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Madweasels Wrote:Well, getting the funds out of the clients to do any sort of public access work is the responsibility of the Project Manager, is it not?...
Eeerr, no, the job of a PM is to get the job done within budget and to a standard suffient to fulfill the brief. If he starts badgering (sorry, maybe the wrong word...) the client for money over and above what's specified to discharge the planning constraint or whatever (which by and large is the only thing they're interested in) he's going to be looking for a new client, and if he loses enough clients probably a new job. It's down to whoever writes the brief to include PR stuff, ie the curator. It's merely the PMs job to fulfill any such requirements on behalf of the client
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Well, you don't say Dino. Hey - let's just assume I knew that, humour me why don't you, and that my sentence was taking it for granted that there was a brief for the job. Now try and take on board what I was saying, that it is the responsibility of the PM to get the funds for such work out of the clients. Any room for fine tuning the costs of the project during negotiations? Yes? Well, I wonder which bit gets pared down first, the fieldwork, post-ex, archiving or outreach? OK, it is likely to be the archiving, but next comes the outreach. And note what I say before you go off on one - what gets 'pared' down, not eliminated. There is still a brief to fulfill.
And it is 'merely' their job to fulfill any such requirements then? Phew, thank heavens for that. Wouldn't want to think that their job was in any way important and full of responsibilities to the archaeology and fellow archaeologists, now would we.
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Of course I guess one way to get the information out there in a colourful user friendly manner, with all the trappings of professional magazine publication and totally free of charge at the point of download..... is to write an article for Past Horizons magazine.....(Is that enough plugging Maggie?).....
With peace and consolation hath dismist, And calm of mind all passion spent...
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If the outreach is in the spec, and it's not happenning, the curator surely shouldn't be signing-off the planning condition? In fact the curator should be ensuring that all points in the spec are satisfied to an adequate standard, so there shouldn't be any 'robbing Peter to pay Paul' stuff going on in the contractor's costings to the client, everything should be under specific budget headings - quoting a fixed single sum is just commercial suicide
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Dinosaur Wrote:If the outreach is in the spec, and it's not happenning, the curator surely shouldn't be signing-off the planning condition? In fact the curator should be ensuring that all points in the spec are satisfied to an adequate standard, so there shouldn't be any 'robbing Peter to pay Paul' stuff going on in the contractor's costings to the client, everything should be under specific budget headings - quoting a fixed single sum is just commercial suicide
Of course in Uo1 land there would be no curator}  , and even if the curator survives Uo1s brave new world we won't see any outreach associated with any pre-application trial trenching/fieldwalking/test-pitting/geophysics/earthwork-survey/metal-detecting survey work - because if this is being done before the start the official planning procedure then it's apparently none of the curators business:face-stir:.
Yes curators can, and should, do a lot more to get outreach built into specifications/briefs - and the PPS5 guidance paper is useful in this respect - but the shoulder of burden should not wholly fall on them. We are all archaeologists and we can all do our bit, it doesn't have to be big and it doesn't have to be expensive. Archaeological contracotrs could use outreach as a way to add value to their work, something that some - by all means not all - clients may see a possitive selling point. I certainly have been involved with a number of schemes, including (or perhaps especially) contraversial ones, where the developer is keen to employ the possitive outreach output that archaeology can readily achieve.
Kevin's suggestion that
kevin wooldridge Wrote:one way to get the information out there in a colourful user friendly manner, with all the trappings of professional magazine publication and totally free of charge at the point of download..... is to write an article for Past Horizons magazine..... does indeed provide a (relitively) easy way to get information out there - but who is this information reaching? We need to make sure that we're reaching new audiences and getting the local community involved - not just providing readilly accessible pieces that are only read by archaeologist/those who are interested enough to look for them. How many school children for example read Past Horizons (I honestly don't know and this isn't meant to be taken as a slight on the magazine!)?
In my experience the part of archaeology that really captures the public's imagination is seeing the work being done and the finds that are made - the "wow to think the last person to use this bowl was a medieval monk" or "its amazing to think the last person who stood on this bit of road was a Roman" type comments. Opportunities to get hands on with the process or the objects or even to see an active archaeological site are (to my mind) a much more powerful outreach tool than just reading a pdf article.
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No worries about the Past Horizons comment.. it is true.. and once again it comes to the question of dissemination... user interface etc...
The real issue is to get the schools to know about where to go... HEACS should lead the way... and getting onto the teachers network to promote resources. this is where an ability to aggregate as well as promote individual groups becomes an issue. If I want to know about what happened in my area, I don't want to have to go to every individual website and download from a variety of places... if everyone attached the following as basic data...
Name of site, Name of Company, Periods, nearest town, county, and georeferenced location plus link to pdf, then anyone could utilise the info to aggregate a search engine. same with Past Horizons articles... same with local group reports!
finding what you need, as quick and easy is one of my pet hobbies... I love it. :face-thinks:
pps... Kevin is not on a retrainer for Past Horizons... he is just a very lovely man (cheque is in the post as well!  )
pppps Past Horizons is going to change soon though... from the flip page system to an image rich, news rich and article rich system, this will allow for scoops and latest news, rather than be stuck with 3 monthly. Easier to search and find... PLUS the articles will still be of teh same high standard. and free... I am looking at a print system to.
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28th July 2010, 01:03 PM
(This post was last modified: 28th July 2010, 01:04 PM by Dinosaur.)
Think there seems to be some confusion about the role of a commercial contractor, which is to do what the client pays them to do (think the word 'contractor' rather gives it away!). I agree that professionally outreach is a laudable aim, but commercially it ain't gonna happen unless the client is forced or pursuaded in some way to pay for it (except for those rather rare occasions where they actually seem to be quite keen on it - am in the middle of writing a publication piece now for one such, but it doesn't happen often). IFA can say what they want about what a good idea it is, but without some leverage of clients from curators it will remain a rare occurrence :face-stir:
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Yeah, big clients are usually only interested in pushing their twisted version of events to the media.
Like how 'gas engineers discovered....' and 'archaeologists were stunned...' and those construction company directors saying stuff like '..these sites are very important because.....' when in fact they were heard saying things like '...why the f@@@k are them b@@tard hippies still here.' etc.
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I think that out reach is quite a good thing if you want to set up a charity using the words archaeology or archaeological. You put the concept of Out Reach almost at the top of your Charity Articles. It works every time. Looks good in the accounts too
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Dino is patronising again! Please stop it. Yes, commercial archaeologists do what they are contracted to do - that's what I do too - but in my experience there is always a phase of negotiations BEFORE the moment when it is agreed what the client is buying - indeed, there is often an on-going discussion throughout the length of the project about the needs of the heritage assets - well, hopefully. Many briefs do contain the requirement for outreach and public access, but how often does all of that which is initially desired actually see the light of day? How much gets pared down because of reticence on the part of the client to pay for more than is necessary - and, I repeat not eliminated but pared down? I doubt if there is any research out there into what was initially expected and what was actually delivered - all very difficult to quantify and shrouded, no doubt, under that catch all 'commercially sensitive' excuse.
I believe that PMs, because they are in the vanguard of our profession ought to be among the lead advocates in our discipline, together with consultants, of all aspects of archaeological endeavour. I believe they ought to be the best of archaeologists managerially, academically and ethically - and their employers should see to it that they get maximum training in all manner of things commensurate with their roles at the lead of our discipline. Curators and museum archaeologists can propose, suggest - insist even - but the onus lies on others in the commercial sector (consultants and contractors) to see, through diligent advocacy, that clients understand the benefits (corporate social responsibility) of public archaeology.
So Dino, please stop thinking that some of us are confused about roles - we just believe that there ought to be a more collective effort to promote archaeology, its benefits and whatever good things about it are at the top of every archaeologist's list of worthy things about archaeology. To insist that contractors are there just to do what their clients pay them to do is, I am sorry to say, an extremely sad indictment of how fragmented the archaeological profession has become over the last 20 years or so. For the record, I have seen a lot of changes since my first job in the early 80s, but never more so than now. Dino's comments, though he would say that he is being realistic and I am an idealist, are depressing to say the very least. It is sad that even the mere suggestion from one group of archaeologists that we should ALL in our profession seek to promote, advocate and demonstrate public benefit of archaeology is met by the retort from some that it is 'just not what I get paid to do'.
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