Erin Marie McDonald

Over the past few weeks, I’ve reflected on the 2013 National Arts Marketing Project Conference in Portland, Oregon. This was my first year attending NAMPC and I left with more than I imagined. Although the conference was filled with brilliant colleagues and inspiring sessions, my biggest take-away and learning experience came from an unscheduled, happenstance moment in the Speakers Prep room with an Americans for the Arts staff member.

First, let me provide a little context: I work at an art organization that was founded five years ago. As the newest addition to the now five-person team, I’m holding down the first communications/community engagement position in our small, yet dedicated office.

At the conference, I was scheduled to assist Danielle Williams, the website and new media manager at American for the Arts, with an interview for its blog. Unfortunately, the interview subject did not show up. However, this turned out to be an ideal opportunity for me to see ideas from many of the workshops put into direct action. Following the canceled video interview, Danielle had another appointment planned; it was a website user experience test for the new American for the Arts site.

Turning the digital audio recorder on, Danielle started asking a number of questions, “What are your first thoughts when you look at the website? What do you think about the top navigation? Do the main titles/links make sense?” The arts management consultant whom I met earlier that morning at breakfast gave her first impressions.

As Danielle fired off the questions from her clipboard, I thought about my responses to the website and noted any similarities between the consultant’s opinions and my own. I thought about my organization’s re-designed website and I wondered if those questions were asked of our key constituents in our research process.

Over the course of the stakeholder interview, my mind drifted to other key projects in development at our organization. Being a recent hire, I wondered what research, testing and experimentation informed our decision to move forward with a motion graphics video project or why we had chosen a certain constituent relationship management software solution. I knew a lot of thought went in to each decision, but I realized how detached I was from some of the previous decision-making processes that resulted in projects for which I was now responsible.

My thoughts bounced between the conference session on consumer psychology, the website user experience test and our own projects. I wondered what small-scale, micro-level research we could do in our office and what its potential impact could be on program development, management and implementation. Even though we have a small office, we still have the ability to test, to experiment.

Although, I was not fortunate enough to meet Ceci Dadisman, I was struck by one of her tweets at the conference, “This year’s #nampc theme should be “It is all about the data,” which featured a lovely photo of Data from Star Trek.

The  comment and image resonated with my personal experience at the 2013 conference. I left thinking what small data bits can we track, what do we have capacity for, and what impact will that make on our overall strategy.

Our organization has started exploring these strategic questions and as we prepare for our next grant proposal, we’re really thinking about ways to improve our outreach and community engagement for this and future years. Although, it was only my first year at NAMPC, based on the incredible sessions, a few serendipitous encounters in a beautiful city, I know it won’t be my last.