News & Announcements, Artificial Intelligence
Ian Hawthorne
New Year, New Media - January News

January ushered in a new year with sweeping disruptions in media, journalism, and public humanities. Technology-driven partnerships, staff cuts, and mergers have redefined the online media landscape kicking-off 2025, calling into question journalism’s position in an age of generative AI. Read the highlights below. 

New Year, New Media - January News
Fundraising, Management
Ian Hawthorne
Crafting Grant Narratives - Approaches to ...

The grant narrative has become one of the most high-stakes tools of communication in the nonprofit fundraising space, driving more than $150 billion in global expenditures. As grant writers adapt their appeals in response to changing funder values, this narrative network gives shape to the nonprofit ecosystem in which many arts organizations operate.

Crafting Grant Narratives - Approaches to Justifying Arts Funding
museums, Extended Reality
Staff Researcher
Psychological Impacts of VR Experiences and ...

Exposure to nature can positively influence one’s mental well-being. As VR technology seeks to recreate elements of life, its developers and prospective adopters must keep asking one very important question: how deeply can VR impact us? And, what might the implications be for museums?

Psychological Impacts of VR Experiences and Their Implications for Museums
Arts & Technology, Digital Futures, Emerging Technology
Brett Ashley Crawford, Ph.D.
Your 2024 Favorite Reads

It is always fun to take a moment as we close out a year to compare our favorite content to the popularity contest of the web. AI, Sustainability, and Preservation with technology led the charge. Keep reading for the most popular articles and podcasts.

Your 2024 Favorite Reads
Artificial Intelligence, creative industries
Staff Researcher
Artificial Intelligence’s Involvement in the ...

As AI continues to integrate into our everyday lives, how does it impact our creativity? Many researchers and scholars agree that the technology may promote significant opportunities in this space. By introducing novel ideas and opportunities to users, it may be most effective as a tool to augment, rather than replace, human creativity.

Artificial Intelligence’s Involvement in the Human Creative Process

white paper

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The Streaming War During the Covid-19 Pandemic

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The Streaming War During the Covid-19 Pandemic

The Covid-19 pandemic has drastically disrupted all business sectors, including the arts, culture, and entertainment industries. Unfortunately, the Covid-19 pandemic’s impacts are far more permanent for an audience-oriented industry that requires a high level of engagement. The business model might be fundamentally changed and there will certainly be a shift in how content is produced and consumed. While lockdowns and social distancing measures to contain the pandemic have had a huge impact on the traditional movie industry, the video streaming model seems to be the greatest beneficiary in this difficult time as people are isolated at home, which is the ideal condition for binge-watching. This white paper looks at the status of the streaming industry before and after the first Covid-19 outbreak.

White Paper Wednesday: Wearables and the Performing Arts

In 2014, Google Glass had emerged as the leader in wearable technology available on the market. Today, while Google Glass has receded to the fringe of conversations about Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality, wearables have re-entered the mainstream consciousness, and wide-spread adoption feels inevitable.

These trends considered, today's featured white paper from 2014, Performing Arts in the Wearable Age by Thomas Rhodes and Samuel Allen, is a fascinating look back at predictions and projections from just two years ago. 

While many things have changed since 2014, this paper's focus on current uses of wearable technology, future implications, opportunities and concerns for performing arts organizations are as useful as ever. The authors' discussion of the hardware specs of wearable devices is particularly nuanced. Equally relevant are the various uses and exciting windows for wearable implementation in music, theatre, and beyond.

While many of the projections cited in this publication might not hold water today, today's current events indicate that widespread adoption of AR/VR is near. From Pokemon Go to continuing developments in Oculus, it is clear that arts organizations will soon have no choice but to confront this exciting and game-changing trend.

 

Banner image by Dan Leveille via Wikimedia Commons, licensed under Creative Commons

White Paper Wednesday: Navigating the Cloud

White Paper Wednesday: Navigating the Cloud

At the time of this paper's initial publication in 2014, 96% of US adults relied on the cloud on a regular basis. It is safe to say that cloud based computing has only become more common in the last two years, and it is important for arts administrators and technologists to understand the basic functionality of the cloud now more than ever.

New Publication: Silicon Valley Struggle

New Publication: Silicon Valley Struggle

In the 21st century, wealth is beginning to concentrate in new fields like technology as opposed to traditional industries. With this in mind, how can arts organizations go about soliciting financial support from this new class of wealthy-elite? This white paper by Jennifer Moreci answers this question by looking at current patterns in philanthropy and specific strategies for engaging donors in Silicon Valley. Read the full report here.

How Technology Can Support Artistic Collaborations

How Technology Can Support Artistic Collaborations

As technology continues to shrink the world we live in by bridging communities across the globe, collaborations between artists separated by space are becoming more common. In this white paper, AMT Lab contributor Nora Fleury looks at the ways new technologies are influencing this increased collaboration. With a specific focus on team communication applications and cloud-based document sharing systems, this is a useful resource for managers struggling to foster communication between artists separated by geography. Click here for the full report. 

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Need a new ticketing system?

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Some folks have had difficulty opening the report within the Firefox browser. We are working to resolve the situation. In the meantime, you can right-click on the link and select "Save Link As" to download the report to your computer.  You can view the report without issue via Chrome, Safari or Internet Explorer. Thank you for your patience.

Click to access the 2011 Ticketing Software Survey.

Click here to download the survey report. Photo: Gyorgy Kovacs via Flickr.

The 2011 Ticketing Software Satisfaction Survey Report is now available! In it you can find information on the most popular ticketing systems for organizations of your size, rankings of popular features and functions, and a 5-step guide to choosing a ticketing system, complete with questions to ask vendors.

Based on feedback from last year's survey, we added several questions to this year's survey:

  • questions regarding new technological features, like mobile and social media integration
  • questions differentiating web-based vs. desktop software (hosted on the client’s computer or server)
  • question about ticket consortiums and outsourcing

Key Findings: There were several findings of interest that resulted from the study:

  • Universally, organizations choose online sales (91% of respondents) and credit card processing (90% of respondents) as the most critical ticketing system functions.
  • Approximately 1/3 of ticketing software users indicated that they had inherited their current ticketing system from a previous employee--they had no role in choosing the system they are using now.
  • About 30% of organizations outsourced or shared in a consortium at least one aspect of their box office operations, either for online sales, phone orders, walk-up sales, or discounts.
  • Organizations classified as "small" and "mid-sized" (budgets under $3 million) indicated the most important factors in their software choice were price and user-friendliness, while "large" and "very large" (budgets over $3 million) prioritized customization and specific functions and features.

If you are a ticket vendor, box office manager or staff member, house manager, business manager, executive director, board member, marketing staff, or anyone else who has contact with a box office ticketing software system, then this report is for you.

Download the survey report today!

And please share with colleagues by clicking the "ShareThis" icon below.

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Fair Use of Dance-Related Materials: A Discussion

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In response to CAMT's "Social Media, Video Footage and the Law" white paper, Lisa Niedermeyer from Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival contacted us with a related video about fair use as it relates to dance-related materials. As the white paper mentions, fair use can be a nebulous concept as far as what, how, and how much copyrighted material can be legally used. The video is a more detailed discussion of The Dance Heritage Coalition's published statement "Best Practices in Fair Use of Dance-Related Materials". It features curators, archivists, documentary filmmakers, librarians and other collectors of dance-related materials discussing what they currently regard as reasonable application of the Copyright Act's fair use doctrine.