones of our walkman we looked down upon the lesser beings with our musical snobbery. It cemented our friendship and I went on to purchase some of my favourite albums on the back of tracks Jess  included on those now long lost c90’s.

Yet the most impressive mix tape I have ever received wasn’t a tape at all, it was a CD and while I’m sure it started out as a “grandstanding of musical knowledge”   it turned into the greatest love letter I have ever received….

“In Steph’s Honour” given to me by James in December 2005  – 4 months before we became us. He told me then it was an “education” as we liked some of the same music, but he  has since admitted that he was trying to  impress me a little and I have to admit it did!!

Disk 1 – The Rock Show

1. One Armed Scissor (At The Drive-In)
2. A Box Full Of Sharp Objects (The Used)
3. Vessel & Vine (The Lucky Nine)
4. 57 (Biffy Clyro)
5. If You Don’t, Don’t (Jimmy Eat World)
6. The Sign (Foo Fighters)
7. The Graduate (Third Eye Blind)
8. Corduroy (Pearl Jam)
9. Sad and Lonely (Secret Machines)
10. Stockholm Syndrome (Muse)
11. My Tortured Soul (Probot)
12. Superunknown (Soundgarden)
13. Inspire (Cave In)
14. (I Am) What I Am Not (Idlewild)
15. I’m Not Okay (My Chemical Romance)
16. Beating Heart Baby (Head Automatica)

Disk 2 – Late Night Ditties

1. Wishlist (Pearl Jam)
2. I Never Came (QOTSA)
3. Blue and Yellow (The Used)
4. Switching Off (Elbow)
5. Between The Bars (Elliot Smith)
6. Pink Bullets (The Shins)
7. Walking On A Wire (The Get Up Kids)
8. The Light And The Sound (Rocky Votolato)
9. Scary Mary ( Biffy Clyro)
10. And Then You Kissed Me (The Cardigans)
11. Drop (Clarkesville)
12. Amie (Damien Rice)
13. Those Crimson Tears (Ed Harcourt)
14. El Capitain (acoustic) (Idlewild)
15. The Sun (Joseph Arthur)
16. Title and Registration (Death Cab For Cutie)
17. My Sundown (Jimmy Eat World)

Four years and a bit years on I still haven’t made this track listing a playlist on iTunes or on Spotify because nothing compares to the feeling of finding this CD off the shelf , remebering just how much effort went into it and putting it into the player and dancing around my living room. It is such shame that with digital music this is a dying art,  and while Philip John is correct when he wrote that “Spotify needs to get social” I doubt a shared play-list on Spotify or a recommendation on Mflow would have the same feel good impact as picking up something tangible and knowing that someone made it just for you!

I love being a Mom, I love being a Mom more than anything else in the world…and this dude makes it easy!

Despite it now being March 2010 I still have my 2009 calendar up in my kitchen, not because I’m particularly lazy (but I am) but because it’s about 50 shades of awesome!

Of course every parent thinks their kids work is amazing, fantastic, fabulous, first rate etc, but this is! I like it so much because while it’s not the work of art Matisse, Banksy or Tracy Emin could produce, and it’s no Shakespearean prose, Hell it’s even below the quality of work TBK can produce when he wants to, every time I read I can’t help but smile.

I read it and remember that it’s good to have imagination and to never ever stifle his!

The Magic Box

In my box I will put a massive, dirty and dangereus exploding army tank. The feel of silky, shiny, sparkly, quick Sahara sand and a door leading to a u.f.o.

In my box I will put the smell of super noodles cooking the sight of presents round the tree and the sound of rock music.

My box is fashioned from high tech lock and dinosaur skin cover.

And hinges made from a alligator jaw.

Spelling mistakes are all his own!

The boys organised the shoot themselves, with drummer Stuart Baxter Wilkinson directing, long time friend of his Tim Larcombe behind the camera as director of photographer and the props (lamps and rugs) being stolen borrowed from their wives, girlfriends, friends, cousins, aunts, uncles houses.

It was shot mid February 2009 in the FREEZING cold Rainbow Warehouse in Digbeth, Birmingham – I’m pushing home the point of how cold it was as in one close up of lead singer Michael you can  see the breathe he’s exhaling. Poor boys couldn’t even get the place heated – but in fairness is does add something to those scenes

Excitingly Q have just picked up on the video and are now showing it on rotation on their music channel in the UK,  Sky 364 and Virgin 338, and I urge you all to check it out….

www.roguestates.net

…And if you enjoyed that you can come see them live at one of their upcoming dates in London, Birmingham and Wolverhampton.

]]> http://www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk/blog/2010/02/10/rogue-states-2/feed/ 0 http://www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk/blog/2010/02/09/onomatopoeia/ http://www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk/blog/2010/02/09/onomatopoeia/#comments Tue, 09 Feb 2010 22:10:20 +0000 Steph http://www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk/blog/2010/02/09/onomatopoeia/

This evening I came home to find TBK once again beating the crap out of his alien friends on Halo3. Since having had the xBox for Christmas he’s spent more time than I’ve ever let him before seated in front of his computer playing games.

I’ve alieviated myself of some the guilt of being one of ‘those’ parents who sits their children in front of the box to entertain themselves by a. Convincing myself that with xBox live at least it’s social, as in he might be by himself but he’s not playing alone and b. Once the evenings are lighter and the weather warmer he’ll be back out on his bike and in and out the front door like a yoyo just like the last few summers.

I say some of the guilt as I’d still had doubts, I was still worried of the ‘mind numbing effects of playing pointless video games’ and didn’t wish him to become a statistic of the illiterate generation we hear so much about in the media.

I know I’ve been worrying unnecessarily as my mis-spent youth visiting friends houses and setting up our own LAN parties for weekend long games of Quake hardly set my development back at all – and you’ve only got to have a conversation with TBK to see he’s a well rounded 10year old, but as a parent you can’t help but worry.

I discovered needn’t have!

This evening TBK showed me in style why I have no need to worry about computer games stunting his academic development.

Whilst in the virtual world of Halo he was running across a sandtrap and jumping to strike a competitor, gravity hammer in hand, In the real world he’s sitting in the arm chair screaming “Onomatopoeia” at the screen and the following exchange took place ..

Me: why did you say that? Do you know what Onomatopoeia means?

TBK: yeah!

Me: explain then….

TBK: it’s when a word sounds like its spelt, like bang, and the gravity hammer goes bang when you hit something, so….Onomatopoeia!

Me: *speechless*

I don’t mind admitting that I think I was a whole lot older than 10 before I grasped the concept of onomatopoeia, in fact I can still remember learning about it in secondary school, which definitely made me older than 10, and I don’t think there has ever been a time in my life where I’ve had a discussion that included the word onomatopoeia or used it outside of that classroom before this evening.

So if TBK wants to spend his down time plugged into his xBox talking to the voices of his disembodied friends hunting aliens in “pointless video games” then so be it because it’s at times like this evening that I realise it’s not doing any harm at all!