smArts & Culture | your arts marketing edge

Your cultural clipping service

Stuff I liked, stuff you might have missed.

• Why amateurs build better online communities than businesses. Rich Millington bullet-points us with the reasons. My favorite: “They’re not burdened with anything other than creating an awesome community for the community. No extractions are necessary.” (Via @soniasimone, I think.)

• Artistic vibrancy resources from the Australian Council on the Arts. At the outset, the idea of assessing artistic vibrancy sounds absurd and conjures up the image of silly checklists put together to satisfy funders. That’s not really what this is about. “In our conversations and research, it became apparent that ‘self-assessment’ of artistic vibrancy may not be the most useful term as it implies quantitative measurement. It appeared more useful to think of self-assessment in terms of a process of ‘self-reflection.’” So say the authors of Defining Artistic Vibrancy, one of four documents, including case studies and a self-assessment tool, available on the Australian Council on the Arts’ site. (Via WolfBrown on Facebook, I think.)

• Remember how I was going to be part of a live-streaming drawing party last week? How illustrator Martin Whitmore was going create a custom avatar pour moi? Behold: Cartoon Me.      

• European teens watch TV. Forrester Research released a report a few weeks ago on European teen media consumption. Seems the kids in Europe spend more time watching TV than they do on the internet and are not so keen on social networking. This New York Times piece by Eric Pfanner compares the research with a report released by Morgan Stanley last summer, based on a focus group of one.

• Pepsi follows in the footsteps of Chase. Beth Kanter wonders what Pepsi will learn from the hugely popular yet rocky Chase Community Giving contest on Facebook when they attempt to give away $20 million to people and organizations with world-changing ideas in lieu of Super Bowl advertising. Then, Pepsi responds in the comments of this post.

• A lot of people on my VIP List are artists. Maybe you're an artist. So I want to let you know about something my friend Tara is doing.

Tara makes some of the most beautiful yarn on the planet, and a year ago she decided that 2009 was the year she would quit her day job and do yarn full time. Which she did a few months ago.

On Monday, December 28, Tara is hosting a totally free Q&A on how she did it. She’s not going to try to sell you her wares and she’s not going to push some get-rich-quick scheme. She just wants to share what she’s learned with other people who'd like to make a living from the things they make. If you’re interested, take a look.

Your Cultural Clipping Service

Stuff I liked, stuff you might have missed.

• Guess what? I’m getting a custom avatar today and you can watch. Artist Martin Whitmore (caution: sexy cartoon lady ahead) is having an illustration party today from 2 – 4 PM Eastern Time. For the past few days, he’s taken orders for avatars and web headers and he’s going to create the initial sketches in real time as you watch, on livestream. I don’t expect mine to be terribly sexy but I do expect that it’ll be friendlier than my corporate head shot. I would like that.

• Brand strategist Maureen Craig conducted 12 focus groups of diverse Philadelphians as part of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance’s research. Take a look at her presentation, which includes quotes from participants, analysis, and recommendations.  There are smack-downs: arts and culture vs. bars and sports. Telling quote: “If I were going with my friends, I’d rather be in a bar where I can talk and interact and catch up. When you’re at a play you’re sitting side-by-side and there’s no interaction with the people you’re with.” One observation: that arts participation inspires attendance, and chips away at the perception of elitism in the arts.

• More bad news for classical music, from the New York Times. One bright spot usually noted by classical music advocates is that lots of people listen to classical music on the radio. Apparently not as much as we thought. Arbitron has switched from self-reporting to portable technology to track listening. It turns out that Arbitron’s people (including men) take in more Celine Dion and less Mozart than they’d like you to believe. Something to keep in mind, though: these ratings don’t purport to show what people like. You might work in an office that tunes in to soft rock all day. The Times piece quotes a guy who dislikes his wife’s choice of driving music (I hear you. Not in love with the singer-songwriter-y music my husband prefers in the car). One positive: over-reporting classical listening means that people see it as good for their self-image, right?

• Okay, this is cool. Chris Brogan points us to Motherapp, a company that will create an iPhone app from your blog and/or twitter feed. It’s free with ad revenue sharing or $99/year. I tried Chris’s own free app out and it works great – much easier than reading his blog through a reader on my phone, or going to his site on a mobile browser. I would do this in a minute, but I want my perky new avatar first.

• Speaking of iPhones, here's what I want for Xmas. I'm not a huge fan of the ubiquitous Chilewich textiles, but somehow this is perfect and chic. (Via @modbird I believe.)

Your Cultural Clipping Service

Stuff I liked, stuff you might have missed.

• Kudos to the NEA for streaming its roundtable discussion of its 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts. Sunil Iyengar presented highlights of the survey, similar to the highlights published a while ago. If you read the highlights, you already know that the news isn't good, especially for classical music and jazz. (Something weird that jumped out at me during the presentation: arts education has been declining, and yet 18-to-24-year-olds are very much engaged in creating. Hmm. Have not finished reading the report.) There’s a note on the NEA’s blog that says the video of the discussion will be posted next week in the research section of the site. In the meantime you can download the PDF here. Search #NEAcast on the twitters to see what folks like @createquity, @artfulmanager, and @TCG had to say.

• Breaking news from Greg Sandow: The League of American Orchestras, in response to the NEA's study, commissioned their own with McKinsey, which apparently supports the NEA's findings -- that the classical music audience is getting smaller and growing older more quickly than the U.S. population as a whole. So the League is now admitting what many people including Greg, of course, but not so many in the mainstream, have been saying for some time: We've got to let go of the myth that, as people get older, they magically transform into classical music lovers who, in turn, start patronizing their local orchestras. That the classical music audience has "always been old." Now maybe we can start moving forward.

• Interesting piece in the Financial Times on the decline of MySpace after acquisition by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. Back in 2005, MySpace was adding 70,000 users a day, according to the article by Matthew Garrahan. By 2008, MySpace was missing target ad revenue, letting staff go, and closing offices around the world. Salon’s Andrew Leonard sums it up well: “MySpace always had a cheesy feel. Facebook offered a better user experience, and for the fundamentally fickle Internet masses, that's all it took.”

• Just wanted to share with you the work of Matt Neff. I let one of his sugar chandelier prints go at the Print Center auction last weekend when the bidding went over my imaginary budget. I never have buyer’s remorse, only cheapskate’s regret. I console myself with the thought that someone bought it and that’s good for the Print Center. (Art and other goodies are still for sale online at the minimum bid price, if you’re interested.)

• Something I’ve wanted to look into for some time, since I have audio and such to download: if you use Google Analytics to pore over your web traffic, you can use this how-to to track downloads as if they were page views. Yes!

• Have I told you about the Makeup Museum? It’s all about cosmetics design -- cosmetics as design object, in the context of contemporary design – she often compares motifs from a fashion designer’s collection to its corresponding makeup line – and in the context of design history. Love.

Two audience problems and no answers

My husband is angry at music.

Well, technically, he’s angry at a libretto. But it ruined the whole piece for him.

We were at BAM for the new Philip Glass piece, Kepler. And, you know, it was kind of disappointing. But there the music was interesting at times, and the performances all around were excellent.

But, yes, the libretto was wanting (or perhaps the translation). The ideas of the day – what is science, what is theology, what is heresy, and what, exactly, are we observing in the heavens? – are so interesting. And Johannes Kepler was an interesting guy – his account of people he hated and people who hated him, as well the moving draft of his own epitaph were the most engaging parts of the libretto

So, yes, I was disappointed.

But my husband was fuming! He hated the triteness of the libretto and the lack of drama or narrative.

It’s not the first time. He was extremely angry and frustrated when we left the Met HD broadcast of Orpheo ed Euridice. The simple plot along with the repetitive nature of the libretto and music bored him so much he needed to vent through the whole walk home.

We talked about it a bit after Kepler. It sounds like there were two things going on: first, expectation. He wasn’t alone in the expectation that there would be a narrative – when we went out for drinks afterwards, everyone in our group echoed the same expectation and said they didn’t know anything about the work before seeing it.

I had looked into Kepler beforehand. I got in touch with our dear friend Wikipedia and read up on Kepler, the man (did you know his mother was tried as a witch?!). It was harder to get any concrete information on Kepler, the work, though. It premiered in Linz in September, but I couldn’t find any reviews. The best I could come up with was a video BAM provided of Glass talking about the work, with excerpts as background music, and a review in the New York Times a day before seeing it.

I was disappointed in the piece, but I still got something out of it. I also expect that sometimes cultural experiences will disappoint, and it doesn’t bother me when that happens.

But here’s the problem with the first problem, the problem of expectation: it would be ridiculous to require that people study up before going to a concert. Sure, performing arts organizations provide patron education leading up to the show, but you know who attends? Your most loyal patrons, not new or casual patrons. As she took her seat in front of us for Kepler, a woman confessed enthusiastically to her friends that she didn’t even know what she was seeing that night. That's not something unusual to hear.

I don’t have an answer.

Some material is going to be challenging for some of your audience. You can’t force people to prepare, and some people are just not going to be engaged by the piece regardless.

The second problem is: feeling trapped. I doubt that my husband is alone in feeling that he has no choice but to sit through something that’s boring or irritating the hell out of him.

It’s not true. If he had told me he was having an awful time, we could have left and joined our friends later.

I know people are going to hate on me for this, but if I’m really not getting anything at all out of what I’m seeing and I'm not going to disturb anyone, I’m inclined to leave. Life’s too short.

Usually, I stay longer than I should – I always think stuff’s going to get better and sometimes it doesn’t. And there are lots of situations where I’d stick it out. But if it’s awful and I can get out, I do.

I know you don’t want to see your theater empty out before the performance is over. I know you feel it would be rude to the performers and everyone else responsible for what’s happening on stage. But I wish it were easier for people to leave without feeling guilty. Is it better for seats to be filled by people who are bored and frustrated?

It’s so much easier psychologically to leave a concert in a pop music venue. No one gets offended. Why is it no big deal in that situation?

I don’t have an answer.

Your cultural clipping service

It’s an all-classical edition of the Cultural Clipping Service. That doesn’t mean these bits aren’t relevant to museums and dance companies, too. Some stories you might have missed, well worth taking a look.

• Janis, a reader and commenter on Greg Sandow’s (@gsandow) fascinating blog on the future of classical music, has a genius idea. If you’re only going to read one of these clippings, make it this one. It takes some explanation, so I’ll just say: Star Wars Uncut meets Beethoven’s 9th.

• Kennedy Center President Michael Kaiser wonders if his student is right: is the symphony orchestra model just not viable in the U.S.? (Not sure, but I think this is via @LaceyH.)

• Nice, personal donor cultivation: after the Met noticed her large donation in 2000, they kept in touch with British opera lover Mona Webster, Rather than just sending her Met-centric gifts, they sent the avid bird-watcher books like Red Tails in Love: A Wildlife Drama in Central Park. Knowing that she didn’t own a CD or DVD player, the opera company sent LPs to Ms. Webster. According to the New York Times, Scottish and English newspapers report her bequest to the Met to be $7.5 million.

• Philadelphia Inquirer classical music critic David Patrick Stearns waxes optimistic about George Steel’s leadership at City Opera.

• Dutch public relations guy Marc van Bree (@mcmvanbree) gives you a peek into a class on search engine optimization as it relates to symphony orchestras. I rarely hear anyone in the arts talk about SEO, so it’s heartening to see Marc’s posts. Read Marc van Bree on SEO in Part 1 and Part 2. (And by the way, I wrote and formatted this item in such a way that it help's Marc's own SEO.)

------------------------------------------

Interested in beefing up your arts marketing skills? Find out more about this free arts marketing course by clicking this link.

Can your arts group engage both Boomers and Gen Y?

Boomers consume. Millennials create.

Those are the conclusions of the October 2009 report American Life & Culture Survey. Conducted by Patricia Martin and LitLamp Communications Group, a survey of 2,348 U.S. arts and culture consumers asked about the role of culture in their lives in our down economy.

According to the report, the younger generation spends more time creating and playing music, writing, and promoting their work by connecting online.

Older cultural participants consume more and create less. Despite the challenges of the recession, they continue attending live performances and visiting galleries (good news), but classes and music lessons are more likely to fall by the wayside (hmm).

Interestingly the researchers “found some 60-year-old bloggers held the same opinions as 24-year-old poets: they are willing to work hard in their creative endeavors. … They don’t spend time gaming online.”

Sixty-seven percent of the sample says they’re still attending live theater and paying for other entertainments, but 69% are also attending free performances, too.

Since this report was meant for for-profit brand managers, lifestyle choices and attitudes of cultural consumers were also studied. We’ve seen some of these areas, like degrees of political activity and attitudes towards education, in other publicly available studies, but not others.

For instance, the cultural consumers surveyed are extremely health conscious. Seventy percent reported that they exercise regularly, see their doctor, and eat well. Sixty-three percent buy organic food despite the economy, and shop at farmer’s markets.

When was the last time you saw an arts organization partner with the local farmer’s market for cross-promotional purposes? Ever?

The survey also covered attitudes towards traditionally American values and spirituality.

American Life & Culture Survey is really a summary of the findings – a quick read can be a good thing; as far as I could see, a more detailed report is not available for download.

Get the report here.

------------------------

Learn arts marketing in 5 fast lessons, designed to help you start now. They're free. Click this link to learn more.

Start Something New This Week

It’s Mother’s Day.

I’m not a mom myself. All I have to care for is a sweet elderly dog named Edie.

Needless to say, she didn’t take me out for brunch today. She never does.

In honor of Mother’s Day though, I thought, maybe it would be cool to encourage people to bring something into the world, arts marketing-wise.

Maybe, if there’s something you’ve been thinking about doing to help your organization connect with the people who love you the most, this week might be the time to start.

• Maybe it’s something new, like twitter, that you just haven’t taken the time to figure out (and when you do, you’ll see how little time it actually takes).

• Maybe it’s rewriting the copy on your home page to be less about how fabulous your organization is (and no doubt it is fabulous) and more about how incredible your patron feels when she’s involved.

• Maybe it’s brainstorming how to engage your people in ways that are far more participatory and satisfying than the usual pre-concert lecture.

• Or, maybe it’s getting your blog off of your to-do list and onto the computer screens (and mobile phones) of all your biggest fans.

(If an organizational blog has been on your to-do list for the last year and a half, you might think about taking my Intro to Arts Blogging class as a first step. I won’t get into the details; you can find out more about it here. The main thing is, from Mother’s Day until the end of this week, you can get it for half price. Or not, if this isn’t your thing. Just saying.)

.........................................

What have I been putting off that I’d like to bring into the world this week?

Well, I’d like to work more with audio (see above-mentioned class). I’ve never been a podcaster, and I can’t stand the sound of my own voice. But some people don’t have time to read lengthy articles.

You can listen to an mp3, on the other hand, on your way to work, while you’re doing the dishes, or discreetly in staff meetings. I recommend the last option.

It takes me out of my comfort zone, but being comfortable is not important. What’s important is that arts people might need another way to expand their marketing skills, and offering audio articles and classes might fill that need.

I’ll let you know how it works out.

.........................................

What are you going to start this week?

Read this blog via email | Subscribe to newsletter

Do You Need Your Own Social Network?

Do you need your own social network?

The San Francisco Symphony has launched its own online community, the first major orchestra in the world to do so. It’s not all that surprising that the SFS would be at the forefront in the social media sphere. The institution has been using multimedia to help make classical music accessible for years now.

This new venture was announced on the same day that NTEN presented a webinar on their Nonprofit Social Network Survey Report.

Coincidentally, the one finding that jumps out at me is: 30.6% of respondents have created their own social networks.

Thirty percent! That is a whole lot of nonprofit organizations. It floored me.

I have a hard time seeing the value. When you create a new social network, you’re competing with Facebook, or whatever social network your patrons are already using. It’s as if I were asking you to use a Betamax player in addition to your VCR. If this were 1985. Why not leverage what’s already working for people? The Brooklyn Museum's 1stfans membership is a great example of this approach.

The SFS community site clearly reflects the organization’s visual identity, and is very easy to use. There are member pages, member blogs, videos, a calendar of events, and a forum. Unlike similar efforts I’ve seen, they’ve launched it with a membership of more than six people (as of now there are 209 members). That alone is a victory.

Surely their super fans will join in and become active members, and I'll bet they'll number far more than 209. But I believe that they’ll make up the majority of the membership. You have to be pretty motivated to add another social network to your life.

Maybe it’s enough that SFS uses the network to build relationships with those particular enthusiasts. I’m all for concentrating on the people who love you most.

But it’s doubtful to me that the symphony needed to create a whole new community to accomplish that. Facebook would probably do just as well, and allow them to talk to the more casual concert-goers, too. 

What about you – is your organization considering its own social network?

Read this blog via email | Subscribe to newsletter

More:

• What Are Social Media Metrics for the Arts?

• Can You Reach Your Core Arts Patrons on Facebook?

• Has the YouTube Symphony Helped?

• Socially Networked Membership

• Arts Orgs: Talking to Your Right People

Photo: Aristocrat.  Some rights reserved.

How Artists Use Twitter: Part 2

You've landed on an island with only your laptop and a group of mysterious strangers. What would you do? Check your twitter stream for @lost?

You might remember that last week I posted the first part of an interview with Lauri Apple, one half of the team that produced Twitter Island, a participatory performance piece at the Chicago Art Department. Lauri and fellow artist Seth Gershberg invited volunteers to gather at CAD and communicate only via twitter.

Read the first half of the interview here.

With the first question below, I was wondering if the physical layout of the room was chosen to discourage people from making eye contact, or perhaps to replicate the feeling of being in a classroom and discretely texting, or, if you’re as old as me, passing notes. On paper.

........................................

It looks like the chairs were set up lecture-style -- was this a deliberate choice?

No -- it was just what came to mind. We had the chairs so that they were facing the window, and the sunlight. But it did feel like a classroom in the end, and some people pointed that out. In the future, we'll probably arrange the chairs in a circle, to make people feel less like they're in school or at work.

Were the volunteers anonymous to each other?

Yes, they were anonymous to each other. I think people figured out who was who in a lot of cases, but not as much as we initially suspected. The anonymity was intended to make people feel more comfortable about talking to each other, and also about having their words broadcast on the Internet. 

You're planning another event, and this time it will be moderated. Can you elaborate on that? What is the moderator's role?

Sure. We've arranged for the next Twitter Island to take place on May 16 at CAD (Chicago Art Department, 1837 S. Halsted). It will be another 90-minute session, but there will be a list of questions that we ask participants. The questions will focus on social media, and maybe a bit of psychology as well. Nothing too invasive, though. Moderating the conversation will produce a different result -- surely a more focused conversation. It will raise different questions about Twitter's efficacy and limitations as a communications tool, for example -- like, can one have a serious conversation using this technology? In re-reading the tweets from the first event, I realized that even by taking in a few pages of writing from some of these participants, I had no idea what kind of person they were, what they did, or who they were. Because they tended to just riff on whatever -- "I'm bored," "I'm going to be hungry," etc.

You mentioned that CAD is considering using twitter in other gallery events and for marketing -- any ideas you'd like to expand upon?

I think these are still in development, but one involves an artist not being present for his own opening, but instead tweeting from a remote location during the opening. Other than that: CAD maintains a twitter feed (/chicagoartdept) and a Facebook page, and just redesigned the website (http://chicagoartdepartment.org) to add new blogging capabilities and the Twitter feed. Both are growing, with new followers added daily.

........................................

Don't forget -- the next Twitter Island is May 16, 2009 at CAD (Chicago Art Department, 1837 S. Halsted). For more information, or to register for the next Twitter Island, see The Institute for Applied Tweetonomics.

........................................

More:

• How Artists Use Twitter Part 1

• Follow smArts & Culture on twitter

• When Art is Viral

• Engage Your Artists with Social Media

• Artist An Xiao on Twitter as Medium Part 1 and Part 2

• Live-Tweeting Theater

• Follow Your Arts Tweeps

• Twitter for Arts and Culture

• Tweetsgiving

• A Micro Blogging Arts Office?

Read this blog via email | Subscribe to newsletter

Photo of Twitter Island at CAD: Anna Sodziak. All rights reserved.

How Artists Use Twitter: Part 1

Twitter Island.

No, it’s not a place in Second Life where everyone uses twitter. (Didn’t it seem like every place in Second Life was called Fill-in-the-Blank Island? I digress.)

On March 28, artists Lauri Apple and Seth Gershberg hosted a participatory performance piece titled Twitter Island at the nonprofit Chicago Art Department gallery. They invited 18 volunteers, mostly non-artists, to gather together in a room for 90 minutes and communicate only with each other, and only using twitter.

The results of the project have encouraged CAD staff to consider incorporating twitter into gallery openings and other events, as well as their own work as artists.

Twitter Island reminds me of Portland Center Stage’s live-tweeting theater experiment, in that, for the Portland tweeters, the event was a bonding experience. You may remember that Portland Center Stage in January 2009 invited theater-goers to live-tweet the premiere of a play. The results were mixed but positive – no complaints from the audience, actors, or technical staff, and the tweeters reported developing camaraderie with the other participants, but not being able to follow the play as closely as they would otherwise.

Lauri Apple emailed me to let me know about Twitter Island, but I still had lots of questions, and she was kind enough to answer them for me, via email.

.......................................................

How did you get the idea for this project?

I've been interested in the psychological consequences of social media -- is it alienating/narcissism-enhancing/etc. -- for a few months, and wanted to do something artistic that involved an actual social media platform. Seth and I got to talking at an opening at Chicago Art Department (where we're both resident artists) and the idea evolved from that conversation. We wanted to document the conversations people would have, if forced to use technology instead of being able to talk. We're both interested in technology and its evolution, and its effects on how people interact with each other. 

How did the design of the project evolve?

Over just a couple of conversations, mainly -- we thought about using Facebook at first, but Twitter was the logical choice because of the documentation aspect and the openness. We worried about people just using Facebook chat to have conversations the whole time, which we wouldn't be able to capture for any subsequent artistic project.

How does it relate to the work that you and Seth do as artists?

Seth does video, and there was a video component to the event -- friends shot the event. For me, my paintings deal with the ideas of celebrity and individuality, but also of loneliness -- so all of these issues come up when you're talking about social media.

How did you recruit volunteers?

We used the media to recruit participants; people read about the event and signed up that way. And also social media -- mainly through Facebook invitations.

From the photos, it looks like most participants were 20- and 30-somethings, yes? Was this a deliberate choice? Why?

Yes, that's right about the audience make-up. It wasn't a choice -- and I didn't even think about it until you pointed it out! Maybe future events will have more of an even distribution. Hm ...

.......................................................

The second part of my interview with Lauri Apple is here. will be posted next week. In it she describes a slightly different Twitter Island, to take place on May 16, 2009 at CAD (Chicago Art Department, 1837 S. Halsted). For more information, or to register for the next Twitter Island, see The Institute for Applied Tweetonomics.

.......................................................

More:

• How Artists Use Twitter: Part 2
  

• Follow smArts & Culture on twitter

• When Art is Viral

• Engage Your Artists with Social Media

• What's Holding Back Your Arts Blog?

• Artist An Xiao on Twitter as Medium Part 1 and Part 2

• Live-Tweeting Theater

• Follow Your Arts Tweeps

• Twitter for Arts and Culture

• Tweetsgiving

• A Micro Blogging Arts Office?

Read this blog via email | Read a free sample newsletter

Photo of Twitter Island at CAD: Anna Sodziak. All rights reserved.