Journalist Tom Jacobs published an interesting article on the Miller-McCune Web site yesterday entitled “Will Critique Work for Food,” an article on the future of arts journalism. I wrote about it in my New Media and Orchestras series and quoted Justin Davidson, who offered a good view at Musical America. Jacobs’ article has some great anecdotes and quotes from journalists and goes more in-depth with real-life examples, not just theory. It made me think about some very telling real-life examples from my time at the CSO: I learned about Alex Ross through his blog, not his articles in the...
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In my last week at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra I drafted a quick case study on the CSO’s Twitter and Facebook accounts. I thought this would be worth sharing more broadly. Introduction: Word of Mouth Word of mouth is the key strength of social media. Statistics from cso.org and the CSO’s Twitter and Facebook accounts seem to confirm this statement. Currently, Facebook is the fifth largest third-party referral site to cso.org. Google has topped direct URL entry as the number one entry point to the site and mail.google.com is in the top ten of referrers. What does this mean?...
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Lincoln and Darwin both turn 200 today. Visiting Springfield and subsequently the Lincoln Museum, Library and Memorial a few years ago was truly awe-inspiring. And I recently visited Darwin’s memorial at Westminster Abbey in London. With the latter hero in mind, I wanted to re-post an article I wrote in 2005, after discovering Spinoza: What if Spinoza Encountered Intelligent Design? December 15, 2005 “When they survey the frame of the human body, they are amazed; and being ignorant of the causes of so great a work of art, conclude that it has been fashioned, not mechanically, but by divine...
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Last Thursday, I was happy to sit in on Mark Ragan’s "Social Media Boot Camp" after getting an invitation through work. It was a great introduction to social media, focused on a corporate and internal communications perspective. Many of the participants seemed to come from the healthcare and insurance industries. Being past the social media newbie status, I didn’t get much out of the "whirlwind tour of social media tools and sites" as I frequent most of them already. What I was most interested in was Mark’s take on "what to do and how to do it" and "persuading...
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This is more of a test than an actual blog entry. I am getting used to my new Dell XPS M1530 and am trying out Windows Live Writer. As I’m setting up my Dell, I’m running into some interesting dilemmas. Although I have been using Hotmail for over 10 years, I am seriously considering switching over fully to Gmail, especially after syncing Gmail and Google Calendar with Mozilla Thunderbird. My only gripe: Gmail doesn’t do folders. It’ll take me a bit to get used to labeling and archiving e-mails instead. I tested out my laptop today during a workshop...
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Following my blog series “Orchestras and New Media” I created a presentation (now on to an e-book). This is version 1.0 and I hope to get comments, feedback and suggestion, so that version 2.0 will be fitter, happier, more productive. Orchestras and New Media View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: relations public)
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As said, I was dealing with this for a while; following the presidential path of community organizing. Speaking of presidential: photos of that glorious night can be found here. Thank you David Axelrod. (And my blog for the Brabants Dagblad can be found here). Although this particular blog was placed on the backburner, adventures in new and social media never ceased. In fact, my job description now includes new media.
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I’ll be dealing with this for a while. (Reflections on crisis management, and how not to do it, later).
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Most orchestras already publish their press releases online; some even distribute them through RSS. But surprisingly few organizations have a complete online media room. The executive summary of the Nielsen Norman Group’s “Designing Websites to Maximize Press Relations” report is an excellent starting point for anyone setting up an online media room. The report found that “on average, journalists found the answer to simple questions 70% of the time. A Web site success rate of 70% implies the site has a failure rate of 30%. Leaving 30% of press inquiries unanswered would be considered a very poor performance for...
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There are hundreds, if not thousands, of other new media tools. The trick is finding out which tools work for your organization and which tools are being used by a possible target audience. I wanted to highlight four other services not mentioned before: SlideShare Organizations frequently have to share and present their ideas. Microsoft PowerPoint is perhaps the most commonly used tool to convey those ideas and presentations. Annual meetings with season’s highlights, education campaigns, advocacy campaigns and fundraising events could all benefit PowerPoint’s strengths in projecting imagery and bullet points. But why would you limit your audience to...
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I’ve just been featured on Beth Kanter’s widely read blog. As I was writing the Orchestras and New Media series, I found her blog and the We Are Media project to be extremely helpful. So I contacted her. Here’s what she writes: Not too long ago, I got an email from Marc van Bree, the PR coordinator from the CSO, who telling me about his new blog.  He also mentions that he saw my powerpoint and thanked me for using the CSO screenshot.  One thing lead to another and I directed him to the WeAreMedia project because the idea...
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