{"id":823,"date":"2010-06-13T21:35:37","date_gmt":"2010-06-13T20:35:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/?p=823"},"modified":"2010-06-13T21:38:45","modified_gmt":"2010-06-13T20:38:45","slug":"helping-out-behind-the-scenes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2010\/06\/13\/helping-out-behind-the-scenes\/","title":{"rendered":"Helping out behind the scenes."},"content":{"rendered":"

As an “active” member of Flickr (I say active this peaks and wanes depending on how busy I am in the real world) I try to get involved with the local groups – some groups are more active than others (and some are more welcoming too) but the one I am most active is the Walsall group<\/a> – this is for two reasons. While I live in Wolverhampton my house is actually right on the Walsall\/Wolverhampton border and a lot of my friends and extended family live in Walsall so I spend time there, and also as I have real world friends in the Walsall Group who like to organise things – photography walks, days out etc so it’s easy to get involved.<\/p>\n

Recently however I’ve been doing some organising myself –<\/p>\n

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

<\/object><\/p>\n

After that meet the talk turned towards the museum and a\u00c2\u00a0 potential project there, or rather in the area the public never gets to see – in their stores.<\/p>\n

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\u00c2\u00a0 media centre, which includes exhibition spaces I perhaps better understood some of the copyright issues regarding the photography of\u00c2\u00a0 other peoples art and artefacts and it was decided by Lee that I was best placed to liaise on this venture.<\/p>\n

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!<\/p>\n

The restrictions they’d placed,\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

So what did we do?<\/strong><\/h3>\n

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\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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!<\/p>\n

Where to start…..
\n<\/strong><\/h3>\n

My first port of call was of course Google, I started searching for names of\u00c2\u00a0 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.<\/a> .
\nThey 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\u00c2\u00a0 -\u00c2\u00a0 so there was my precedent of a Museum using flickr and not only allowing, but actively encouraging photography.<\/p>\n

Now what could I offer to Walsall that would make this idea more appealing….<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

I asked the museum to loosen the reins it wanted on us putting forward a few less constraining rules as alternatives and\u00c2\u00a0 then put it to them that they could set up it’s their group on Flickr group BUT<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n

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!<\/p>\n

Success<\/h3>\n

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<\/span><\/span><\/span> permissions form had been drafted and a date for the visit set.<\/p>\n

So on a cold spring morning this\u00c2\u00a0 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!<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

\n

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.<\/p>\n

I call that a win for the Museum, a win for the Flickr group and a win for the Council!<\/p>\n

Walsall Museums Flickr Group.<\/a>
\nDan Slee’s own post on the same project.<\/a><\/p>\n

constraining<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As an “active” member of Flickr (I say active this peaks and wanes depending on how busy I am in the real world) I try to get involved with the local groups – some groups are more active than others (and some are more welcoming too) but the one I am most active is the … Continue reading Helping out behind the scenes.<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[103,1,56],"tags":[280,281,217,283,282,279,208,278],"class_list":["post-823","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-photography","category-wbiagw","category-work","tag-collaberation","tag-dan-slee","tag-flickr","tag-idea","tag-lee-jordan","tag-projects","tag-social-media","tag-walsall-museum"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6WGy-dh","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":1553,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2012\/11\/25\/4amproject-25-11-12\/","url_meta":{"origin":823,"position":0},"title":"4amProject 25.11.12","date":"November 25, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Another trip out at 4am, this time to Lichfield \u00a0- Getting there was an adventure in itself as we nearly ended up in the middle of one flooded road but thankfully Dave's driving skills (and brand new car) got us out of there only to be diverted by another -flood\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "4am Project"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1548,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2012\/04\/16\/4amproject-15-04-12\/","url_meta":{"origin":823,"position":1},"title":"4amProject 15.04.12","date":"April 16, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Another 4am project photowalk - this time in Walsall. Just me and Dave again but another fun one! Previous trips out include: Wolverhampton (and how it all started)\u00a0 4th April 2010 Wednesfield\u00a017th October 2010 You can see there's a gap in 2011 because the date was the end of March\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "4am Project"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":169,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2007\/07\/23\/not-me-again\/","url_meta":{"origin":823,"position":2},"title":"Not me again!!!","date":"July 23, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"Why if a shop is going to be robbed I'll be the one walking past as the robbers make their escape brandishing shotguns and nearly running me over with their get away car(true).Why if someone is going to have a heart attack and die in a shop they are standing\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "WBIAGW"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":19,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2005\/08\/18\/has-anyone-seen\/","url_meta":{"origin":823,"position":3},"title":"Has anyone seen…","date":"August 18, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":".... my voice???Last heard from geting into a taxi in Walsall last night...not sure if it made it home or not but it definitley wasn't there when i got up this morning!!!It better be back in time for V this weekend!!!!","rel":"","context":"In "WBIAGW"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":119,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2006\/03\/24\/leaving-on-a-jet-plane\/","url_meta":{"origin":823,"position":4},"title":"Leaving on a jet plane….","date":"March 24, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm currently sitting on Catherines floor in the middle of Walsall waiting for a lift to the airport 6 girls, one city, god help Glasgow...Hen weekend here we come watch this space!!!!","rel":"","context":"In "WBIAGW"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":40,"url":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/2005\/10\/02\/scrat\/","url_meta":{"origin":823,"position":5},"title":"SCRAT!!!","date":"October 2, 2005","format":false,"excerpt":"Went to see a band last night...Scrat... THEY ROCKED, Think along the lines of Me First and the Gimmie Gimmies!! Amusing covers!! And even more amusing \"originals\".I'm glad I'm not a \"Walsall Girl\"!! enough said.Roll on thier next gig....I'm going to get food now I haven't eaten since Friday I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "WBIAGW"","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=823"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":846,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/823\/revisions\/846"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=823"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=823"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weirdbutinagoodway.co.uk\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=823"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}