I'm not Norman, I'm Joe

We're back! Kicking off series 5 - and getting stung by a bee in the process which we did not arrange - is corker of a guest, Joe Vaughan.

Joe is the Digital Editor at Reading Museum and the Museum of English Rural Life, and he popped on the pod to talk to us about being a pretty big cheese in the world of social media (and everything that comes with it).

Please note that although it may seem like it, this podcast is not sponsored by the Zadar Museum of Ancient Glass or Shed Cafe's sandwiches.

This one's a cracking start to a great series - subscribe on all the usual podcast suspects to be the first to hear every episode, and give us a review on  Apple Podcasts if you fancy being fantastic.

Transcript

Megan: If it helps I do need to buy some new, some more gym leggings, so we could go to the shops - 

Sara: I don't want your old gym leggings! 

Megan: No I'm not giving you mine, I just need another pair because mine are a bit ruined because I've only got shorts. 

Sara: Because you pooed in them! 

Megan: No, no funnily enough, no, anyway. Hello and welcome to the 5th series. 

Sara: 5th? 

Megan: Yes, nice. Of Museums and That. Where each episode we have a chin-wag and serve you the steaming hot tea. Guys Carmen's here, Carmen's here. Do you remember Carmen from series 4? Carmen's here! Hi Carmen! 

Carmen: Hey! (inaudible 00.33) Hi Megan! 

Megan: Oh of course you can my love, you can have whatever you want. 

Sara: Specifically the keys that she's asked for. 

Megan: The keys, there you go, can I throw them? (inaudible 00.43) Where each episode we have a chin-wag and serve you the steaming hot tea on the things that museum people love the most. We are hosts Megan and Sara from Leeds Museums and Galleries and we get to know the people behind the objects by asking them the questions that you really want to know. 

Megan: I feel a bit self-conscious about my accent now. 

Sara: Because you can't say ay-up? 

Megan: Ay-up. 

Sara: It's the most forced ay-up I've ever heard. 

Megan: I've just not got a very good - I think sometimes I say things that are really Leeds, like Leeds, but then other times I catch myself saying things and I'm just like 'ah for God's sake.' Anyway, this episode - 

Sara: It's a home town special. 

Megan: Yes this is a home town special, this is my home town special. 

Sara: So it's quite alright that you can't crack the Northern accent because it's literally a Reading episode. 

Sara: Yeah I know, you're the odd one out. 

Megan: That's fine. 

Sara: Actually no, Joe's from the Midlands. 

Megan: No, Jo's from the Midlands, so, 

Sara: (inaudible 01.45) Wait, before we get into all that, go on quickly 

Megan: How's my week been? 

Sara: Yes. Wait, hang on, no, not your week, how's your couple of months been? What have you done? Give me 1 good thing. 

Megan: Oh God that's a lot of pressure, we went camping, it was really nice, we went to Northumberland, it was lovely. 

Sara: Great. We're recording this in hindsight by the way. 

Megan: Yes, so annoyingly the day we actually went to Reading was horrendously hot. Was it March? 

Sara: Basically, we had a time, didn't we. I was half dead. 

Megan: It was so warm. 

Sara: I was so dead, I hadn't slept for like 2 days I had to apologise. So basically our special guest this episode is Joe Vaughan who is the digital editor from Museums Partnership Reading. So that means Reading Museum and the Museum of English Royal Life. Sweet little Joe I love Joe, he did a whistle-stop tour of Reading for us which was enlightening not only for me but for you as a native Reading-er (sic). 

Megan: I left Reading thinking 'wow I literally really like Reading', and I told all of my friends, I was like 'guys Reading's actually really good' and they were like 'yeah we know'. Yes we went to see an Abbey, Joe got stung by a bee - 

Sara: Which should not be funny but it was funny. 

Megan: We had some sandwiches, in fact that's my best thing for the past few months. 

Sara: So the best thing from your past few months was a sandwich? 

Megan: Bread, butter, cheddar, then like some sort of onion-y chive-y situation, and then crisps, and then Marmite Mayo, in a sandwich. Unbelievable and as I was holding the sandwich, walking through Reading, someone I know from back home - shout out to Archie for listening - was like 'Meg it's you' and I bumped into him and I felt really cool because you guys were walking along I was like 'sorry guys just someone that I know'. 

Sara: You looked really cool in the situation and definitely not a flappy mess. 

Megan: Yes I know I was sweating. And then just before we recorded we ate our delicious sandwiches sat outside in the garden, which is just like a beautiful community garden (inaudible 03.44) English Royal Life then Joe was like 'these are our chickens', do you remember what they were called? 

Sara: Do you know what, no, because they were ridiculous names and no one actually knew what their names were. 

Megan: No, they're called Pook and Nook. 

Sara: Oh yes, Pook and Nook. 

Megan: I don't know that anyone does understand why? 

Sara: Oh God it's really funny. It's just ridiculous but they are fancy chickens. 

Megan: Really fancy. 

Sara: Anyway right so what are we expecting from this episode? You should expect chat about Reading and museums and social media. 

Megan: And like viral social media as well, English Royal Life especially is probably the most popular museum social media account so finding out a little bit more about that really. 

Sara: Especially since they are a very small regional museum. 

Megan: What I will say is that when I was editing this episode, it was a quiet office, like really silent, and I just had my headphones on and I was like, no other word for it but sniggering because I just found it really funny because Joe just really had us laughing about glass. 

Sara: Yes, it was ridiculous actually. 

Megan: So do enjoy this, and this is a really good kick-off to the series, take it away Joe. 

Sara: Yes. 

Megan: Enjoy everyone, Joe Vaughan's episode of Museums and That. 

Joe Vaughan: I think one thing that I find quite funny is that being from the Midlands I feel like my accent can either go quite - I've got like this Midlands lilt that actually in a lot of occasions, sometimes in meetings, I can almost put on this like Southern voice which I don't mean to do. 

Megan: That's interesting. 

Joe Vaughan: Yes it is interesting. 

Megan: Your Reading voice. 

Sara: You just did it then. 

Megan: Where are you going to be from for this? 

Joe Vaughan: I don't know, I was actually thinking maybe more like Australia? 

Megan: Wild! 

Sara: God that is super, that is super! 

Joe Vaughan: Crikey! Kangaroo! 

Sara: This is so staying in. 

Joe Vaughan: There's a wallaby just hopping in. 

Megan: Joe Vaughan off of the MERL and Reading Museum. Also, we're going to say the MERL quite a lot today but that is the Museum of English Royal Life just for anyone wondering. Joe, thank you for coming on the podcast. 

Joe Vaughan: You're very welcome, thank you for having me on. 

Megan: Joe, sorry, please would you be able to tell our listeners who the flip you are? 

Joe Vaughan: Okay yes so, my name's Joe, I'm the digital editor for Museums Partnerships Reading, which is an Arts Council-funded partnership of the MERL which is the Museum of English Royal Life and the Reading Museum, so for both museums I basically manage all the digital content. So like social media, website editing, kind of museum-specific digital content so like online collections, categories, and things like that. So I wear lots of hats, which is true of lots of people in museums actually, so that's just a basic intro. 

Megan: And do you actually wear lots of hats? 

Joe Vaughan: Well I'm actually wearing lots of hats right now Megan! I'm a bit insulted no one noticed all of these hats I've been wearing for the whole blooming day. You know there's that meme of like 3 children in a trench coat? Well I'm actually just lots of hats in a trench coat and an extremely, extremely small man right at the bottom. 

Megan: What's your background and how did you get into your role? 

Joe Vaughan: Yes so, I've always wanted to work a job involving writing and creativity, so I studied English Literature at university. I did a creative writing master's degree, went to the University of Sheffield, it's just really strange to me, like I studied poetry writing with Simon Armitage for my master's. 

Megan: Did you? 

Joe Vaughan: Yes I did and - 

Megan: What's he like? 

Joe Vaughan: He's very interesting, I used to have his email and I used to email him which was just very strange. And like he actually marked my dissertation and it was just really strange because I got a really high mark, like I don't blow my trumpet very much but I will blow it on this 1 point, I did really really well on the master's and he said that what he'd just read, it wasn't poetry but it wasn't not poetry. And I was like, well that is high praise from the master. 

Megan: That in itself is poetry isn't it? 

Joe Vaughan: It really is, well it's poetry all the way down with that man. That's something I learnt. Yes so, after that, I probably had the most offline uncreative job possible. And not uncreative, but I worked in a lawyer's writing wills. I've seen thoughts quite a bit on social media where people say 'How do people get into museums?' And for me it's like, I wrote some poems for Simon Armitage and then I wrote loads of wills, but I did write loads of letters and stuff too. So yes, I learnt from that, and then I worked in marketing for 2 and a half years. I learnt a lot and a big part of that was like social media management. So after that the Museum Partnerships Reading Digital Editor job was open, I just applied for that and was very very grateful to get it and that was summer 2019. 

Megan: That was an interesting time for you to join because the accounts that you run were pretty well established by then, right? 

Joe Vaughan: Yes they were, so the Museum of English Royal Life Twitter account in particular was really famous. For a long time it had been being developed and building up to this but it had a few viral moments quite successively, and when I came into the organisation it was a massive viral Twitter account, so there was quite a lot of expectation and in many ways they were quite big boots to fill I think but I relished the challenge of it. 

Megan: How did you cope with the pressure? Did you feel like there was pressure? 

Joe Vaughan: Yes, I think when I came into the role I was very mindful of all the amazing work that had been happening at the account and I think from working in marketing I had kind of a real sense that the MERL was doing what a lot of the very influential and very high-performing American brands were doing. It was very engagement focused, it was very much this kind of meme-related approach to social media where it was really making the most of the platform as a kind of engagement platform, you know it wasn't putting things out and not responding (TC 00:10:00), I kind of thought that the major success of the account was the fact that it was so responsive and it was doing something really special with social media. I think in my interview I really highlighted that, like I was very aware of what they were doing and I think by understanding it I felt like I could do a good job at, you know, taking up the reins as it were. I don't know if I felt pressure coming into it, the work were very very good at removing that pressure too, the viral successes the museum had, I think they were aware that there are things you cannot predict and a huge part of social media is unpredictability. So there was never a sense like you have to come into this role, you have to go viral regularly, it was more just like be you, do a good job meeting the museum's goals effectively, a lot of that pressure was taken off so I just thought, you know, I'll come in and be creative and enjoy it really. 

Megan: It's interesting what you said about likening the accounts to American restaurants and fast-food chains or whatever, because I feel like that's what the MERL particularly did and still does. It sort of sits within the realm of like the internet and internet culture, rather than what a lot of museum and social media accounts do which is to just be within the realm of the museum sector. I feel like in my head I always attribute that to its success as well, the fact that you are able to kind of see the bigger picture of internet culture and you can fit really nicely into that. 

Joe Vaughan: No, that's very kind, I think so too. I do think that perhaps, you know, I could see definitely what my predecessor Adam Casari (ph 11.48) like I understood what he was doing, and I felt that by doing that and understanding kind of his influences as well, like having a slightly different but similar sense of humour and sense of creativity, that I could come in and pick up really where he left off. But yes I think you're right, and one thing especially with the museum social media is that it's interesting with the big brands because I feel like they're all trying to be your friend and be funny, but ultimately they're selling you hamburgers or they're selling you chicken nuggets or whatever, which is fine but it becomes more sinister when you have, like, the US Army appearing in people's Twitch streams, like chatting with them you know. There is a much more sinister side to this kind of engagement-based marketing, but obviously we're a museum, we have no intentions other than trying to promote the collections of our free-to-visit museum, so I kind of felt immediately there was something very like, 'Wholesome' is maybe the wrong word, and it's a word that gets used a lot, but it was a very kind of like well-meaning account to work for. So you know that's something really nice about that, that we're not engaging people for something that is ethically dubious or whatever, it's an ethically meaningful place to work. 

Sara: You're looking at me because you're happy for me to talk now? 

Megan: Well no, because I feel like I could literally just talk directly to Joe for a really long time so you need to butt in. 

Sara: What particular skills were needed to do a job like that? 

Joe Vaughan: I think, writing skill hugely. I think, there's few jobs that have such a demand on, like, economy of language. Something that the problem solving, sometimes dysfunctional part of my brain really relishes about this work is taking really complex information and reducing it to 280 characters. I find that really interesting and that's a very unusual challenge but, I think, it is one that people sometimes overlook. There is a sense with social media management that you are either a, kind of, full team of professional people with MacBooks or you're an intern and, I don't know, I think there is a very specific set of skills required. 1 is writing but 2 is just intuition, being able to read the room and respond meaningfully and sympathetically on what is a very difficult platform. The, kind of, devil's barter with good social media is that it responds to audiences and it's not just speaking into the void, you're listening to the void and you're, you know, conversing back. The deal you make with the devil with social media is that a big part of it is about listening to your community and what they are doing and responding to that, so all of the pop culture references and things like that. Equally, I feel that when that social world is going through problems, you have to respond to those too and you have to know how to respond to those with quite a lot of sensitivity that is demanded of you much more than in many other role. 

Megan: What do you think about museums talking to each other without the audience in mind? 

Joe Vaughan: I think, there is definitely room for that and I know there is sometimes people who follow us and see us talking to other museums and they think it's existentially strange, you know, as if 2 museums walked into a pub and were just chatting. But, something we have here, both at The MERL and at Reading Museum is really just the sense that our digital platforms do exist for our audience, and thinking about how we are serving them first and foremost and doing that in a way that compliments our own mission, so sharing the work of the museums and sharing our collections. There is definitely room for that more gimmicky, joking between museums but there is a lot of people in the room with you and you have to be mindful of that. 

Megan: What's your favourite story that you have ever written and told, in terms of what you have posted? 

Joe Vaughan: It's very tricky because it is like a story writing job. I feel like I write so much. One of my favourite things that I did was in the first week of lockdown when Animal Crossing came out and I was having breakfast with my housemate, obviously we were working from home. We were both playing Animal Crossing and he said 'Did you know you can make clothes on Animal Crossing?' It wasn't anything to do with work but I thought 'Well, if you could do that. We have this heritage smock collection. We have loads of clothes in our collection. We have this audience at home looking for things to do in this extremely difficult moment of the pandemic. What if we ask them to engage with our collection in this video game and make their own smocks.' So, I messaged my line manager and said 'For the next half an hour I will be playing Animal Crossing on company time but it is for a very specific, strategic reason.' So, yes, we did that and we received hundred of smocks from people all over the world. It is really interesting the word 'story' because this story had many different contributors. In terms of the thread, the fabric of the thread was the contribution from lots of different people which in some ways is what's so amazing about social media, that we could do this. But we had entries from people all over the world showing their rural dress specific to their cultures and their context and it was really amazing. The power of digital engagement in museums. I think something related to this is 1 reason that we did that too was that we saw lots of people were playing Animal Crossing so we thought let's go where our audience is and on that morning our audience were all on their Animal Crossing islands. I think that's the guiding spirit behind why the two museums use social media. It's not that we are doing social media because there is a voice in the back of our heads saying 'Post tweets' it's because our audience is there (TC 00:20:00) and rather than getting people into the museum, let's take the museum to them, let's meet them on their terms a little bit more. I think, that's something that is really important and it was actually extremely practically essential during the pandemic when people couldn't even come in to museums so moving museums online to social media was just a massive thing. 

Megan: Do you find it really challenging to only have 280 characters but still be dynamic and make it work in a museums context? 

Joe Vaughan: I'm talking about twitter a lot, we do Instagram and Facebook too. I think, what you have just alluded to is so important with twitter, which is that on twitter, the timeline shows everyone's tweets are line up in a stack beside each other, there is no hierarchy. It is not like The White House's tweets are put on a different platform than my personal account. There is this amazing contrast but also lack of contrast on the platform of what people are posting so you do have to be able to read this enormous room and sometimes make decisions like 'today we are not going to post something funny' but at the start of the pandemic it really was the function of the museum to help people out in a really bad time. Yes, it was quite challenging. 

Megan: How do you stay relevant? 

Joe Vaughan: The world is always changing, what people are interested in is always changing and in that changing world it has to follow that so does the role of museums and where museums sit within it. What we are doing on social media is seeing where people are and thinking in this quite strategic, sometimes a quite mischievous way, 'How can we bring our museum into this?' With Animal Crossing, for example, it opened up an opportunity to talk about our smock collection. In the past that has definitely been a thing of thinking 'What's in the news? How can we -,' in a way that is very tongue-in-cheek but also often does have more significance. I think, something quite striking, especially with the collection in The Museum of English Rural Life, as the name implies, it is a very niche collection but it relates to very non-niche and very important things. So, like, huge parts of the collection are related to food, for example. I think, social media really is just a tool of demonstrating and building on the relevance of the collections and doing that in a way that is relevant to where people are at day by day. I would say this has had to change quite dramatically during the pandemic because we have gone through an unprecedented time where there has been very little to relate to in terms of relevance. The news for a very long time has been 'There is a pandemic.' People don't want to hear more about that so we took a slightly different approach of 'Our collections are very interesting and varied and how can we demonstrate those through more creative ways.' 

We couldn't just say, 'Come into the museum and see them for yourself." because the museum wasn't open. So we had to think about storytelling and creative devices, ways of expressing things much more interestingly so that we could fit them into social media and not just seem weird or patronising. An example is, I took Christmas 2020 off but our first week back after Christmas was just 'Okay, Broomer' back in the 'Okay, Boomer' days and I just used that as a chance to talk about brooms for a little while. It was just that kind of thing, finding a creative way to introduce part of our collection and building upon it. I think that's been our guiding principle and never assuming that people are automatically interested in our content or in our collections, instead we thought 'How can we demonstrate why they could be interested?' And, I think, lead with the curiosity that we would like from them. I think, that's been a part of our ongoing success. 

I think it was Ovid or Homer that said, 'Never assume, because you make an ass out of you and me.' 

Megan: Yes. God, the tag line for all of our lives. 

Joe Vaughan: I don't think it was Homer. But yes, you're right, you're absolutely right. 

Sara: Also, 'adage' is a really good word. 

Joe Vaughan: 'Adage' is a great word, isn't it? Or is it 'adage'? I don't know how you say it. 'Garden,' 'garden,' 'adage,' 'adage,' I don't know. 

Sara: Did you just pronounce garden two different ways, but they sounded the same? 

Joe Vaughan: Oh yes, 'garden' you can't do, can you? It's 'grass' and 'grass,' 'cinema,' 'cinema.' 

Megan: 'Garage.' 

Joe Vaughan: 'Garage.' 

Megan: I find 'caravan'. A lot of people in Yorkshire call it a 'caravan,' and they accentuate the 'van'. I don't get it. 

Sara: We do 'baguette,' don't we. I say 'baguette,' but you say 'baguette.' Baguette. 

Joe Vaughan: Baguette. Bag for life. Garage. 

Sara: No, you said 'garden.' 

Joe Vaughan: Garden. I was getting confused. Courthouse pressure, courthouse pressure. What were you asking? 

Sara: I think I was just saying museums shouldn't assume. 

Joe Vaughan: Yes, definitely. 

Sara: Joe, what do you think is the hardest thing about your job? 

Joe Vaughan: The hardest part is the fact that when you work in social media, to do well, you have to be creative in what is a very turbulent and tricky sphere. It's engagement, but you're also absorbing everything that people are going through, and in the world today, that is an awful lot, and it is tricky to be creative and sustain that in a difficult and turbulent environment. So I think that trying to think up strategies and ways of coping with it is really important, and also, more than anything, just making sure you've got the support from your organisation, that they're aware that intensive social media does have that problem, that it isn't all just silly, fun posting and things, that there is actually quite a lot of responsibility. Especially, I know this from talking to other social media managers, in many ways, you don't necessarily fall into the role of it, but you are the interface between the museum and the world as it changes, and often that requires having to respond to quite tricky problems. 

Megan: We were talking earlier about being on Twitter especially, and seeing things that perhaps you would choose not to see. You can't take a break from certain news stories, if part of your work and your job is to be online and in the spaces where those things are being talked about. 

Joe Vaughan: Yes, I definitely agree with that. Facebook and Instagram have kind of done this with Creator Studio, which I do use a lot for posts. I mean, Facebook and Instagram are different anyway, because the things that you're at risk of seeing are like, your friend from school is getting married, someone's dog is saying something funny again. But on Twitter, it is a lot more like, one minute you'll have a joke, the next tweet will be-, 

Sara: Politically charged, I'd say. 

Joe Vaughan: Yes, it's really politically charged. But then again, that's where people are, and we want to try and reach them, so it makes sense to be posting there. I know a lot of people really love the work that museums do on Twitter, and I do too. That is the difficulty though, just how much is going on on the Internet, basically, that's the difficulty for anyone who works on it. 

Megan: Do you feel like that puts a shelf life on working in social media? 

Joe Vaughan: It's difficult to say, really, because I know social media's been around for (TC 00:30:00) quite a while now, but I don't necessarily feel like the remit of my job is just social media manager, I think it's part of a wider role which is about engaging people through digital content. I mean, who knows what the future of social media will be, really? 

Megan: Someone asked us once, we did a lecture at the Uni of Leeds, and this woman was like, 'What do you think the future of social media is?', and I was like, 'God damn it.' How annoying. 

Joe Vaughan: I have no idea. 

Megan: Yes. 

Sara: I think with that question, I get a little bit frustrated that that's an acceptable thing to ask in terms of it, it isn't throwaway. It's a constant justification of working in a digital environment. And that's not fair, because no one would ask, 'So, when are museums dying out?' You wouldn't ask that, would you? So what difference does it make? 

Joe Vaughan: I can see it's very patronising. I think I mentioned earlier that people think social media managers are either interns or full teams, and I think there is just this sense that it's intangible, and social media is just a phase. But it's been a phase for a long time, it's been a phase that has been a guiding, pivotal thing in people's lives. 

Sara: It's a phase that affords people billion dollar houses. 

Joe Vaughan: I wish I had one. 

Sara: It isn't a passing fad, and I think it's an essential part of the Internet now, it's anything that you engaging with. And also, and I think definitely more so for the pandemic and for our website, it was about the website also becoming almost a social media platform in that we want people to engage with it. We don't want people to just come, look, find the information, go again. We want people to do stuff here and have a conversation. 

Megan: I feel like social media is a reflection of society, so the question of 'What's next for it?' and where social media is going is like saying, 'How is society going to develop the way we interact with each other?' 

Joe Vaughan: But just on the shelf life of social media managers, it's just really interesting. I genuinely don't know. But I think that, because the world and culture keeps changing, there will always be ways to connect your collections and the life of your museum to the world around you. There will always be things to do. I don't think it's a role where you come in, you exhaust all your options, you exhaust all the posts you can make or the jokes you could write and then you move on, I think there is a massive, long-term future for social media managers. 

Megan: Yes, it grows and develops, doesn't it? And I've said this before, with people in museums or in any job that are quite hesitant towards social media and perhaps don't see it as part of their roles, a curator for example is someone who gives talks to people as part of their roles, and it's like, they don't still do that by candlelight. They've developed that role. 

Joe Vaughan: It would be cool if they did, though. 

Megan: It would, wouldn't it. 

Sara: Safety in museums. 

Megan: Setting fire to all those smocks. 

Sara: Grade-bloody-1 listed buildings, chuck a candle in there. 

Megan: But I guess the point is that being a social media manager may not be a job forever but it will have developed into something else. 

Joe Vaughan: Yes, I completely agree. I think digital engagement as a thing is going to be here to stay for a while. Whether that's on social media, I don't know. Social media is a platform and a tool that we can use to achieve our goal of sharing our collections with people, and if others platforms emerged, or other ways of doing it that didn't meet the traditional parameters of social media, then we would do that to, just within that digital engagement role. 

Megan: You didn't give yourself any credit for this, but I also think that another skill for people doing your job is to have that realistic world-view of, 'This isn't the be-all and end-all, and it's actually fine if things change, and I expect them to and I want them to, because I want to keep growing and expanding and changing what I'm doing in order to remain relevant.' And it's having that quite pragmatic view about it, I think is really important. 

Joe Vaughan: Yes. The word relevant is a really interesting, loaded word, I think, because one of the things I read when I got into museums was the book 'The Art of Relevance' by Nina Simon, which is an absolutely amazing book about ways that museums can engage audiences, and I think I took a lot from that in the value of social media, how social media could be relevant to people. But the thing I'm wary of relevance at all costs, and especially when people measure relevance as social media success. If you're not careful, you get into tricky territory where people play the game too much, I feel, to get likes, and get retweets and things like that. I guess that's just one way of measuring relevance, or demonstrating it, is through social media statistics, and social media is unusual in the statistics it gives you. So many other parts of life don't tell you how many people have seen your poster, or gone through your door, but being mindful of what you're relevant for and what you're being relevant to is a really important thing. Sorry, that was a difficult point to make. 

Megan: You made it very well. 

Sara: It's on par with physical visitors through the door. You can count them, but actually if only 5 people came in but you had a really great conversation with them and they really got it and it made their day better or they learnt something, is that better? I mean, I would argue that is was. 

Joe Vaughan: I think so, massively. 

Megan: And then, that's the dangerous territory with anything that's digital. You can count against it. Well that's fine, 100 people saw it, but does it matter? 

Joe Vaughan: Exactly, 'Look how relevant we are.' But if there's been no meaningful engagement. 

Megan: Yes, this is it. We were saying earlier, in the pursuit of relevance sometimes the word and the definition of 'engagement' gets diluted, and it's seen purely in relation to what it means in terms of statistics, rather than that the word 'engagement' means how people are perceiving and interacting with you, and the ways they're doing that, and how deeply they're doing that as people, rather than just as accounts. 

Joe Vaughan: I think a lot about the perils of seeing museums as places like BuzzFeed. Even with relevance, I'm reminded of people saying, 'Wow, this feels so relevant, crying-while-laughing face,' and you want to make sure your work is relevant, but also you want to make sure your work is relevant. You don't want to just be engaging people for the sake of it, and I think that is a really slippery and dangerous slope, when people just start doing social media for the sake of social media performance only. And there have been examples more recently of accounts doing that. 

Sara: What accounts do you think are the best ones? 

Megan: They don't have to be museum accounts. You sent me a really good one the other day. 

Joe Vaughan: The account I sent to Meg the other day was the Teletubbies Twitter account, which is extremely good, and it's one that was not on my radar before, but I'm very glad it is now. Just extremely strong, extremely imaginative, and I think extremely successful too, because quite clearly they've worked out that if you're promoting Teletubbies, you are not going to do social media content for a target audience of 5-year-olds, because they are not on social media. Instead, you're going to do it for their mums and dads, and their parents, and their guardians, because they are on social media, so if you do a funny tweet of Tinky Winky with Ariana Grande's hair, replicating one of her cover albums, that's going to hit a market or an audience. So I think they're excellent. But I do have a few particular favourites, which are long-time crushes. In general, for the same reasons I said earlier, I feel a bit sceptical about branded social media, other than obviously Teletubbies, in general. 

My all-time favourite brand, there's no close competition, is Moon Pie, the American cookie brand, who have just made strangeness their territory, and have done it for so long so well, and I think they're the best example on social media of incredible copyrighting. It's just so weird. And I've never had a Moon Pie, and I probably can't have because I don't eat dairy, but if I could, I would. They're one of my favourites. And then another one is the US National Parks, who just have extremely special social media. These amazing photographs from the life of their parks with really funny captions, and it just makes me want to go to a national park right after this. 

Sara: We should go. Hop on a train, get out of Reading. 

Megan: I've got to go back to Leeds, mate. 

Sara: Joe, what's your favourite museum? 

Joe Vaughan: This is actually a very difficult question, because I've been to a lot of museums, but I wanted to go to a lot more when I started this job, and there's been a big old pandemic, hasn't there? So it's been, in some ways, a strange time to join the sector. But one of my favourite museums was when I went to a museum in Croatia in Zadar, it was the museum of Zadar natural history or something. They just had so many amazing exhibits about Zadar's Roman history and I was just really surprised, and all in incredible English and stuff like that. It's a very niche example and it's definitely not the kind of obvious example, but it really just made me aware of the imaginative power of museums and taking things you might never have thought of and just giving an extremely evocative image of it. I feel like I learned an awful lot about the city in two hours in that museum. Yes. I love museums. (TC 00:40:00) 

Sara: Great answer. 

Joe Vaughan: Thank you. 

Sara: Croatia. 

Joe Vaughan: Zadar has some good museums, actually. 

Sara: Yes. 

Joe Vaughan: There's a museum of Roman glass. It's like 3 floors. The Zadar museum of Roman glass. And the first gallery we went in, just amazing. Just lit up with different colours of glass, and we were like, oh my God, there is so much cool glass here. This is incredible. So much glass, oh my God. My heart is just, like, pounding. Like, glass. Jesus Christ. 

Sara: Didn't realise I loved glass. 

Joe Vaughan: I didn't realise I loved glass so much. Anyway, the next room we go into, glass everywhere, so much glass, yet again. And I was like, Jesus Christ, they were not lying, there is so much Roman glass in this place. I cannot believe the Romans made so much blooming glass. Anyway, next gallery, glass. You go up to the top floor and there's someone making glass. And he could have even been a Roman for all I know. The last Roman alive making glass in the glass museum. It really was a museum of glass and it was Roman glass in Zadar. You couldn't make it up. But I tell you, it was an amazing museum. So I went to that museum, but also something that really stayed with me from the Roman glass museum of Zadar. Let me tell you, they had this incredible glass banister. 

Sara: (inaudible 41.14) glass been so funny? 

Joe Vaughan: It's a very funny word, glass. And this is what I was saying earlier. I think as someone from the Midlands I'm able to switch between Northern and Southern. My mum's family are from Lancaster and my Dad's from Essex so I also have a birth right of switching between these two. I'm not some sort of pretender. But glass, anyway, so they had this amazing staircase with glass and the problem was that the glass had broken, hadn't it, so they had a sign saying careful, broken glass. And there was just something about that. I was like, that is a very powerful museum exhibit. This has not just been a staircase to floor 3 of the glass museum. This has been a staircase to discovery. 

Megan: My face hurts. 

Joe Vaughan: Not as much as that glass staircase though. All smashed up by some petulant Roman child, probably. Yes, Zadar was really good. 

Megan: Good, I'll go. 

Joe Vaughan: You should go. It has a sea organ as well. I'm not even joking. 

Sara: A sea organ? What's that? 

Joe Vaughan: It has a sea organ. 

Sara: Do you have a tourism board? 

Joe Vaughan: Zadar, I'm secretly a Croatian undercover agent. My name is actually Joe Voinovich. So alongside the glass museum they have a sea organ. My dad went to Zadar. 

Megan: Wait, a sea organ? 

Joe Vaughan: It's called a sea organ, yes, a sea organ. So my dad went to Zadar on holiday, and I think they went to a few cities in Croatia, basically, and I said to him, like, what was good about Zadar, what would you recommend? And he said, they've got a sea organ. And I was like, oh okay, what's that? And it's an organ that is powered by the sea. Where there's a wave that comes in, it goes brr, and another wave comes in, and it goes brr. And it's actually very haunting. It reminds me, you know, of the deep, ancient voice of the sea, speaking to me one strange, growling brr at a time. 

Sara: Oh my God. 

Joe Vaughan: Zadar has got a lot going on. 

Megan: A sea organ. 

Sara: Do you reckon we could get a trip there? 

Megan: Oh, we should. 

Joe Vaughan: If you're going to go to any museum in Zadar to do your podcast, you know where I think you should go. 

Sara: No, please enlighten us. 

Joe Vaughan: No, I'm going to let you guess. Zadar City Museum, about the public history of the city of Zadar. 

Sara: Yes, absolutely. 

Joe Vaughan: We did all the museums in Zadar that morning. And let me tell you, none left its mark on me like the Zadar Museum of Roman Glass. That really did. God, that's brought back a lot of memories. We should've started with that one, I feel so much more talkative. 

Sara: Oh God, that hurt. 

Megan: Okay right, one last quick-fire question, Joe. 

Joe Vaughan: Yes? 

Megan: What's your favourite museum thing? So, like, mine, I like shipwrecks. Adam, your predecessor, I know likes wagons. What's yours? 

Joe Vaughan: Adam absolutely loves wagons, actually. 

Megan: Yes, that's come up quite a lot. 

Joe Vaughan: Yes, definitely, he's a big wagon man. I think we used to call him wagon man, actually. I'm not even joking, I think they did. 

Sara: That's a cool nickname, though. 

Joe Vaughan: It is, yes. 

Sara: I'd like to be a wagon man. 

Joe Vaughan: One thing I really, really love is medieval manuscripts. 

Megan: I thought you were going to say glass. 

Joe Vaughan: Glass. Well, don't get me started on that. No, illuminated manuscripts are amazing, that in telling these stories, the kind of creative power that these monks brought to the pages is just extremely moving. 

Sara: They had a lot of time. 

Joe Vaughan: They did have a lot of time. And, you know, I love the mischief and the creativity, and at Reading Museum, we have a full-sized replica of the Bayeux Tapestry, and that, I think, is just incredibly special. I mean, it's Victorian, it was made by a group of embroiderers in the 1890s, and I think that same spirit of medieval manuscripts really carries through into that object. And something I love about that especially is that the embroiderers each added their names to the segments that they did, so it feels like an extremely personal object. I actually have a very funny story about this object. 

Megan: Hit me. 

Joe Vaughan: Okay. So, one of the main differences between our replica of the Bayeux Tapestry. I also don't actually know if I can say Bayeux right. I'm not Norman, I'm Joe. I'm just Joe. Yes, not a Norman, not a Roman, not a Croatian, not glass. In the original Bayeux tapestry, loads of the characters are naked. They're not wearing any trousers, and I don't think that's historically accurate. But I wouldn't know, I wasn't there, and I'm not going to assume anything, but in our version, a lot of the people are wearing trousers. Now, there was some talk that this was to do with the prudishness of the Victorian embroiderers, you know, that they were basing it on photographs taken by V&A archivists. There was a lot of talk that the women embroiderers had added trousers, you know, put it away lads, to these sort of Norman knights. But then it turned out that actually, the people who added the trousers were the V&A archivists, it wasn't the embroiderers. So trousers had been sketched on by the V&A staff, and something that's really funny is they actually missed a few naked men in their photographs that they were sketching on, and those details made it through into our version. So clearly the embroiderers were just basing it on what they saw, and when, you know, there was a naked body, they brought it in. 

Sara: I remember you taking me through this story last time I was here. 

Joe Vaughan: It's really cool, actually. I would recommend coming to both museums. And they're free. 

Megan: Joe, at the end of every episode, we ask our guests the same three questions. The first question is, what's been your favourite day at work? 

Joe Vaughan: Today. 

Sara: Yes. 

Megan: Correct. 

Joe Vaughan: One of my favourite moments of work, actually, has been, well I'm lucky in working for two museums that are both very supportive actually, but in The Museum of English Rural Life, there was a tradition of having a coffee time every day at 11 o'clock, where people would convene in the staff room and just have a coffee or a biscuit or whatever, and we're actually recording this in a room that used to be the staff room, so we are carrying that on as we (inaudible 47.44) today. But throughout the pandemic, especially at the start of the pandemic, we had an online coffee time every day, which was just like, 11 o'clock, people would hop on for half an hour, and just chat about whatever. Whether it was just the perilous loneliness of the pandemic, or the giddiness of chatting to other people, combined. But there were a few of those times where it was just absolutely hilarious what people were talking about, and I can't even go into describing it because it's just too deranged. That's been my favourite thing. I don't know about a favourite day. I kind of struggle to even keep track of days anymore, because they all blend into one. 

Sara: The last question is our twofold question. You've kind of already answered this earlier but you can have another crack at it if you want. 

Joe Vaughan: Like an egg. 

Sara: Yes, sure. So, for everything you've talked about today, what's the big takeaway for our listeners about what you do? And, by natural extension, what is your literal actual favourite takeaway? 

Joe Vaughan: Oh, easy. My favourite takeaway is Kung Fu Kitchen, which is up the road from The MERL. Amazing Chinese food, amazing vegan Chinese food as well, which is not as common, so shout out to Joanna and her family because it's a really special, cool place. But I think the biggest takeaway from today is, one, there's a lot of glass in the glass museum, two, think of social media as a tool for complimenting the work of your museum, and not something you have to master for its own sake. I actually think by doing that you remove a lot of the pressure from social media too, because, you know, there's this whole sense of, like, how can I be good at social media, how do I improve, and actually the answer to that question is don't worry about it too much. Worry is the wrong word. Just focus on being creative, sharing your collections in interesting ways that take your audience into account. And this is a harder one, but I was going to say try and have fun with it, but obviously there are collections where that's not appropriate, so try and think about the potential for digital technology to engage new audiences and build on that in a way that's specific in tone, and informed to your organisation. I think that's what I'd say. And do it with a spirit of curiosity about what might come out of it as well, because you never know, and we're definitely a case in point here. You never know (TC 00:50:00) what could come out of a few Tweets. 

Sara: Fabulous. I use an easel from here from my wedding (inaudible 50.08). Whoopsie. Have I ever told you about the time that I did (inaudible 50.12)? 

Megan: Have I told you later that I love you? In fact, do you know what, I'll save that for the next episode. 

Sara: Okie-doke. Easel talk. 

Megan: I think, all things considered, firstly that was the most delirious episode that we've ever filmed. 

Sara: Filmed? 

Megan: Recorded. I'd slept for like, five hours, we were both riddled with anxiety from our trip that we did, extremely hot, there was just lots going on. But we did ultimately have, like, the best time, didn't we? 

Sara: Oh yes, definitely. It was really lovely and Joe made us feel really welcome and it was great. And everyone actually at The MERL is so lovely. 

Megan: Angela. Anyway, what was your favourite part of that episode? 

Sara: Glass. 

Megan: Yes, that was mine as well. 

Sara: Sorry, I know we were talking about it lots, but it was absolutely hilarious, because no-one said the word glass so many times that it becomes nonsensical. 

Megan: Also, I edited so much. I had to edit so much of that down, because so much of it was just us all crying. 

Sara: It's ridiculous. 

Megan: And doing really ugly crying, and like Kim Kardashian crying. That's what I love about Joe. He's such a funny person, but in such a beautifully, like, creative-writing sort of way. He's just such a wordsmith, isn't he? I actually love Joe. 

Sara: That's your favourite thing of the episode, you just love Joe. 

Megan: I know, I just think he's a really lovely person and I'm really glad that I know him. Enough of that. 

Sara: Enough about that. 

Megan: Enough about all that emotional stuff. What do we do now? 

Sara: That's a very grand gesture. 

Megan: I literally just flung my hand at Sara. What do we do now, what do we say? 

Sara: I've been informed that I need to tell you to subscribe if you want to. Leave us a review. That would be really great. 

Megan: We've had a couple of recent really nice reviews, actually. Also, by the way, if you're in America, because I think about 10% of our listeners are in America, can you firstly invite us over, and secondly, just let us know, I'd like to know more about you. 

Sara: Yes. That would be excellent. 

Megan: Yes, drop us a message. If you want to drop us a message, actually, you can do @LeedsMuseums on Twitter. And then I'm @MuseumMeg and you're @saralmerritt. And then, thanks to Al Finney who did our cover artwork and to Timmy Bentley, who did our theme tune for us. I think that's it. See you in episode 2 then. 

Sara: See you then. 

Megan: Bye.