The arts and technology communities are coming together this week to explore a new framework which looks at the power of technology through art.
10 Takeaways From the 2011 Emerging Practice Seminar
CultureLab, a partnership between an informal consortium of arts consultants and the Cultural Policy Center (CPC) at the University of Chicago, recently held an 'Emerging Practice Seminar' in April. The organization was formed to break down the silos of research, policy and practice, and create a new capacity and approach to tackling challenging issues. The topics at this year's seminar were:
- Uses of technology in audience engagement
- Revenue management and dynamic pricing
The seminar's website features all of the speakers' presentations (both videos and slides) and is an extremely helpful resource!
Here were my top 10 takeaways from the 'Use of Technology in Audience Engagement' portion of the seminar.
1. Embrace technological innovation, there's nothing to fear! Tim Roberts of ARTS Australia provided an introduction to the day's topics. Tim's introduction called attention to the unfortunate fact that any arts managers and organizations still view technology as something they are fighting against. He quoted NEA chairmen Rocco Landsman as saying "the arts are battling the technology invasion". Roberts argues that many also believed cable television to be the death of television and photography to be the death of painting and that technical innovation has not caused the death of an artform but has contributed to its spread and created new audiences.
Uses of Technology in Audience Engagement - Tim Roberts from Cultural Policy Center on Vimeo.
2. Engagement is an ongoing process: Technology is least effective when it's not used in a proper context of engagement. This process of engagement often begins prior to the audience coming through the doors. Likewise, the process shouldn't end after the performance or visit ends. Technology can help to provide context to a piece of art or performance, personalize the experience and even augment the experience. There are many options when it comes to sustaining a deeper level of audience engagement.
3. Layered Arts Experiences are cool! This type of technology has been extremely underutilized in the performing arts sector. Layered Arts Experiences offer audiences options for real-time assistance imperative during arts programs. They can come in the form of supertitles for opera and dance performances. The Columbus Symphony Orchestra had a device called the 'Concert Companion' which enabled patrons to read something about the piece they were hearing as they listened to the concert.
4. Museums continue to lead the way when it comes to adapting technology: Another common theme during the seminar was the overwhelming lack of technological innovation in performing arts organizations. Even though there were examples of organizations using layered arts experience tools and mobile interactions, it seemed as though they were few and far between and many had even stopped using these tools.
5. The verdict is still out on Tweet Seats: A 'Tweet Seat' is simply a seat reserved in a theater for Twitter users. Tweet Seats have many benefits, including: encouraging a younger audience demographic to get involved in the performance, having this demographic spread the word about the performance to their Twitter followers, and cutting down on distracting other audience members by blocking off a section for Twitter users. The question, however, remains whether or not people can truly become immersed in a performance if they are multi-tasking with other technological devices.
6. Mobile Interaction isn't just limited to QR Codes in Museums Ron Evans of Group of Minds had some great ideas about ways to engage audiences via mobile devices. Evans suggested placing a QR Code on tickets for previews of the show. Evans also suggested distributing digital keepsakes after shows. He also discussed the importance of using these mobile technologies in the proper context of audience engagement. Unfortunately, most technology has focused on the pre-performance and pre-sale with the sole intention of making the sale and increasing attendance. Engaging audiences should also involve increasing their understanding and appreciation of an artform. The 'during' and 'after' is just as important to leading people to the next experience.
Mobile Interaction: adding content and context - Ron Evans from Cultural Policy Center on Vimeo.
7. Location Based Servies has a long way to go: Devon Smith presented the findings of a research study she conducted on arts organizations using location based services. Location Based Service is simply a service that uses the geographical position of a mobile device (Foursquare, Yelp, Google Maps). Applications like Foursquare can be useful in providing real-time analytics on the demographic of those who are "checking in" to a venue. Smith's study found that only 36% of the 76 nonprofit theatres she tracked, had properly claimed their venues on Foursquare, yet 97% of the venues had a mayor. Even though claimed venues had 3% more activity, the real-time analytic information could be very useful to any organization.
8. Blogging Isn't Dead!: Thomas Wickell of Malmo Opera shared one of the most interesting case studies of the day. Wickell emphasized the importance of viewing the stage from the audience's perspective as opposed to looking out at the audience from the stage. With this key distinction in mind, Wickell and his team found that the audience they wanted to attract was not responsive to traditional channels of advertisement (newspapers, television, etc). Since most of their target audience were highly engaged online, the team created a blog that was centered around the life of a character in an upcoming opera. The blog became so popular, at one point in time, traffic to the blog surpassed that of the company's main website! The staff even invited readers to a ceremony for the character (since she does not survive) and over 100 people came to pay tribute to her life. The blog can still be found here!
9. Technological Innovation Often Requires a Culture Change Within an Organization : Linda Garrison and Thomas Weitz at Steppenwolf Theatre gave an overview of helpful practices for creating video content. An important theme during this presentation was the importance of finding allies when seeking to implement any changes. Whether designing a new video campaign or placing QR codes on marketing material, implementing new technology can often mean a culture change within an organization. Finding out who your champions, advocates and contributors are beforehand can make a world of difference when proposing any sort of change. It's also well worth your time to watch the Steppenwolf videos here.
10. Know Your Target! The Steppenwolf and Malmo case studies highlighted the importance of understanding who the target audience is prior to implementing any of the strategies and tools listed above. Steppenwolf researched and found their audience tended to be highly educated, comfortable with direct marketing and confined to a very specific geographic location. As a result, Steppenwolf decided that an online video campaign could be effective in engaging their audience. The Malmo Opera worked backward and began by envisioning what type of audience they wanted to attract. Either way, this process is extremely effective when the target audience is clearly defined.
What's the Big Idea? 5 Key Takeaways from the Museums and the Web Conference
Arts and Technology Round-up: Museums and the Web Edition
Happy Friday everyone! For this arts and technology round-up we decided to try and hone in on a few of the awesome projects that we saw at the Museums and the Web conference last week. Up first are our picks of some of the best and most innovative projects. After that, the winners of the Best of the Web 2011 awards from the conference.
Technology In The Arts Picks
Zooniverse - This group marries together the researching needs of the scientific/historical communities and the power of crowdsourcing. By creating a series of interactive web portals, Zooniverse creates communities of "Citizen Scientists".
PhilaHistory - Philly based GIS firm Azavea worked with the City of Philadelphia to create a platform for linking historical photos of the city to their real world locations using geo-location and augmented reality.
One To One with the Artist: Ai Weiwei - A simple idea with a great effect, this project from the Tate allowed museum visitors to record and upload a video in the gallery and have a video dialogue with the artist Ai Weiwei.
The WALL - The Museum of Copenhagen's giant multi-touch multimedia screen installed in one of the central squares of Copenhagen.
ARTfinder - A new recommendation engine for artwork, this site works very much like Last.fm, taking your current interests and using them to introduce you to new works.
The Collective - Sounding a little bit like a bad 50's sci-fi flick, The Collective is the Denver Art Museum's interactive website/online programming space and a new way of connecting and bringing in the Denver community.
MoMA Learn - An extremely in-depth arts education web portal, the Museum of Modern Art's education department went all out on this one.
ARtours - The Stedelijk Museum's innovative augmented reality program.
The Best of the Web 2011
Education & Best Overall: The ACMI Generator
Mobile: The AB EX NY iPad app
Exhibition: Henri Cartier-Bresson: The Modern Century
Social Media: One to One with the Artist: Ai Weiwei
Innovative: Nationnaal Historisch Museum / Museum of National History
Museum Professional & People's Choice: Smithsonian Web and New Media Strategy Wiki
Long-Lived: Exploratorium.org
Research/Online Collection: Portable Antiquities Scheme
Audio/Visual/Podcast: Access All Areas podcast
Project by a Small Institution: ASI: Archaeology Scene Investigations in North County Louth
Museums and the Web 2011 - Thomas's Recap
The 2011 edition of the international Museums and the Web conference wrapped up this past Saturday and was a 4-day whirlwind of presentations and workshops. Presentations covered many of the exciting new technology projects currently in place and coming up from museums around the world. Topics at the conference ran the gamut from mobile technology to augmented reality to ways of creating interactive communities of constituents online.
All of the papers from the conference can be found online at the Museums and the Web’s conference website. Here are just a few of the themes and tidbits that stood out to me from the 4-day conference:
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Crowdsourcing - Now in 6 delicious flavors!
I attended an unconference session, roundtable talks with topics proposed by conference attendees, that aimed to crowdsource the idea of crowdsourcing. The overall feel I got from the discussion was that many museums are taking crowdsourcing very seriously these days. The talk brought up a lot of cool new projects, ranging from including constituents in collections and archives work to new ways to display crowdsourced material.
Johan Oomen, Head of Research of the Netherlands Institute for Sound and Vision, presented his ideas on how crowdsourcing can now be defined in 6 distinct ways:
Out of the Museum, into the streets - taking advantage of geo-location
Geo-location was a popular theme, using GPS and mapping to take information and media from the museum and attach it to a location. Many presentations touched on how this idea could really help visitors build a strong connection to the history and importance of objects and sites of a community.
Some notable projects included PhilaPlace and the Rock Art Mobile Project.
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Access, access, and more access
There was a lot of discussion around how to not only get more content on the web, but also make that content easily accessible. The types of content being made available on the web, for free, ranged from things like online collections to projects like online teaching portals. There was a general call to standardize access to this content and data and to use more open systems to encourage data sharing among organizations.
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Intuitive design - What's the point of building it if no one can figure out how to use it?
The conference featured a variety of opportunities for museum professionals to gain feedback on their projects, one of the most popular being the Mobile Crit Room. A reoccurring theme of these critiques was the emphasis placed on the user experience, how easy was it for someone to use your mobile app/website? The Rock Art Mobile Project led the charge, along with a few others, in insisting that any project's user experience needs to be designed in a way that is both intuitive and immediately easy to use. Building around this concept will ensure that users of all ages and skill levels can take part in a project, not just the tech-savvy ones.
Check out the range of mobile projects from the conference’s Mobile Parade.
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So now you want to build an mobile program? Better be up on some of the new business models.
One of the most informative presentations I attended was the “Getting on (not under) the Mobile 2.0 bus”. This talk featured case studies by MoMA, SFMOMA, Balboa Park and the Smithsonian on the new business models that now exist for developing a mobile program.
Some of the subjects from the presentation included: Digital retail (app/download sales), Donations (e.g. by text message), Sponsorship and ad-supported content, Monetizing data from mobile social media and Using mobile to support membership and other revenue channels. The full paper is available here.
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The Rise of the Mobile Internet
Kristen Purcell, from the Pew Research Center Internet and American Life Project, gave the opening plenary of the conference. Kristen presented on some of the changes in technology from 2000 to 2011. Some pretty surprising stats were thrown up during the presentation. Among them:
- 1 in 3 adults do not have broadband Internet access.
- 69% of Internet users watch online video content, 14% of Internet users upload/create video content.
- 85% of adults will own a cell phone by 2011, making 2011 really the Year of the Mobile. (Purcell stated respondents had difficulty being able to distinguish between what was and was not a smartphone, so that statistic was not available)
- Mobile usage varied among different ethnic groups, Latinos and African Americans were shown to be in the highest percentage of users actively engaging with mobile content.
- 11% of mobile users use their phones to make charitable donations. (These numbers may be skewed by mobile donation drives for large natural disasters like Hurricane Katrina and the recent earthquakes in Japan)
- 35% of adult mobile users have apps on their phones, but only 24% use them.
- The 90:9:1 rule for understanding the level of engagement on social media. It states that 90% of social media users are lurkers, just observing content and never really interacting or contributing. 9% are regular contributors, the ones who often like, retweet or comment on online content. 1% are the super users - always online, always engaged.
These were just a few highlights, for me, of the conference. Coming up, Molly will do her recap on what she found interesting at Museums & the Web 2011. Definitely go to the Museums & the Web conference site to check out all of the presented papers from the conference.
NAMP 2010 - Day Three - Chip Conley and Providing the Peak Arts Experience
To conclude the 2010 National Arts Marketing Project Conference, Chip Conley delivered an inspired closing plenary to encourage arts organizations to provide "peak" experiences based upon their audience's hierarchy of needs. Conley is the author of Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow, an arts lover, as as the founder and CEO of the Joie de Vivre Hospitality. In his address, Conley shares his unique prescription for success based upon Maslow's classic Hierarchy of Needs. Conley illustrates how audiences are ultimately motivated by peak experiences and discusses how arts organizations can give those experiences to their audiences. Americans for the Arts streamed Conley's presentation live via Livestream. The recorded version is embedded below. (Skip to the 16 minute point to get to Conley's presentation.)
Watch live streaming video from 2010 National Arts Marketing Project Conference at livestream.com
NAMP 2010 - Day Two - Recap Discussions
David, Corwin and Amelia report out on Day Two of the 2010 National Arts Marketing Project Conference. Items discussed: disembodied panelists, Vimeo analytics, the Audience Engagement Platform, the value of quantifying intrinsic impact, and more.
NAMP 2010 - Day One - Recap Discussions
David, Corwin and Amelia report out on Day One of the 2010 National Arts Marketing Project Conference. Items discussed: keynote by Chip Heath, breakout sessions (pros and cons), designing conferences for people with varied experience levels, social media rock stars, and more.
On the Way to San Jose & NAMP 2010
Corwin, Amelia and I are heading out to San Jose for the National Arts Marketing Project (NAMP) Conference this weekend.
In addition to presenting a panel on using performance video to motivate audiences and leading roundtables on Twitter and search engine optimization (SEO), we will be interviewing various presenters and arts marketing superstars for upcoming podcast episodes.
We will also be chatting with conference attendees to find out what useful information and experiences they will be acting upon when they go home.
If there are particular people whom you would like us to interview or particular questions you would like us to ask conference participants, then drop a note in the comments area below.
If you are on Twitter, you can read our thoughts about the conference by following TechInTheArts. You can also follow the #NAMPC10 hashtag on Twitter to read the chats taking place during the conference.
Stay tuned for more from NAMP 2010 in San Jose!
Raising More Money for the Good Work We Do
This afternoon, I had the pleasure of working with Jerry Yoshitomi on a conference session dedicated to grassroots fundraising for the attendees of The Association of American Cultures (TAAC) conference in Chicago. Below are the slides for each of our presentations. Jerry's presentation on grassroots fundraising:
Grassroots Fundraising
Download presentation here.
My presentation on online tools and practices for grassroots fundraising:
Online Tools and Practices for Grassroots Fundraising
Download presentation and notes here.
Four free online tools you should know about
Roving arts management reporter, reporting for duty! I’m taking a brief break from my summer gig at Wolf Trap Opera Company to resume my TitA duties and re-cap the delights of the Opera America Conference this week in Los Angeles. Conferences are great places to exchange ideas. I always come away with a list of things to check out. Here are a few great free tools on my list:
- Box.net—Simple online file sharing. Can be used instead of a share drive, OR as a way to upload your season brochure for easy patron download.
- Pitchengine.com-the social PR platform—Make fuss-free digital press releases with easy links to multimedia. No coding, no WYSIWYG editor screwing up what would otherwise be a reasonable task.
- Twitalyzer.com- Does a slogan like “serious analytics for social relationships” take the fun out of Twitter? No way! Track your impact through hard data, not just anecdotal evidence.
- Polleverywhere.com-create polls that audience members can answer via SMS text messages, Twitter, or the web. Some great advanced features for a little extra money, too!
[And I won’t assume you don’t know about Foursquare.com. If you’re not offering people who check in (or your “mayors”) something cool, look into it.]
And I must mention one that is not free (but cheap): Wildfireapp.com is ideal for setting up campaigns, coupons, and sweepstakes. Great way to capture data on your patrons.
Also, this is pretty sexy: operabyyou.com
Look for conference interviews by yours truly coming up on future Technology in the Arts podcasts!
Thanks to Ceci Dadisman and Palm Beach Opera for many of these sites!
Tweet the Arts on National Arts Advocacy Day
Next Tuesday, April 13th, is National Arts Advocacy Day, when more than 500 arts advocates will be talking to their government officials in Washington, D.C. about the power of the arts and the need for arts education and arts funding. Whether or not you can make it to DC on April 13, please take the time to create a tweet featuring the hashtag #arts on your Twitter accounts and tell you friends to do the same. If we get enough tweets with #arts we’ll push “arts” into Twitter trending topics for the day.
More information can be found at http://www.tweetartsday.org
Fear not what "They" will say: Relinquishing control and opening up the conversation
Misnomer Dance Theater's "Breakfast With You"
Arts organizations, especially in this economy, rely heavily on positive reviews and audience raves to generate ticket sales and interest. As technology improves, so has the speed and reach of these review: one voice can be heard across an infinite distance, and one individual's bad experience can be heard around the World Wide Web.
Damage control, clean up in the wake of widely-disseminated destructive commentary, is never as good as the kind of real-time management that is possible when an organization is able to react and engage as the conversation is developing. Even better when the conversation takes place in a forum that is controlled by the organization and populated by unaffiliated supporters who can voice unsolicited positive defense of the organization.
This is one of the most powerful elements of Web 2.0, and one that seems to strike the most fear in the hearts of arts managers. The NAMP Conference was an eye-opener: arts managers are really afraid of relinquishing control over the conversation. From the keynote to the final session three days later, attendees at every Q&A expressed concern about allowing organization-related conversations to publicly occur with outsiders and audience. (For example, allowing user-generated comments on a blog on the organization’s website, comments on the YouTube channel, Twitter conversations, Facebook dialogue.) The question asked by managers time and again: "What if 'they' say something negative?"
The reply? “They’re saying it anyway.” Would you rather they said it behind your back? Imagine that your organization begins to open up the conversation. Great examples of this can be found by looking at the Mattress Factory Museum's Friendship 2.0 page, or Misnomer Dance Theater's blog, which links to a variety of other interactive possibilities (though Misnomer's Chris Elam would like to improve upon this even more, by having an aggregate feed that pulls in the conversations happening in various forums and making them accessible in one place on the site). Perhaps you have a way for visitors to post publicly from the venue, or link to articles that have been written about your organization and allow users to comment. Maybe you have a Flickr page to which your audience can contribute, or a YouTube channel. People start commenting on a piece or an interview, a post or an exhibit.
Let’s look at the positive outcome of enabling and encouraging audience participation online.
It is generally accepted that people are more likely to complain than they are to express happiness about something. That changes as social media and Web 2.0 enable people to easily share thoughts and feelings, and so they do not have to make the same kind of effort to offer praise. They can take five minutes (and feel good about) publicly expressing to you how good they feel.
Remember, “everyone wants to be an insider.” When they can express themselves on your site, or engage in dialogue with your organization and its other supporters, that person feels like they are special. They are being included and being respected as a participant--which givees them a sense of ownership. And they will hopefully keep returning to their conversation, see who has responded to their opinions, and continue to engage with your organization and with other supporters. This builds loyalty, especially when you acknowledge them, and your relationship may lead to this person's friends also getting involved.
But certainly the fear of negative public feedback is not unfounded. Along comes a disgruntled patron. This unhappy patron lambasts your organization for the offenses you have, in his estimation, committed (dirty bathrooms? Offensive scene? Maybe they just thought the work was garbage?). This person comments angrily on your blog, and complains on your Facebook wall. Your organization can now fully benefit from the power of Web 2.0.
If this person posts to your sites, count yourself lucky (if not, you can keep tabs on what is being said about your organization elsewhere with Google Analytics, and respond on your site, thereby directing the traffic to your organization) . This negative view now can be addressed directly by you—both publicly and personally—and a conversation can occur. You can find out the real source of this person’s vexation, and you can demonstrate that your organization is invested in the experience of its audience.
You are also aware of something that has fallen short of an audience member’s expectations. Sure, maybe that person was just having a bad day, but perhaps there is a greater issue there that you can now work to solve. If you were not involved, it is possible you never would have known of their dissatisfaction. You might have missed them renewing their membership, or you might have lost friends of theirs. But you might never have known why.
New visitors to your sites will see this dialogue and appreciate your honesty. (Who isn't skeptical about something that NEVER receives negative feedback? It smacks of censorship, and seems disingenuous.) Your loyal followers may also have gotten involved and expressed positive opinions in your defense. By endorsing both the positive and negative views, by demonstrating your appreciation and value of both sides of a situation, your organization gains credibility for its honesty and forthrightness.
Elam urges organizations not to avoid something out of fear that might prove a most powerful tool. “If you don’t open the floodgates you have zero comments. If you do open them and you get 100 comments and three are bad, you are building energy around your work.” But be aware: “If you have 98 that are bad, that tells you something about your organization.”
Remember, opening the conversation can be incredibly powerful, but you must not just sit back once you have made available the possibility for user-generated content. Your engagement is important to keep the conversations relevant and to connect your organization to the discussions being had.
Content is King (but a compelling subject line is crucial): Effective E-mail Marketing
The Crown of the Moon by gilderic
Organizations too often overlook the hidden powers of e-mail marketing, a relatively inexpensive powertool if used correctly. As Gene Carr of Patron Technologies will tell you, a strong e-mail marketing plan is a critical component of your online presence. "Why? Because the average arts consumer doesn’t. . . go to an arts website to browse around to see what’s happening next Tuesday. [Now,] when they get an e-mail in their inbox, they say 'OH! That’s happening next Tuesday!' and they forward it to their boyfriend and they send it on. So I say, get your e-mail marketing program great, you’ll solve half your problems."
How do you do this?
I was fortunate to attend a great session at NAMP called "Beyond the Blast: E-Mail Marketing Well-Done" featuring a panel of Playwright Horizons' Bradford Louryk and The Book Report Network's Carol Fitzgerald, and moderated by Carr, who chatted with me for the blog. Following his "Three B's" I offer you some take-aways.
- BUILD YOUR LIST
You must have a strong list to have an effective e-mail marketing campaign. Building a list can be challenging, and is often seen as secondary to other elements of the e-mail or newsletter (design, content, etc.)--but Carr argues that building the list should take 75% of your time. To collect e-mail addresses and learn what these individuals want to receive takes time and finesse, and involves regular (about thrice-yearly) follow-up surveys to define their interests and ensure that your messages are hitting their appropriate mark. If you are sending out one blanket e-mail to everyone on your list, you are blasting, and are likely seeing a low return on such messages. It also may decrease your revenue: "You won’t advertise a $5 ticket lottery to a full-season subscriber. You really have to think about who is getting what messages," reminds Louryk.
- BE PROFESSIONAL
Exercise professionalism when managing your e-mail campaigns: "[p]lan a schedule in advance, get (the e-mail) proofread, get great graphics, send it to outside readers (to look it over before you send it to your lists). All the things that professional publishers do," explains Carr. "It doesn’t mean that your newsletter can’t be in a personal voice;" you should cultivate a specific tone and feel to make your organization accessible and relatable. Set the sender's name to appear as a person in the organization rather than the company's name. "But there better not be any typos in there and it better come on Tuesday if you say it’s going to come on Tuesday."
And don't underestimate the power of timing: your communication should be timed to coincide with reviews, published profiles, podcasts, etc. Driving traffic to other locations where your organization receives publicity demonstrates that you are connected and aware of how your organization is being represented and perceived.
- BE INTERESTING
Once you have determined who your segmented audiences are and established how your campaign will be structured (once monthly newsletters? event-specific?), remember that every recipient will read the subject line of your e-mail. 100% of them. Their decision to open the e-mail is based on what they get from that subject line. So be engaging, intriguing, exciting--but exercise caution. A "tantalizing" subject may get filtered as spam.
Within the message, Louryk stresses the importance of representing your organization's mission, expressing its urgency and importance. Integrate your logo but vary the colors, designs, header graphics to reflect the particular content of each message. Remind your audience who you are and why they support you.
Everyone wants to feel like an insider. People want to catch a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the inner workings of an arts organization. This may take the form of staff blog entries, artist personal stories, backstage video tours, or any number of personal touches that will give your audience a taste of the other side. Fitzgerald regularly shares personal stories with organizational information, authors of featured books write newsletters, and readers keep reading. Newsletters are not just about the sale, but about making connections. The more your audience feels a vested interest in what your organization is doing, the more they are to come around in real life. Give them the opportunity to receive special discounts, participate in lotteries, and get additional details beyond the website--and acknowledge those who open every e-mail with personalized thank-yous.
- FINALLY
Don't despair if your organization already has established an e-mail marketing program that is less-than-effective, Carr is confident that that is not a death knell if you are prepared to put in a little work, figure out what makes you unique, and what your recipients want to read.
"We have an e-mail newsletter that goes out to seven- or 8000 arts managers every month. We’ve been doing this for eight years. And about a year ago we started sending an interview, first it was an interview format, then we switched it to a video format. And we were spending a lot of time taping the person and then editing it, and the open rates were abysmal. Terrible, really terrible. And we were, depressed, we spend all this time, and (each interviewed person) was really excited, and nobody was opening it. So we threw out the interviews, rethought the content, and started writing about things we knew people were interested in: Facebook and Twitter, started putting contests in and quoting from clients and just totally reinvented the content. And the open rates jumped." The lesson? "Basically the reason people are tuning out is because YOU’RE BORING. The content that you send is what you’re about. It’s almost like you’re a magazine publisher and you don’t really pay attention to what is in the magazine. People are not getting your magazine because they like a bound thing showing up in their mailbox. People are tuning out because you’re not interesting."
Post-NAMP 2009 Reflections
It's Wednesday in Pittsburgh, and the information-laden NAMP Conference is still fresh in my mind. I have been pondering the challenge of separating these closely-connected insights, and will do my best to craft them into individual blog entries. I will start here with a quick overview of NAMP 2009 themes, and then delve into how these pervasive truths can be utilized in your emails, in your social media interactions, on your website, and finally, as we work through broader ways to connect beyond our own organizations' networks.
David Court's keynote emphasized that "Content is King" while the "Friendship 2.0" message "access is more important than content," highlighted the power of an organization's online content when controlled, in part, by its audience. Closely related was the undisputed tenet "Everybody wants to be an insider," Rich Mintz's much-tweeted quotation from Saturday's plenary lunch.
I believe that achieving this goal is one of the great strengths of social media well-used, a stance echoed in many of the sessions I attended. A social media strategy (as we have discussed in this blog and webinars) cannot be overemphasized--by establishing a place to start and a reason for so doing, you open up the possibility of experimentation, measuring success and failure, and cultivating a strong organizational identity and relationship with your "posse" (the term that Jeffrey Inscho of the Mattress Factory uses to designate online followers---without relegating them to being beneath and apart from the organization). The implications of embracing your audience and bringing them into the fold are far-reaching, and should color the consideration given to content, presentation, and accessibility. Is your organization asking for feedback and really listening, or simply proclaiming without engaging? Are you perceived as real and authentic, or dictatorial and closely controlling of the information and conversations being had about you? Are you afraid to hear what is really being said, and if so, are you ignoring critical feedback that could alter and improve programming?
Before my post on email marketing, I want to mention a couple of basic guidelines that came up time and again at the conference and which apply across the board.
- Experimenting and failing (within the strategy your organization has defined) is better than not experimenting and going unnoticed. Increasingly, people's decisions are made in a split second based on what is in front of them, and you want to be a contender for their attention.
- Testing, and taking note of what is and is not working (Haeben Kim of CAMT attended a session on ROI that she may guest-blog about in the future) will improve your organization's social media efficiency.
- Authenticity is crucial--you are selling an experience, not just "art," and remembering who you are and who you serve will help you captivate your audience early and often.
- Including your audience in the discussion is far more effective than talking at them. Yes, this means that you open up the channel for negative feedback as well, but remember: people will say negative things about you anyway, wouldn't you rather it be in a place where you can respond to it and facilitate a dialogue and reaction to it?
I hope that that overview, painted though it is in broad strokes, helps give you a sense of where the conversation will be headed for the next few NAMP-related posts. And if you were in attendance at NAMP, and have additional thoughts, suggestions, questions, or comments, I encourage you to share below!
Free Museum Computer Network Webinars
The Museum Computer Network, an org that specializes in sharing information about new museum technology and its most effective uses, is holding its annual conference next week in Portland, Oregon. This year’s theme: “Museum Information, Museum Efficiency: Doing More with Less!” The org is webcasting several of its sessions for free on Thursday, Nov. 12 and Friday, Nov. 13: (All times Pacific) Museum Data Exchange Thursday 12 November, 1:30-3:00 PST
Tweets to Sweeten Collaborations for Archives, Libraries, and Museums Thursday 12 November, 3:30-5:00 PST
Libraries, Archives, and Museums: From Collaboration to Convergence Friday 13 November, 11:15-12:45 PST
Ramping Up while Scaling Down: Strategic Innovation in Challenging Times Friday 13 November, 2:00-3:30 PST
2009 Conference Roundup Roundtable Friday 13 November, 4:00-5:30 PST
Instructions for accessing the webinars will appear at the MCN site on Wednesday, Nov. 11. MCN is encouraging Twittering during the session with hashtag #mcn09oL. You will be able to submit questions during the Q & A sessions via Twitter as well. More details at MCN.
The Future of Arts Journalism is Here... Maybe
Worried about your local arts critics being cut? How about the impending demise of your local paper? Don’t worry; the future is here! Last week the USC Annenberg School for Communication announced five projects that will present at The National Summit on Arts Journalism. The School put out an open call for projects that represent the future of arts journalism. The five winning projects will be announced at the conference on October 2 and another five made the cut to present:
- Sophie: A new authoring tool for multimedia developed by the Institute for Multimedia Literacy that suggests new possibilities for presenting critical response.
- The Indianapolis Museum of Art: With its Art Babble and Dashboard, the IMA is an example of a cultural institution extending its reach into areas that have traditionally been the province of journalism.
- InstantEncore.com: An example of an aggregator attempting to gather up everything about an art form (in this case classical music) and making it accessible in one place.
- NPR Music: An example of a traditional big media company that is reinventing itself across platforms. NPR Music blurs the lines between journalism, curation, presenting and producing.
- Gazette Communications, Cedar Rapids Iowa: An example of a local media company trying to reinvent the idea of what it considers news and how it might be gathered and presented to a local community.
I, for one, find it incredibly encouraging that journalists are finding new paths to write about the arts in the face of the layoffs and budget cuts. As the newspaper industry struggles, the first cost-cutting measures always seem to involve pulling more things from the wire and less local reporting. Many of us in the arts industry have felt the burn from the epidemic of local arts critic firings from major papers, or conversion to a part-time or freelance status. In turn, people find it less satisfying to read the paper as these local writers are cut and circulation decreases further as more people choose to go online to read wire reporting rather than pay for it in paper form. In an effort to save themselves, it seems as though the papers are cutting the very thing that makes them a viable business model.
So how does this decrease in arts journalism affect your local arts organizations? Arts orgs lose out in two major ways: 1) One of their advertising mainstays becomes less effective as less potential performance /exhibit-goers see the orgs' ad in print and 2) as more critics are cut from newspaper payrolls, coverage of arts events is decreased. Since reviews and articles are typically a great revenue generator, arts orgs find themselves hurting for objective reporting and distribution that their own blog doesn’t quite cover. But through the Summit, the search is on for the new model of profitability in this brave new paperless, everything-free-and-now world.
However, the Summit is tellingly vague on what that could mean. Especially interesting was the note about viable business models on the USC site:
"We had noted on the submission form that we were interested in viable business models. Admittedly, the definition of what constitutes a business model these days is unclear. Strictly speaking, an operation that relies on donated labor and sweat equity has yet to find a sustainable business model. A project that relies solely on philanthropic contributions also has no business model in a strict sense. What we're looking for, therefore, is not so much a commercial business plan but some indications of long-term operational viability."
I’d like to echo that question above-- what is a viable business model anymore? The situation with newspapers has gotten so desperate, some are saying non-profit status is the way to go. But companies like Facebook are relying more on “ownership” of the social media market to determine their company’s value, rather than real revenue. So what hope does that leave these start-ups? Can they hope to go national, or international? It seems like a near-impossible task to take “ownership” of the information of thousands of arts organizations. Unlike many other forms of journalism, arts journalism seems confined to being primarily local, because of the limitations of a performance or an exhibit. To report on a play, the writer has to be at a theatre at a specific time. There’s not really a good way to get around that. Because of this, many of the projects are confined to a specific city or state. The national sites face the additional problem of collecting these local voices into one comprehensive site (InstantEncore seems to do an impressive job with this).
No matter which sector of the arts you work in, this is definitely an area to keep an eye on. On October 2, you can stream a satellite summit live and participate via text or Twitter if you contact summitinfo@najp.org or register here.
Arts Video Site
I've been wanting to write something about this site for a while now, but I've had a hard time figuring out what exactly to say about it beyond just describing what it is, who's involved, and what they do.
ArtBabble is more than just another collection of videos about art. Each video comes with a sidebar of notes and more information that the viewer can dive into in order to explore more aspects of what the video is presenting. At times this sidebar can be a distraction, and other times can lend more depth to something like an Art21 video about Jenny Holzer that you've seen a few times.
The bulk of the videos come from MoMA, SFMoMA, Art21, The Indianapolis Museum of Art, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art, The New York Public Library, and the Smithsonian. By and large, the content is geared towards the art novice, but there are some incredibly poignant videos for arts managers on the site, like the Museums and the Web 2009 video posted below.
So far my favorite video series has been the Behind the Scenes at the MoMA, but all of the videos I've watched are really high quality and very informative.
In an Update, last night ArtBabble won a Gold Muse award from the AAM for best online presence.
2009 MUSE Awards Call for Entries
The AAM Media and Technology Committee announces the 20th annual MUSE awards competition. Presented to institutions or independent producers which use digital media to enhance the museum experience and engage new audiences, the MUSE awards celebrate scholarship, innovation, creativity and inclusivity. Projects must be produced by or for a museum, including websites, podcasts, multimedia installations, interactive kiosks in the museum, cell phone audio tours in a garden, etc. Winning projects for each category are chosen by an international group of museum media professionals and the awards will be presented at the AAM annual conference in Philadelphia, PA from April 30-May 4, 2009.
Online applications must be submitted January 31, 2009. If you have any questions please contact Sarah Marcotte, MUSE Awards Chair.
Call for Session Proposals - 2009 Technology in the Arts: Canada
Proposals for sessions and workshops are currently being accepted for the 2009 Technology in the Arts: Canada Conference to be held in Waterloo & Stratford, Ontario from May 10-12, 2009. This year's conference is being held in conjunction with the Canada 3.0: Defining Canada's Digital Future Conference. The deadline for submitting your proposal is Monday, January 19, 2009.
The conference has two primary types of programming - Hands-On Training Workshops and Breakout Sessions.
Proposal Criteria: A panel of arts and technology practitioners will review all submitted proposals to select the final program in late January. Sessions will be selected based on the following criteria:
In addition to the above criteria, the panel will be charged with selecting workshops and sessions with an eye toward providing a well-rounded program of topics and ideas for conference attendees that will include managers, staff and artistic/curatorial personnel from the arts, heritage and cultural sector, as well as individual artists.
SUBMIT YOUR SESSION PROPOSAL ONLINE HERE
Benefits for Presenters: Presenters will receive complimentary access to the conference for the day on which they present, and discounted registration for other days they wish to attend. All session participants will be responsible for their own travel and hotel expenses.
Proposal Components: To be considered, proposals must include the following information:
Not an expert? You don't have to be! Here are some tips for putting together a session.
Questions? Contact us.
The 2009 Technology in the Arts: Canada Conference is a partnership between the Centre for Cultural Management at the University of Waterloo and the Center for Arts Management and Technology at Carnegie Mellon University.