Christine Sajewski is the External Marketing Analyst at the Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre. AMT Lab contributor Colin Baylor recently talked to her about what apps she uses, and why.
Colin Baylor: What are the apps you use everyday, and why do you like them?
Christine Sajewski: I have an Android phone, and I find widgets associated with basic apps such as Google Calendar and ColorNote to extremely useful for keeping me organized. There are more complex organization and project management apps available (Asana is a great one – especially for team-based work), but I prefer the simplicity of ColorNote for everyday list and notepad use. Like most people, I also use different social media apps – primarily Instagram and Pinterest. I like following other ballet companies and arts organizations to see what clever strategies they use. I’ve also found Pinterest to be useful for saving and organizing articles.
CB: Is there an app that has surprised you with its usefulness?
CS: I was pleasantly surprised with Inbox from Gmail. I particularly like how it functions more as a task manager with the ability to check off emails. Then I can pin important emails to the top, set reminders, or snooze them for later. Inbox also keeps my email clean by automatically organizing into sub-categories for promotions or social e-blasts.
CB: Is there an app you think developers should be working on?
CS: Realtime Board is one of my favorite web-based applications. It’s an excellent tool for brainstorming and planning with endless virtual whiteboard space and sticky notes to arrange and rearrange. A mobile app for Realtime Board would be a fantastic resource for planning and brainstorming on the go.
PBT is part of the Tessitura Network and it would be great to have a mobile app connected to our database’s business intelligence application (T-stats) or our dashboards so I could quickly review our numbers or reference summary reports in meetings.
CB: If you could recommend one app to arts managers, what would it be?
CS: The Google Analytics is excellent for anyone involved with his or her organization’s website. It’s a nice tool to quickly review basic site statistics and to set up reports for numbers you reference on a regular basis. (Thanks to MAM alum Amelia Northrup-Simpson who introduced me to this app when I interviewed her for AMT-Lab!)
I would also recommend Pic Stitch for anyone in marketing – it’s a great, simple app for making photo collages. The app comes with a variety of layouts to share multiple photos for differentiating your social media content.