An interesting question from the League of American Orchestra, which had its annual conference just last week. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go, but that doesn’t preclude me from chiming in (I did here, here and here). In addition, the opening session was broadcasted and recorded. Find it here. The question was “what is the most important question to discuss?” and the audience, both on- and offline was to pick from the following options: Purpose: What makes an orchestra matter in the 21st century? Change: If we “let go of the past” and “embrace the future,” what should we retain, release,...
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Last Wednesday, I had my whirlwind trip to Los Angeles to speak at the Opera America 2010 Conference. I arrived in L.A. Tuesday night—and was amazed at the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra mural during my cab ride to downtown—but I had to leave again shortly after noon on Wednesday. That meant unfortunately missing two of my co-presenters, some exciting performances, Placido Domingo’s address, and of course, all the networking and meeting and greeting. That said, it was great meeting Ling Chan, Ceci Dadisman and Margo Drakos in person. There’s hope for the arts in social media. I was on...
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The League of American Orchestras’ annual conference is just around the corner and this year, to my very pleasant surprise, they have set up a blog platform for (pre) conference discussion called “Orchestra R/Evolution.” I’m even more pleasantly surprised to see they have opened up posting to a broad host of people and inviting people to apply to post. In Vince Ford’s post Keeping it Real, I got in somewhat of a heated discussion about ticket prices. What spurred it were William Osborne’s comments. William was misinformed about ticket prices. But it wasn’t his fault. Why? He simply googled...
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Just a couple of days ago, I marked my seven-year anniversary of living in the United States. That is more than a quarter of my life. Nearly five of those seven years, I have been blogging (I launched the first version of Dutch Perspective in September 2005). The first three years weren’t focused. I hadn’t found my niche yet. But they sure were educational. Now ever since I started blogging with a more defined focus on culture, and orchestras in particular, and social media, beginning with a series in July 2008, I have noticed some gears turning. Not entirely...
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A while ago, I posted a link to Baltimore Symphony Orchestra/Washington National Opera’s flash mob video on the Dutch Perspective Facebook page. Little did I know that opened somewhat of a floodgate of flash mob videos, and other videos, appearing on my radar screen. Maryann Devine, over at smarts & Culture, blogged about the BSO/WNO flash mob video and called it awkward. Once I got over my initial excitement of a classical music organization setting up a flash mob, I simply had to agree. The BSO/WNO video just seems over-produced and somewhat out of place. Washington Post critic Anne...
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In the last nine steps, I have walked through Are We There Yet? A Communications Evaluation Guide by the Communications Network. It started with figuring out what to evaluate and establishing an overarching goal. The central question was: how are your communications efforts creating a change; more specifically, a change in behavior. The central message was: measure outcomes, not outputs. It ended with figuring out specific tools and establishing a evaluation budget. Evaluating communications in social media, focused on creating change, is one aspect. I have occasionally offered a brief perspective on evaluating marketing efforts, focused on sales and...
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This is not an estimation of you complete communications plan budget. That said, you should budget for evaluation within your communications plan. The authors advise that a good rule of thumb is that “the evaluation budget should be at least five to seven percent of the total budget of your communication program.” You should consider: staff time (evaluating does cost time!), external consultant fees (you might need an expert for certain elements), evaluation techniques (are you using any specialized software of service to measure your results?), and dissemination costs (you should share your evaluation with your colleagues, board, and...
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The authors list several evaluation tools, including interviews, focus groups, surveys, observation, quantitative data collection and analysis, and content analysis. Interviews, focus groups are pretty straightforward qualitative techniques. Surveys can be used to track qualitative, and in a lesser degree quantitative, changes over time. Observation can perhaps best be translated into the listening skill that is so important in social media. There is perhaps an abundance of quantitative data in the world of social media. Nearly everything can be tracked. Facebook Fan pages have metrics, there are tools for Twitter out there, and of course, Google Analytics can help...
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You should now be clear on what your communications efforts are expected to achieve. You know your goal, objectives, audience, baseline and evaluation questions; the next step is to develop specific metrics to answer your evaluation questions. The authors introduce milestones at this point of the evaluation. If objectives are intermediate markers toward your goal, milestones demonstrate your progress toward those objectives. Just like objectives, they are not intended to show your activities, your outputs, but rather your results on your way to reach your objective. Milestones can either be measured quantitatively or qualitatively, or of course, a combination...
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The first question before posing your evaluation questions is: what stage is your communications effort in? The authors make a distinction between early, mid and advanced stages. Early Stage The early stage means the development or early implementation of a communications plan, where there is a degree of trial and error. The evaluation at this point helps determine the larger strategic direction. Questions include: have I tested my messages with a sample group that is representative? Where have my messages first appeared? Are my messages right for the channels I selected? How is the audience responding to my tactics?...
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In order to evaluate your results, you have to know your starting point. You will have to compare your baseline data with the new data you are going to gather as you progress toward your goal. You need exactly the kind of baseline data that will be able to show you whether your communications are working; and your goal and objectives will tell you what kind of information you need. Looking at the goal and objective we discussed earlier, you would need data that tells you what you need to know about your network of supporters and your online...
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