Helping those that help themselves

Should we help those that help themselves or rescue those who are struggling? You can make an argument for either course, no doubt depending on the situation, but let us consider two cases.

A funding body, let us call it Lottery, only likes to pay for a proportion of a project: let us say 50%. They also have a rule that 'work done so far cannot be counted as match-funding in your bid'. This is understandable otherwise all those in possession of a picture by Leonardo da Vinci would never have to provide any match funding since the 'value' of the work done so far would be so transcendent.

What are the consequences of this rule?

An enthusiast finds a box of pictures in his attic and settles down to catalogue these, working many hours as a volunteer. At the end of the project, it appears that the collection is unique and there would be benefit in the collection and the catalogue being more widely available. He approaches Lottery for financial support to get them on line. But Lottery's rules kick in and it asks for match-funding which our enthusiast cannot afford. All his meticulous cataloguing work does not count. The project cannot go ahead.

In the attic next door is a canny individual who discovers another box of pictures. He opens the box, casts an eye over them, judges them to be worthy of publication and applies, immediately, to Lottery for financial support both to catalogue the pictures and to put them on line. 'Fine in principle', says Lottery, 'where is the match-funding?' 'Oh', says Canny, 'I shall catalogue them myself and that is the match funding.' 'OK' says Lottery, 'we will pay for them to be put on line.' The project goes ahead.

Which, as the prophet might ask, is the better case? Should Lottery be supporting those who have already shown effort and contributed volunteer effort, or should it be encouraging a dependency culture where no one does anything without putting in a bid?

It is galling for those of us who have shown effort and contributed voluntary time to be seeing neighbours who haven't, being fully funded for similar work. Talk about rewarding historic failure. They may need help but it does not do much for our morale or encourage us to put in more voluntary effort.

Christmas spirit

We do, occasionally, enjoy the wry. A recent email gave us much joy. It related to a 'Living Nativity' which was planned for our town. Contrary to expectations, this was not to be the sight of an under-age unmarried mother giving birth in a stable, but was a procession through the town with various 'stations' much like the stations of the cross.

'Can you help us?' started the email, 'the rabbits that were to appear in the Living Nativity are unwell and we need to replace them. Can anyone help?'

Now forgive me, it is is some time since we read the four gospels and our knowledge of the Christmas story is largely based on the words of various carols which we know are not original material, but we cannot, just at the moment, recall that rabbits featured in any significant way in the Bible story. That is not to say that there were no rabbits there, after all the Romans introduced rabbits to Britain and there is no reason to believe that rabbits were not domesticated and living in Palestine in the year 0 AD.

This email was followed a day or two later by another one with the programme. The sixth stage of the journey was to involve the 3 Wise Women and their horses ...

Well, in a modern world of equality, why should they not be Wise Women, despite the images of the stoning in the Life of Brian that come flooding to the mind.

Challenged after the event, the organiser admitted that the camels had actually been Alpacas. Well, at least he had got a camelid but not even our flexible approach to history could quite encompass the idea of a South American mammal having attended the Nativity.

We can't wait to hear the reaction to our Earnest Cleric's question at the next Sunday School: 'Now Johnny, who appeared at the Nativity?'

'Of course there is a lobster. Dnh!' You know the film.

Dealing with a customer

Dealing with a customer complaint is an art.

We have the great joy of running a car park. One day, when we have the time and energy, we will gather together some of the excuses that folks use to justify why they should not pay a parking fine and publish them here. Many produce the most wonderfully convoluted arguments which double back on themselves to avoid the simple admission 'OK, guv. It's a fair cop.'

The wind turns tickets face down or blows up through the air conditioning units to blow them into the foot well. Then here are the sob stories: 'I had two children and a pushchair and I had just got back from shopping and one of the children was screaming and ...'

Then there are the urban myths 'Your clock was wrong' or 'I only overstayed by two minutes and ...' not knowing there are actually fifteen minutes' grace. Or the malicious one 'The wardens are known to open car doors which have been left unlocked and ...'

But I digress. Here is one of our own about which we are still puzzling. It was from an investment house we will call simply Nice Unit Trust. To precis it, the story runs:

December 2012 - Us: Please close our account. Nice Unit Trust: Will do

March 2013 - NUT sent through the usual vast wodge of papers showing that we still had about £40. Us: Please close this account. NUT: Will do, here is a cheque for the balance

June - NUT sent through the usual vast wodge of papers showing that we now had £0.17 in our account

August - NUT: Here is a fascinating magazine all about how we invest your money. Us: It is awfully difficult to close an account with you, isn't it. Please close this account. Don't bother to send us the £0.17, simply give it to charity. NUT: Thank you for your instructions, here is a piece of paper confirming that we have closed the account

November - this is where it gets surreal - NUT: Thank you for your complaint (?). Please accept apologies for the delay in replying. we will 'investigate' your complaint. As your complaint was received 8 weeks ago mutter, mutter Ombudsman ... enclosed were a leaflet and a Complaint Handling Policy

NUT (in a letter dated two days later): Apologies ... appreciate your patience ... list of the dates on which things happened ... accept apologies for any inconvenience ... and here is a cheque for £25 'in recognition of the fact that we failed to investigate and respond to the complaint within an acceptable time period'

Collapse of stout parties. So we now have a cheque for £25 for a complaint that we did not make. Nice Unit Trust have spent far too much money chopping down trees and on postage and now they compound the problem by spending another £25. Know any good charities anyone?

Now back to my car park letters: 'And precisely why did you leave your Doberman in your car with your parking ticket in its jaws ...?'

The Life of Brian

Are we the only people who have spotted the irony of the Head of Religion and Ethics at the BBC saying that the nation has become so irreligious that we would not understand the jokes in Monty Python's Life of Brian? It’s no laughing matter: Britain has become a nation of religious illiterates 'who are baffled by Biblical references in Monty Python film The Life of Brian'

There was a great fuss when the film came out which culminated in one of the great television debates of the age when Cleese and Palin met Muggeridge and Stockwood. Muggeridge and Stockwood vs Cleese and Palin

The idea that we should learn about religion to understand the jokes in a film which was condemned by leading churchmen when it came out, rather than for any moral improvement has a special educational charm.

And if we have to learn about religion to understand the jokes then what about Romans go Home? Come on you Latin teachers, join the fight.  Only someone with a grounding in Latin - preferably from Kennedy's First Eating (sic) Primer, but from the Cambridge Latin Course if you are younger - would begin to understand the scene. Surely this is a reason to learn Latin as well as RE 'so that we can understand the jokes in the film.'

How times change; or Tempora mutantur as Latinists might say. Definitely one for the Vicar of Bray.

Translation required ...

The following arrived today

Knowledge Co-Creation between Organisations and the Public
Call for Participation in the XXX Workshop which will be held on [Date] in YYYY

Inspired by concepts such as collective intelligence, citizen science, citizen journalism and crowdsourcing, diverse types of organisations are aiming to increase engagement with the public, collect localised knowledge, or leverage human cognition and creativity. In supporting these approaches, organisations are often provoked to make their data and processes more open, and to be inclusive of differing motivations and perspectives from inside and outside the organisation. In doing so, they raise new questions for both designers and organisations:

How are systems designed to manage data, attribute work, or draw boundaries between  ”official” and externally generated knowledge? How can openness support collaborations across organisations as well as with the public where there are shared interests?

How can the professional framed context and metadata standards be connected with the just-in-time, emergent nature of amateur online collection and curation? Is the role of the professional changed by these innovations?

How can systems be designed to leverage complementary or differing motivations, and how do we conceptualise these in design? How to prompt amateurs’ contributions that may be of value for institutions and users?

Any offers on what it means?

The email attached to it ended '... one of the most relevant conferences on social computing. Hope you will find it of interest!' Um ...

Lacking in vision?

A current favourite is a poem by Kipling called the Gods of the Copybook Headings. This argues that the old sayings have stood the test of time and are much better guides than following the call of the market: Kipling in his reactionary phase, perhaps.

It contains some wonderful lines which are so appropriate for some of the funding bodies, agencies and bureaucracies with which we deal. The best is the verse:
We were living in trees when they met us. They showed us each in turn 
That Water would certainly wet us, as Fire would certainly burn:
How often we are told the obvious as if it were some new discovery ...

But we found them lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind,
So we left them to teach the Gorillas while we followed the March of Mankind.
How could we possibly think that bureaucrats were 'lacking in Uplift, Vision and Breadth of Mind ...'?
Unheard of. They have lists of boxes that need ticking.

We moved as the Spirit listed. They never altered their pace,
Being neither cloud nor wind-borne like the Gods of the Market Place ...
Good customer-responsive stuff then. Or try:
With the Hopes that our World is built on they were utterly out of touch ...
By now you should be beginning to say yeeeees! ...

Love the lines; we just wish Kipling's conclusion was not so backward-looking.

Belbin strikes back ...

... or the rise of the Monitor/Evaluator.

We have just been reading through a thrilling 340 page document called a Business Survival Toolkit. This includes some 69 different rather 'tools' for business planning drawing largely on the works of various academics. For those of us who have been around a bit, it is notable that few of the basics have changes much from the work of the great business thinkers of the post-War generation: people like Hawthorne, Herzberg and Maslow whose work was so able summarised by people like Charles Handy and others. A new generation must have its say, however (Smith & Jones 2013).

Somewhere deep inside this riveting document is a quotation from someone called Richard Piper of the NCVO (National Council of Voluntary Organisations). He says:

Some people in our sector concentrate more on the technical problem of measuring outcomes, and less on the strategic problem of achieving them. This is a disease, an affliction, and we can call it measurement anxiety. It can paralyse us and it seems to be contagious. 

It goes on to describe an exercise in which he asked 50 people to word associate with 'outcomes' and 48 of them mentioned something about assessment or measurement.

Now this is interesting for three reasons. The easy one is that we all know it has happened and has become endemic over the last twenty years leading to paralysis of action. The word Ofsted is enough to send quivers through any teacher's bloodstream as Accreditation should in the Museum world: inspection and measurement by those who can't of those who can and are doing their damnedest to do better.

We have mentioned before Einstein's remark that Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted. This should be written over every Monitor/Evaluator's desk.

The second is that someone is brave enough to say it out loud, knowing that a whole cohort of assessors will round on him from a great height and claim that they are absolutely convinced that achieving objectives is the Most Important thing and that their systems are designed to be Entirely Helpful... a this will hurt me much more than it hurts you response.

The third is that he seems to have been quoted as saying it and this suggests that the report writers approve of what he is saying. This is a document of 340 pages almost wholly given over to the thoughts of academics setting out the 'best practice' way of doing things which, you guessed it, include lots and lots of monitoring and evaluation. And being the work of academics even the most banal or self-evident remark is referenced (Smith & Robinson 2013) but that is a topic for another time (Mumblings, date to be announced).

Every Belbin group needs its different role-players, even including Monitor/Evaluators, but when they start to impose their vision of how business should be done, acting as judge and jury, we do feel inclined to agree with the old ladies in Arsenic and Old Lace, that they would be much happier with a nice dose of elderflower cordial which, you may recall, contained something less harmless to end the existence of those who were lonely or did not have a fulfilling life. It would do wonders for this particular disease or affliction.

Who are you?

We have just had one of those delightful conversations with an insurance company. It went along the following lines:

Me: Hello, I would like to cancel my insurance policy and receive its surrender value.
Them: Can I just confirm your identity: what is your policy number?
Me: [reads out the number]
Them: What is the first line of your address?
Me: [gives it]
Them: What is your date of birth?
Me: [gives it]
Them: When did you start this policy?
Me: (reading from a letter they recently sent me) February 1988
Them: How much have you been paying monthly?
Me: I think it is about £18 a month
Them: OK, I shall send you a form to close the thing down … we will need evidence of identity for both you and your wife.

Me (thinks): So you have been taking £18 a month off us for over 25 years and only now, when we want OUR money back, do you even think to ask us to prove who we are. What if we had been funding this policy by some criminal activity all these years?

Cold calling letter

We received a letter this week from a company with whom we have not done business who claim to be 'Winning Contracts for [County]'. They presumably want our business. Why do we feel an instinctive desire to put it straight in the bin?

I am writing to tell you about a new project supporting the social economy and to invite you to participate in a survey that will help us to tailor this and future projects to your needs. (So I fill in a survey which allows you to tailor your products ... about which I so far know nothing ... to which of my needs?).

[Our scheme] is a project that aims to increase the number and size of contracts being won by social enterprises in [county] by facilitating business development, collaboration and engagement of potential product and service buyers. (Nothing like a good bit of facilitating ... it's those fleas again)

We are conducting a survey to identify the drivers and barriers for growth and scaling up of social enterprises in the area. The results of the study will enable us all to understand where to focus resources to benefit enterprises like yours ...

If you are interested in winning new or bigger contracts for your enterprise - or engaging with prime contractors of services - we would love to help ... (And your knowledge, expertise, experience and understanding of our sector is what?)

Are you any the wiser as to what they are offering and why we might be tempted to waste time on their survey?  

No 1 file, I think.

Colne valley sculpture trail

What a gem: someone has produced a leaflet on a sculpture trail of artistic interventions.

The leaflet details the real life route of a three mile walk featuring 12 highlights such as an abandoned bath in a field, a derelict house and a collapsed wall, which have been attributed to fictional artists.

The abandoned bath is supposedly a piece called Wash Behind the Ears and is described as dealing with the "contradictory concepts of filth and cleanliness, typically by placing a familiar bathroom item in a countryside setting".

See more on the BBC website

'Popular Northern museums must stay open'

The Director of the Science Museum has suggested that, if budget cuts continue, he may be faced with the very real possibility of having to close one or more of his museum's outside London as he will be unable to continue with the commitment to allowing free entry. While this is a useful public negotiating tactic to avoid his budget being cut, it has predictably caused a storm of protest. The following letter appeared in the Times of 15 June.

Sir, We are former directors of the national museums currently under threat of possible closure because of budget problems within the parent organisation - the Science Museum Group. we believe there are powerful reasons why the National Media Museum (Bradford), National Railway Museum (York and Shildon) and the Museum of Science and Industry (Manchester) must stay open.

First, all are success stories. They hold collections of genuine international significance, have expertise which is respected worldwide, and are immensely popular - with more than two million visitors a year.

Secondly, they are vital in their host cities, providing cultural, educational and economic benefit across the regions. All three are crucial components of their local and regional economies, attracting tourists and prestige, and supporting jobs.

Third, and most importantly, they are examples of an important egalitarian principle - that the benefits of tax revenue gathered nationally should be spread nationally. Everyone from Islington to Inverness and from Camden to Camborne pays taxes and it is morally and politically right that the benefits of that tax revenue should be spread as far as possible around the country. The BBC has demonstrated this by the excellent move of a large part of its operation from London to Salford, spreading more of its economic impact outside the M25. Surely, at least some of our national museums should operate on the same principle?

Although the Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS) describes the issue as merely an operational matter for the Science Museum Trustees, the Government cannot shirk its responsibility. Party manifestos spoke of the right of free access to our national heritage but it is an empty right if the museum concerned has closed. To insist on further deep budget cuts and to maintain a policy of free entry, even though free entry might be a good idea in principle, feels like an untenable position.

Moreover, the Secretary of State has responsibility for tourism. What organisation charged with enhancing our national income from tourists can regard the closure of one of the North of England's greater visitors attractions as a sensible way out of recession?

We urge the trustees of the Science Museum Group and DCMS to consider the track record and value of museums in the North of England and to ensure that a solution is found to enable them all to stay open.

Signed by Colin Ford, Patrick Greene, Colin Philpott, Andrew Scott

But for some lingering doubt about the level of tax paid by the residents of Camborne, well said!

Saying it as it is

Just occasionally we trip over someone saying just what we are feeling. This time it was Selina Scott who launched into the Heritage Lottery Fund at a reception in Yorkshire: What the Dickens! Selina Scott in novel row.

It was good to see such an articulate speaker highlighting the insulting and unhelpful adult-child mindset at the core of that organisation. Did anyone consider the heritage instead of whether the bid had been 'impressive' or not? 

Oh to have been a fly on the wall.

PS: we have been a bit quiet recently: not through lack of ideas, simply lack of time. More follows soon. 

Jargon

Yes, I know you have seen it before, but it is Friday and this suited our jargon thread so well ...

Cause and effect

On the day after the government got a shock at the local elections, it is a pleasure to hear Ministers talking about 'listening more'. One of them went straight on to say '... and telling people what good things the government is doing ...' That is just what you want from someone who is really listening.

But the real joy is of course Mr Gove's antics. His Department is apparently in the doghouse for not responding swiftly enough to MP's questions. One wonders if it bothers to answer any at all since they seem to take no notice of anything anyone else says.

He has also had the results of a survey of Head Teachers and Teachers looking at GCSEs. 80 percent of heads said that they had less confidence in GCSE than a year ago, largely because of the marking fiasco when grade boundaries were moved (see previous posts).

The Department for Education draws the conclusion that this bolsters the need for reform of the exam along the lines of Mr Gove's non-modular proposals.

Er ... no. It is not the modular form of exam that caused the problem, it was the movement of grade boundaries and a useless marking system. You can change the structure however you like but if the marking system is rubbish then you you will get rubbish results.

Who worries what research actually says? It naturally concludes that I am on the right track. So much for a listening government.

Guerilla writing

The attached recently came through our e-letter box:

Not a formal training day but if you can spare an hour or so to get down to XXX where YYY  will be on hand to discuss the hugely successful community engagement programme undertaken at the gallery over the last five years. Guerilla training as well as guerilla writing!

WHO MIGHT YOU MEET?

Five Go Guerilla at the XXX … 5 writers will be in residence at the XXX  for just one day of guerilla writing activity.

They’ll be writing about the art and the Romans, meeting the public, versifying in the amphitheatre and generally celebrating 5 years of community creative engagement that has taken place at XXX.

The event marks the end of two important youth projects, Colouring the Canvas and ReHang:Reachout, which have both provided opportunities for members of ReHang, XXX's young curators group, to build skills and provide peer group activity for other young people.

It also signals the promise of more to come…

Since 2008, XXX  has seen an exciting programme of youth and community engagement that has gone from strength to strength. From a programme of youth film making and conferences, the gallery’s work with young people and community group has developed to include the launch of ReHang (gallery youth panel), Dr Who screening with writer Q&A, sport events and live gladiatorial combat.

There are music, theatre and poetry performances, family days, photography and youth artfilm installations, political debates, swing dance and glamour evenings, and, recently, the launch of the Who Might You Meet? blog and an ever-growing and successful late night events programme.

The XX Art Gallery is fast becoming one of the most innovative galleries in the city in terms of seeking to engage people of all ages and abilities through a wide range of creative interaction and public events.

So, if you want to come down to the gallery to partake of a bit of guerilla writing activity, and be part of all of this good stuff by getting your writing posted to the youth and community arts blog, drop by on ... find the 5 writers in the gallery, and join them.

And to cap it all, there will be an informal sharing of the work of the 5 writers, followed by a Q&A somewhere in the gallery…

The CVs of the five writers are also illuminating: 

One is described as a spoken word artist, photography enthusiast, poet, performer, writer and educator and  co-curator of the very popular spoken word showcase

Another is said to hail from a land between spoken word, hip-hop, and theatre. With an eye for the often overlooked in the everyday, his work is entertaining and accessible but remains rooted in a love of the craft of writing.

Another is a poet and artist who works in video and visible verse, spoken word, hip hop and live art. Her work is street, visual, emotive and rhythmical. She is a published poet, a SlamBASSADOR UK Champion and a member of various writing and performance collectives.

No one could accuse the writer of over-statement. Suddenly we feel very old. To think that a poet might not also be a performer.

Counting what counts II

... a little PS to our last posting is inspired by a recent ten page questionnaire from Arts Council England - there are 24 pages of notes on how to fill it in.

This questions about the ethnicity of any permanent or freelance staff split by 'specialist staff', 'managers' and 'others'; and they want their ages too.

It then asks us for a whole range of turnover figures which could be picked up from our published accounts if they bothered to read them. But what is this we see ... ah yes, they want those figures presented in a different way. 

It might have been good if they had warned us in advance that they might want to know this. We don't collect the ages of freelance staff and such things.

Among a whole range of questions which are irrelevant for a museum -such 'how much of your work is 'touring activity' and 'attendance at film screening days' - is a real gem: 'Please indicate the hours worked by volunteers at your organisation in the last financial year. Round your answer up to the nearest hour.'

It is the last bit we really love. Anyone who has worked with volunteers knows that they do not keep regular hours and, although we do ask them to sign in and sign out, we do not waste our time totaling the hours actually worked 'to the nearest hour'. We know how many shifts they work; will that do?

Looked at another way, rounding up the time to the nearest hour gives an accuracy of about 0.005% or better than one part in 20,000. No, we have not made a mistake. What on earth are they thinking of, asking for that level of accuracy? What are they going to do with the answer? Why have they not asked how many hours our staff work which might at least have provided a useful comparison or ratio.

It is the same mindset that tells us that visitor numbers are 5.14% up. So nice to know that the figure is accurate to one left leg. 

The questionnaire could only have been put together by someone with no concept of basic statistics or mathematics, or who has ever been involved in the real world.

It is that time of year and another questionnaire is waiting in the wings ... oh joy!   

Counting what counts

A recent report entitled Counting What Counts by Anthony Lilley and Prof Paul Moore encourages us to use what they call Big Data. We don't say that we follow every step of their argument which seems to confuse use of data in decision-making  with data drawn from web usage but we were struck by some of their general comments which echo our views on the use of data generally. Here are some paragraphs from their report.

They start with that brilliant quotation from Einstein: Everything that can be counted does not necessarily count; everything that counts cannot necessarily be counted. Essays should be written on this.

Their two main themes are language ... The sector exists in a context of narrative of subsidy and market failure which means that measurement is too often seen as a burden placed on defensively-minded organisations as a form of accountability and the use of data ... Data and information are most often used in arts and cultural settings somewhat passively, mainly to satisfy the needs of accountability.

Too often the gathering and reporting of data is seen as a burden and a requirement of funding or governance rather than an asset to be used to the benefit of the [organisation]. This point of view ... arises partly from the philosophy of dependence, subsidy and market failure which underpins much of the cultural sector.

The subsidy model tends to trap many cultural organisations in a survivalist, financial mindset and that, in turn, makes it difficult to adopt an expansive, entrepreneurial perspective when under regular implied threat by accountability.

Without the pull of a more enlightened approach to data from funders and regulators, the likelihood of widespread adoption of a more modern approach to data at the level of organisations is low.

A shift in mindset ... is a requirement. Such a shift would match much of the rhetoric of 'investment' which is used in the sector, particularly by policy and turning bodies. ... this rhetoric has largely been just that: a new term to replace the loaded word 'subsidy' rather than a genuine change.

The Arts Council England's recent ten-year strategy, Achieving Great Art for Everyone uses the term 'investment' itself no less that twenty-one times. However, there is considerable mismatch between this use of terminology and the reality of how commercial investment actually works. Too often 'investment' is used as a synonym for 'subsidy' and this linguistic sleight of hand is, in fact, sometimes harmful.

'Subsidy'. ... is a loaded term which indicates an in-built power relationship. 'Subsidy' is given to something which is weak. Conversely 'investment' is something from which we expect returns and which is thus imbued with potential. Framing public investment in culture as 'subsidy' positions it as a weak, dependent activity. When in harmony, investor and investee should be committed to achieving the same ends.

Being data-rational is a skill and not something that can imposed or encouraged by the dull demand for 'metrics' so beloved by funders. You first need to collect the right data - data which is relevant and representative - then to turn this into useful information for decision-making. 

Not understanding the difference between good and bad data, or the way figures can tell a coherent story, our funders frequently ask the wrong questions and seem satisfied with any numbers. 

I suppose you would not expect 'artists' to understand something as rational as 'numbers' which come from the other side of the great arts-science divide. Their use of the word 'investment' is probably the same: a desperate attempt to adopt the language of a business world they so little understand.  

An Easter thought

In a break from our usual Mumblings ... here is an Easter message in the form of Carl Sagan's famous, almost poetical, thoughts on the blue dot seen from Voyager 1, reminding us just how important we are:

From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every 'superstar', every 'supreme leader', every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there – on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.

The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot. Think of the endless cruelties visited by the inhabitants of one corner of this pixel on the scarcely distinguishable inhabitants of some other corner. How frequent their misunderstandings, how eager they are to kill one another, how fervent their hatreds. Our posturings, our imagined self-importance, the delusion that we have some privileged position in the universe, are challenged by this point of pale light. Our planet is a lonely speck in the great enveloping cosmic dark. In our obscurity – in all this vastness – there is no hint that help will come from elsewhere to save us from ourselves.

The Earth is the only world known, so far, to harbour life. There is nowhere else, at least in the near future, to which our species could migrate. Visit, yes. Settle, not yet. Like it or not, for the moment, the Earth is where we make our stand. It has been said that astronomy is a humbling and character-building experience. There is perhaps no better demonstration of the folly of human conceits than this distant image of our tiny world. To me, it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot, the only home we've ever known.

Carl Sagan, Pale Blue Dot: A Vision of the Human Future in Space, 1997 reprint, pp. xv–xvi

Teaching us to lie

Can I borrow £2?
Thanks ... come to think of it, I don't need that much. Here is £1 back.
When do I get back my £1 back?
What £1? I have just paid you £1.

In a telephone call to a potential business partner in Germany, this form of economics was described as milkmaid economics after a story by La Fontaine. We are not sure there is a direct parallel but the title has a certain charm, even if if politically milkmaidist.

It is much the same sort of economics as that required by (both British and European) grant-making organisations. These fine, upstanding organisations have a clear view of best practice and priority when dealing with public money, and encourage good behaviour in funded bodies on all occasions. But, with the year-end approaching, what is my moral position on the following?

We bid let us say £10k on the basis that we would contribute match-funding of 4 days of staff time. In totalling the staff time involved I find we did it in 2 days. Do we:

1. 'Find' another 2 days in our diaries so that we can show that we contributed what we said we would?
2. Spin the work out to 4 days - a few bows and ribbons on top perhaps - so that we can honestly say that we provided the full match-funding?
3. Confess all and tell the funder that they should only be paying us half the cash sum as we did not provide the match-funding we promised?

We could of course get a life and do what everyone else does: adopt option 1.

But imagine the implications of the other two approaches. One would encourage inefficiency as we spent our time cutting out paper doilies to adorn our already-completed project. The other would produce a reaction like a Bateman cartoon The organisation that said it did not need the money that had been promised. 

How would they ever cope with an efficient and honest organisation? Are we the milkmaids or are they? 

Financial jargon

The end of the financial year looms and we are delighted to receive an update from one investment company whose promotional message is: Our multi-boutique asset management model encompasses the skills of a number of world-class specialist investment firms.

This is good to hear. We wish we knew what it meant, though. If we cannot understand it then what chance has the general tax-paying populace have? 

Putting a brave face on it

Ed Vaizey is putting a brave face on things. The Museum's Association reports a speech last week to the Local Government Association Conference, in which he described the government’s support for the sector as a self-evident truth and said it was rubbish to suggest the arts are in crisis. It is regrettable to observe some of the scaremongering suggesting our arts and cultural sector is somehow at risk. 

He went on to highlight the cities which had bid to be 'cities of culture', saying they are the ones that get it. It’s only a shame that more don’t. He went on to cite Chester Council's plans to improve the city's cultural offer as yet another example of the arts in the UK waving, not drowning.

The MA reports that 'leading figures from across the arts sector, including the Arts Council's new chairman Peter Bazalgette, have expressed serious concern about the loss of local government investment in culture. Recent figures show that local authority funding for museums dropped by £23m in 2011-12, while a report by the Department for Communities and Local Government, also found that cultural spend by local authorities in England fell 7.8% in that period.'

Mark Taylor, director of the Museums Association, said: I am sure the news that we are not in crisis will come as a surprise to most of the museums in the UK - to the 400 professionals who have been made redundant in the national museums in the last year and to the 30% of museums who responded to our 2012 survey saying they had had their budgets cut by 35% in the last two years.

Well said Mark. Ed Vaizey must have been talking to his London museum friends (generously funded by him) again.

There is a bonus point for guessing where he made this speech. Yes, in Chester. Funny that.

Getting the point

Jeremy Hunt (Health Secretary) has helpfully summed up the problem of remote management by KPIs: You are hitting the targets but missing the point. There was a good discussion to be had there about the way in which one can measure performance and encourage improvement but sadly, he went on to use a current buzz phrase, talking about those that are coasting along and not achieving excellence.

The BBC version of the pre-speech release - why bother to have a speech at all when the main aim is to get media coverage twice: once when you issue the I am going to say and then the speech; perish the thought that something more interesting might happen and push you off the news - goes on to say:

It is commonly said about a 10th of hospital trusts are failing, although double that are actually not meeting all the essential standards set out by the Care Quality Commission. That leaves about 80% of trusts that are doing what they should. Some of these will be excellent - perhaps about 10-15% - and some will be striving to become excellent - perhaps a similar number. That leaves close to half that could be said to be stuck in the middle, coasting along.

Hitting the targets but missing the point is a well-turned phrase which must have cheered the speechwriter. It is only when you ask Who set the targets? that the reality dawns: it was, of course, Ministers. As so often - take Education as a very obvious example - if you give people boiled-down or simplified targets then they start delivering on those targets whether they make sense or not. If you set targets involving going up and down at the same time, we will find a way of doing so if that is what you say you want.

Policymakers want to set standards for Education and seem surprised when teachers teach to the test. This leads to complaints that teachers are in the wrong. Look in the mirror. Teachers may be missing the point but if you tell them that you will judge them by their ability to hit targets do not be surprised if they aim for those targets. The hint is in the word.

The interpretation of Excellence in Health is clearly following that of Mr Gove's Education department: achieving targets or being satisfactory means you are below par, coasting, not striving hard enough. Is there a statistician in the house? When will someone explain the meaning of average: the concept that there are as many in the top half as there are in the bottom; that a normal distribution includes a large bulge in the middle. 

Or is it like some of our politicians and Orwell's animals where we are average, the other 95% are below average?

And just how intellectually insulting is the sentence: that leaves close to half that could be said to be stuck in the middle, coasting along. It is not even justified by the copy which appears to estimate the number that are excellent and the number striving, and then guesses at the proportion in the middle. Might this middle bunch not be actually trying their damnedest against almost impossible odds such as funding cuts and nonsensical government targets? Statistics tell us to expect them to be there. Oh no, they are coasting and missing the point. 

As someone called Jo Webber says people in the Health Service come to do the best they possibly can for patients. I am sure many do. How about celebrating their efforts instead of kicking them for once?

Wielding a vague stick vaguely in the direction of the enemy never improved anything. But it makes a good line for a cocktail party and good copy for the Daily Mail.

Experts

Describing the management mindset at his (very major, national) museum, a friend said:

Current management is totally insane - totally risk adverse, incapable of making decisions without resorting to data collection, feasibilities, testing etc - all encouraging 'experts' in relevant fields to promote their own importance and agenda, and totally incompatible with other views and agendas - resulting in incomprehensible, unrealistic and unachieveable briefs and objectives.

Where is leadership, creativity and innovation?  

And where is coherence? External people always seem to 'know better' than the people in the business and pedal their own patent nostrums at the expense of coherence. Over-worked, brow-beaten and sometimes simply weak management give in and apply the solutions so that they can report that 'advice has been taken' - aka my bum is protected. 

The real pain is that the advice will have cost many times what it would have cost to have someone internal do the work or to have been allowed to form a view after taking advice. How much it costs in the long term is anyone's guess. We recently paid  for a charming marketing consultant to produce a marketing review and strategy for us. For much the same cost we could have employed a marketing person full time for four months. Value for money: I think not; but the money needed to be spent by a deadline (why, is a different story).

As to patent nostrums, over the last two months two different consultants have separately told us that the home page of our website should have 'the on-line shop' and 'the fund-raising message' in the most prominent position. And there I was thinking we had something to do with being a museum: making an offer, telling people what there was to say and persuading them to visit (and pay).

Consultants recommend consultants and contractors as the answer to an organisation's problems and a whole archipelago is growing up 'providing services' where we managers would much rather have dedicated teams that have watches and can tell the time themselves.

I suppose we should be reassured that things are no better at the top of the slag heap as they are at the bottom.  

Artistic flair?

An invitation arrives ...

'An international leader in his field. His work concerns the integration of art with contemporary ecological thinking and real world issues.'

'... is an artist whose work is informed by net art, distributed networks, healing, protocols and curating. ... 2013 sees the next phase of her ... which takes net art to rural locations.'

What does all of this actually mean? Where is the communication? It contains lots of words but we are struggling to find any sense. Is it us or is it, just possibly, them?

Tactful or what?

Why do we feel that this picture, which was the main picture in an e-newsletter, was not the most tactful choice for an article on Touch in Museums in the week in which a baby had his hand savaged by an urban fox?



They changed the image on their website.

Ah, those heady days

Trying to work out what we needed to do for a museum exhibition, recently I recalled the heady days when we used our nous. I made the mistake of asking a former colleague what he recommended. Here is his reply:

Surely today these imponderables would be resolved by commissioning a formative evaluation study, identifying audience needs, behavior, attitude, learning styles and preferences, through questionnaire and observational research, testing of conceptual and intellectual options with focus groups, followed by summative evaluation, using similar techniques on temporary/intermediate solutions and capable of being modified for the final interpretative offer. All actions would require a Project Execution Plan and, of course, Business Plan, with weekly management reports and a clear audit trail.

I would also recommend that this evaluation should not be done in isolation but as part of a wider study evaluating the effectiveness of all interpretative media available, either individually or as part of a mixed media platform. The study should also be perhaps wider to include the financial implications of required expenditure and anticipated income and meeting Brand objectives.

Oh joy.

E-bacc to be dropped

So nice Mr Gove has now decided to drop his idea for an E-bacc to replace GCSEs following opposition from advisers, teachers and 'business leaders'.

I doubt that he will learn the obvious lesson. Like most thwarted ministers, he will now go around saying it is impossible to get things done: civil servants/the system/time-servers/the unimaginative/people ... lack courage/the desire to change/the will to change/vision ...

Getting in a Pickle

How refreshing ... we have a new minister joining the fray: Eric Pickles has issued a list of 50 ways to save. This has the potential to be insulting, foolhardy or both.

One bright idea suggests that councils should lease works of art not on display. Many councils own art galleries and museums and have extensive collections which never see the light of day, but merely gather dust in storage.

The museums industry has responded that the suggestion is ill informed - don't you just love understatement: such an English form of criticism - and that there is no market for leasing art in this way.

We wonder who Pickles thought would be rushing forward to pay to borrow pictures from museum stores and how he thought they were going to solve the problem of insurance, handling and proper care. Insurers and curators are very protective of works of art. Would lessees be trained in picture conservation and care and then issued with white gloves?

The next headline might be 'Leased Pickle picture damaged by bread roll ... Shock!'

Heaven help them

It is difficult to know how one should feel when reading a press release which says that, in deciding not to fund seven non-national museums, the DCMS is 'confident that despite the current economic climate alternative bodies will be keen to take on the sponsorship (aka funding) of these museums.'

Should one feel sorrow for the naivety of the person at the DCMS who thought that another body would step forward and provide the money to support these museums, each of which costs over £1m to stay open? Or should one feel sorry for the poor civil servant who had to write this nonsensical stuff to satisfy a minister's uninformed conviction?

As it happens, over two years later, the DCMS has managed to pass on three of the seven: two to the Science Museum Group and one - the Tyne and Weir Museums and Archives - to the Arts Council England who has not previously been responsible  for managing any such venue. Both host organisations are funded by, yes you guessed it, the DCMS. One only wonders what sweeteners were offered.

The remaining four, including the Geffrye, Horniman and Design Museum in London, and the People's History Museum in Manchester (hardly a name likely to please a backwoods Tory) remain in DCMS hands. The DCMS now announce that they 'have decided not to pursue alternative sponsorship for the Horniman and the Geffrye'.

So that was a sound (bite) policy wasn't it.

If they want to save money on running these museums they could think of introducing an admission charge. Oh, sorry, I forgot. These museums and galleries are full of 'art' and that could never happen.

News from elsewhere:

• Westminster plans to scrap its £350,000 arts programme
• Sheffield Council has confirmed it will cut £200,000 from Museums Sheffield from April
• Blackburn with Darwen Council ... as part of overall savings of £30m ... is reviewing opening hours at Blackburn Museum
• Cornwall Council wants to reduce the annual £384,000 subsidy to Mount Edgecumbe estate  by £66,000 for the next three years. A councillor says 'the estate will struggle to survive'  
• Newcastle City Council has announced plans to scrap £1.2 million in subsidies to theatres and other arts venues. Is there any connection here with the transfer of the Tyne and Weir Museums and Archives to the Arts Council?
• Tracey Emin threatens 'riots' at cuts in the arts. Now we should be really worried 

The dominoes are beginning to fall. It will only be a matter of time ...

Well said

Oh dear, we are back to our favourite subject: the problem of having a minister who has eaten a meal, ridden on a train, seen a bus (or certainly something that looked like one), or been to school (allegedly) and therefore knows how they should be run without having to ask for advice. Here are links to two recent pieces from the Independent. 

The first reminds one that while some people may be motivated by financial reward, this is rarely the case with good teachers. And, while we are on the subject of judging teachers ... we all agree that 'bad' teachers should be brought up to scratch or 'moved on' but one mighty powerful reason this has not happened in the past is that it is enormously difficult to define what 'bad' means when faced with the sort of measurable criteria that are needed when disciplining someone. Oh, MG would say, you can tell from the exam results. This is the same MG who says that more learning needs to take place as there has been too  much measurement.

This last is something on which we can, at last agree and which leads neatly to the second article in which Paul Vallely says everything that needs to be said about the state of education.  '... parents need to tell Mr Gove that the real enemy of education is unnecessary political tinkering by people like him.' Good stuff, eh?

Nice lines

A recent article in the Guardian talks of the cuts in arts funding saying:

The matched nature of most arts funding – with charitable, local and national grants being made conditional on one another – spells chaos, because after one block of funding is removed from a particular museum, gallery or theatre it will find that other elements begin to wobble too. The appropriate image is less the salami slice than a Jenga tower.

What an excellent and vivid description of the reality. If only others would talk like this and less about 'active positive stakeholder engagement'.

On a separate issue, the government announces a new healthy eating campaign. Food campaigner Jeannette Longfield asks the pertinent questions:

The government tells us it is showing up the hidden nasties in food. Well frankly, why are they hidden and, if they are nasties, what are they doing in our food in the first place?

Umm ... It would be difficult to put her question more succinctly or directly.