Want a chat? Fancy a mock interview?

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Few of us are able to get out much at present, but it should not stand in the way of meeting up and having a chat. In fact, I can give you a prime autumnal view of a Scottish Golf course without you travelling north.

If you are needing a friendly face or voice to let off steam, share an idea or want a bit of knowledge about the sector, book yourself a slot.

Book a 20 minute slot by inserting your name, how we can do it and what you want to do :-)

Interview preparation or mock interview, a chat over coffee, chat about a project idea (in confidence), want to know how to … if I have done it, I am happy to share what went well, what it cost and what did or didn’t work.

These are activities I have been doing with friends for years and in these days of redundancies, increasing numbers of museum professionals are turning to freelancer work. I am one of those and I hope this free service will help you, whatever your situation.

If you wish to buy me a virtual coffee or send me a donation from your first new salary they won’t be refused.

Select your time and I will call you and we can have a chat, no strings but hopefully some movement for you in the forward direction.



Calendar of Museums Association Conference 2020

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The Museums Association Conference of 2020 was supposed to be in Edinburgh. A must attend destination for museum conferences IMHO. COVID-19 has driven the event online. Called World Turned Upside Down: Exploring the Future of Museums it has a wide appeal for professionals in culture with contemporary topics of the day; Black Lives Matter, Digital Engagement, Career Support, etc. Secretary of the Smithsonian Lonnie Bunch is being interviewed by David Lammy, MP and there are evening socials with TV watch parties.

Today, I was looking through the programme and selecting what I would like to attend, copy and pasting to my calendar to see where I was free, and help next week for getting the Zoom link etc. There was a lot of clicking!

It occurred to me I may not be the only one doing this exercise and so I have created a Google Calendar with all event details, times and the zoom link from the MA website*.

You can use this to view events in a calendar format at a glance, select events to add to your Google calendar or import it all into your calendar of choice**.

Below are instructions for how to use including if you are not Google user, you can still import it to your own calendar choice.

Sadly, I cannot test the PC interface, however I assume it will be working, if not, please tweet me @markmacleo and I can see if I can help.

* All details were copy and pasted from MA website 1/11/20, if they update the programme or change details they will not be updated on the Calendar.

**I don’t have access to test the PC compatibility, please let me know if it does or doesn’t work.

Google User: how to add to your Google Calendar

  1. click ‘Add to Google Calendar’ button

  2. opens Google calendar

  3. select event you are interested in to see more information

  4. if you want to add to your Google calendar select ‘copy to my calendar’, or close box

  5. repeat steps 3-5 as needed

Other calendar users: how to Import to your calendar

  1. click ‘Import to non Google Calendar’ button

  2. Computer will show message ‘You have chosen to open basic.ics file’ [or similar]

  3. select ‘open with’ default option

  4. Data of events for week 2-6 November 2020 at Museums Association Conference and Zoom links will import to your calendar

This is a little experiment aimed to make people’s lives a bit easier and reduce work involved organising your calendar and spend more time deciding on what talks to see and be better prepared for the conference. My email is markmacleo@gmail.com or tweet @markmacleo if any questions or to confirm it works 😁

Unfortunately, this was not shared publicly because I discovered the Zoom links were all behind the paywall for Museums Association. I shared the frustration I had booking the times and how the above solution worked, however, because the desire was to permit access to Members they preferred this calendar not to be shared.

That said, it improved my skills and knowledge on using Google Calendar and I have a new idea how to use it for this website, next experiment, please!