On September 25, 2009, I spoke, remotely from Chicago, at the stART.09 Conference in Duisburg, Germany. I mentioned that on my blog here. It took me a while, but I just re-recorded the presentation and uploaded it to SlideShare, as a slidecast. I’m not entirely happy with it, I think things get a little muddled and scattered toward the end, but I wanted to make it available anyway. I hope it can prove useful to you and perhaps it can spur some discussion. Let me know what you think, especially if you agree or don’t agree with some of...
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The ever-thorough Drew McManus has once again shown that his Web site Adaptistration is the place to be for orchestra managers. This year’s Orchestra Web Site Review has an in-depth analysis of American and Canadian orchestras and their sites. Particularly interesting, I thought, was today’s post on the comparison between American and Canadian sites. Overall, as it appears, Canadian sites do a better job. American orchestras reached higher highs and lower lows, but the Canadians did a better overall job with Web site fundamentals. I found it interesting that, as Drew writes, “The only category where US orchestras not...
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In the SWOT analysis of orchestras and new media that you can find in my e-book, I used the textbook Strategy: Core Concepts, Analytical Tools, Readings by Thompson, Gamble and Strickland. Every once and a while I refer to the book when trying to place social media in a bigger strategy context. Sometimes I just skim through the book to pick my brain a bit. Yesterday, my eyes fell on a section that deals with centralized versus decentralized decision making. Many arts organizations have centralized organizational structures. Decisions are made by managers and department heads that have the required...
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As I mentioned in my last blog post, good things are brewing. The first one I can tell you about is my speaking engagement at the stART.09 Conference in Duisburg, Germany on September 25. A while ago, I got in touch with Christian Henner-Fehr of the Kultur Management blog, as I detailed in a blog post here. This later turned into an invitation to speak at the conference. I would have loved to be able to be there in person and listen in on some of the presentations as well, but fortunately technology at least allows me to do...
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I need a new lunch box. In less than two weeks, I will be starting the Integrated Marketing certificate program at the University of Chicago’s Graham School. Free courses are one of the perks of working for the university. I am very excited to start. It has been nearly five years since I last had to turn in homework. I will be taking courses like Web Analytics, Mobile Web Marketing Strategies and Insights and Opportunities in Social Media. Here is an excerpt from what I wrote in my personal statement on my application: When I started my degree in...
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During last week’s League of American Orchestras conference, I was following the session on social networking on Twitter. Mark Pemberton, who tweets @aborchestras, asked where the “business” is in social media. In a blog post on the League’s conference blog, he wrote: I found today’s Social Networking session interesting up to a point. But Russell Jones was spot on in his cry of “what about the dollars?” The speakers kept talking about the “new business model.” But Facebook and Twitter have no business model! They have no means of generating income. Here is an excerpt of what I commented...
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On Wednesday and Thursday of this week I attended the Making Media Connections 2009 conference, hosted by the Community Media Workshop. I haven’t attended a whole lot of conferences, so this was a good reminder of the importance to talk to and learn from others. Day 1: Databases for Success Arif Mamdani led this workshop on using databases and picking the right database software or service for your needs. This wasn’t necessarily about communications, but without a strong database, who are you going to communicate to? The main takeaway for me was the need to have a strong plan...
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When I wrote the blog series and e-book on Orchestras and New Media, I looked almost exclusively to the English-speaking world. But there are some really interesting things happening in the rest of the world. On Twitter, for example, I’m following some classical music organizations from the Netherlands, including @radio4nl and @muziekgebouw. And a short while ago, I found Christian Henner-Fehr (@kulturmanager), or rather, he found me. Christian has an interesting blog named Kultur Management and he told me about the stART Conference in Duisburg, Germany, which will take place in September of this year and looks like a...
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Classical music can go viral too. And you can thank Miss Mussel for that. Who, you ask? Just follow her @missmussel on Twitter and read her blog The Omniscient Mussel. Alternatively, she is known as Marcia Adair, a Canadian freelance classical music journalist. Marcia started the #operaplot craze, where tweeting opera fans summarize an entire opera in just 140 characters or less, using the hashtag #operaplot. (Search the tag in Twitter) In its first incarnation, Marcia purchased a $30 gift certificate to give out as a prize. She barely had 50 followers on Twitter, but the word spread around...
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It’s been nearly two weeks since the YouTube Symphony project culminated at Carnegie Hall. But really, was it a culmination? The New York Times reviewed the concert fairly positively. Anthony Tommasini thought it went “quite well, actually.” Anne Midgette over at the Washington Post was somewhat less positive and wrote that the concert sounded “ragged, uneven, of wildly different quality.” But really, did this matter? Those two questions, I believe, are central to “reviewing” the YouTube Symphony project. Was it a culmination, or alternatively what was the point? And did artistic quality matter? Before I proceed in any kind...
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A little over a year ago, I wrote about R.E.M.’s ventures into social media, allowing fans listen to their new album before its release and encouraging fans to mash up raw video footage. Where does classical music stand in this environment? Here below follows a top 10 list of what I believe are the best ideas in classical music online. This list is not meant to be a definitive ranking (and is definitely not in any particular order); it is merely a list of ten ideas I have come across in the past two years or so. If you...
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