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Thank you to the many people who have been blog contributors to, and readers of ArtsBlog over the years. ArtsBlog has long been a space where we uplifted stories from the field that demonstrated how the arts strengthen our communities socially, educationally, and economically; where trends and issues and controversies were called out; and advocacy tools were provided to help you make the case for more arts funding and favorable arts policies.

As part of Americans for the Arts’ recent Strategic Realignment Process, we were asked to evaluate our storytelling communications platforms and evolve the way we share content. As a result, we launched the Designing Our Destiny portal to explore new ways of telling stories and sharing information, one that is consistent with our longtime practice of, “No numbers without a story, and no stories without a number.”

As we put our energy into developing this platform and reevaluate our communications strategies, we have put ArtsBlog on hold. That is, you can read past blog posts, but we are not posting new ones. You can look to the Designing Our Destiny portal and our news items feed on the Americans for the Arts website for stories you would have seen in ArtsBlog in the past.

ArtsBlog will remain online through this year as we determine the best way to archive this valuable resource and the knowledge you’ve shared here.

As ever, we are grateful for your participation in ArtsBlog and thank you for your work in advancing the arts. It is important, and you are important for doing it.

1409 ITEMS FOUND


Mr. David M. Dombrosky

Cultivating Citizen Critics

Posted by Mr. David M. Dombrosky, Oct 07, 2010 2 comments


Mr. David M. Dombrosky

David Dombrosky

For years, I have heard the lament for the rise of “citizen critics” –individuals who use blogs, social networks and other social media tools to share their reviews of performances, exhibitions, films, etc.  I have listened to a number of artists, directors, curators, and other arts managers bemoan the replacement of “true” cultural critics in traditional media with these self-published citizen critics.  The complaints typically revolve around a perceived lack of credentials and lack of understanding for the discipline.

While I, too, bemoan the loss of criticism in much of today’s traditional media, I must point out that citizen critics are not new.  In fact, they have been around for as long as there has been art about which to have an opinion.  To be blunt, we are all citizen critics.  Have you ever told someone your opinion about a work of art, a concert, a performance, etc.?  Of course, you have.  We all have.   And more of us are sharing our opinions with each other (and the world) thanks to rise of the social Web. 

In August, a brouhaha erupted online between two bloggers and an actor from Canada’s Teatro la Quindicina in Edmonton, Alberta after one of the bloggers wrote a critical review of a play in which the actor appeared.   Aside from serving as a case study in how NOT to deal with citizen critics, this online fracas brought to the surface a disdain held by many artists and administrators.

The reality is that citizen critics are not going away.  So rather than lash out at them or quietly complain about them, why don’t we identify ways in which our organizations can cultivate them?

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K.E. Semmel

Engaging New Audiences & Diversifying Programming to Attract New Constituents

Posted by K.E. Semmel, Oct 07, 2010 0 comments


K.E. Semmel

The Writer’s Center has been around since 1976. It has a large following in the greater Washington DC area and, increasingly, nationally (in 2009, Poets & Writers Magazine, a leading trade magazine in our field, named us one of eight “places to go outside academia” to take creative writing workshops). Over the years, TWC has nurtured the careers of many writers, from Pagan Kennedy to 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award-winner Patricia McArdle. In that time we’ve also developed a loyal following of members: they participant in our workshops & events, they donate, they spread word about us to the public.

This core constituency is vital to The Writer’s Center. But equally vital is engaging new members in what we do. The question is: How do you go about doing that? The best way—or at least the way we’ve done it best—is to create new programs that fall within your mission. In the last two years, for example, we’ve added a wide range of new workshop leaders (and therefore new workshops, from graphic novels to writing crime & mystery novels); developed partnerships with local organizations such as Fall for the Book, the Royal Norwegian and Danish Embassies, and the Maryland Humanities Council, etc. In addition, we’ve created new programs such as the Undiscovered Voices Fellowships (which provide opportunities for writers earning less than 25K annually); Ann Darr Scholarships for female veterans and active duty military; and Emerging Writer Fellowships (which honor and support emerging writers with up to 3 published books in their respective genre). To showcase our Emerging Writer Fellowships, we’ve developed perhaps the very best vehicle for reaching new audiences: Story/Stereo: A Night of Literature and Music. At this event we pair our Emerging Writer Fellows with prominent DC musicians (thanks to two musician/curators, Chad Clark and Matt Byars).

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Chad Bauman

Remember to Test even the "Sacred Cows"

Posted by Chad Bauman, Oct 06, 2010 0 comments


Chad Bauman

I think I have always been attracted to arts marketing because it allows me to use both creative as well as scientific talents. To this day, I might be the only person to graduate from Missouri State University with a major in speech and theatre education and a minor in mathematics. So it should come as no surprise that I take a very scientific approach to marketing.

In every campaign I lead, I constantly manipulate variables and note outcomes in an attempt to continually improve upon previous results. The easiest variables that marketers turn to are design and pricing. How many times have you tested a carrier package? an offer? pricing strategy? Probably quite a few times. Now think about how many times you have tested different timing schemes for putting products on sale.

This was the first year in my tenure at Arena Stage where we experimented with using timing as a variable. For almost as long as we have had mini-subscriptions, we have put them on sale at the exact same time as our full season subscriptions, fearing that instead of waiting or upgrading, our potential mini-subscribers would opt to go elsewhere for their entertainment. The fear of losing potential mini-subscribers was so strong that for many years timing wasn't even considered a possible variable to test.

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Chad Bauman

A Collection of Worst Practices

Posted by Chad Bauman, Oct 12, 2010 4 comments


Chad Bauman

Chad Bauman

A couple of weeks ago while sitting on a funding panel, I said to a representative of a very large funder that I didn't understand why people were so afraid to fail, and then discuss their failures openly so that everyone could learn from them. Especially in the fields of technology and audience development, more advances come out of failure than anything else. The funding representative said that she felt the same way, but heard from companies that they were afraid to admit their failures because they feared it would affect future funding opportunities.

Well, I thought I might get the ball rolling by discussing some of my biggest failures and what they taught me:

Always give the exclusive to your best customers. I have made this mistake a couple of times, but trust me, I have learned the lesson. Every now and again, you might have a big news story that a major news outlet will want an exclusive on. They might even promise you front page or prime time coverage, in exchange for the opportunity to be the exclusive outlet to break the story. In the past to protect an exclusive, I have made the decision not to release any information until after the story broke. However, imagine how your subscribers might feel if they first learn of this news by reading the front page of the newspaper? Do you think they would feel like part of the family? or a VIP? NO! I still work with our media relations staff regularly to negotiate exclusives with major news outlets, but we always inform our subscribers first. It might only be an hour or two before the mainstream news breaks it, but they are first to know.

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Mr. Clayton W. Lord

Constantly Increasing the Sum of Our Arts

Posted by Mr. Clayton W. Lord, Oct 07, 2010 0 comments


Mr. Clayton W. Lord

Recently, I did a big set of interviews for a series of articles that I was writing for Theatre Bay Area magazine on the intersection of mission, community and art.  In the course of these interviews, I often asked questions about the demographics of the particular theatre companies I was speaking to, and in most cases they didn’t have a clear idea of anything more than the most basic stats in terms of butts in seats, percent of house full etc.  What surprised me here is that this wasn’t just with the small companies, which here in the Bay Area make up about 75% of the 300-400 company members we have at any given time.  This was with big companies, very big companies, the biggest companies.  When I asked, the answer that came back was, “well, we use the Big List for those numbers.”

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Brian Reich

DIGITAL EXTRAS #2: Arts Organizations Need to Shift & Reset

Posted by Brian Reich, Oct 06, 2010 1 comment


Brian Reich

Brian Reich

Information moves faster. People are more closely connected. The expectations we all have for what we want to see and hear have changed. The kinds of relationships and the levels of support we want from organizations have been redefined. Our connection to the issues and events that define our world has been transformed.

The ubiquity of technology and the reach of the Internet make it possible to spread a message farther and have it be embraced by more people than ever before. The rise of social platforms leaves no doubt that we are one global, interconnected community and capable of taking action on issues we passionately share. The available tools make it possible for everyone to have a platform from which to speak, and anyone to spark a bottom-up, grassroots-fueled revolution that has power no individual or entity could generate. However, the tools alone will not ensure that an arts organization, or any organization, is successful in communicating with, and engaging, audiences.

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Brian Reich

DIGITAL EXTRAS #3: Examples on How to Engage Online

Posted by Brian Reich, Oct 07, 2010 1 comment


Brian Reich

Brian Reich

1. Publish the production notes from your show as a presentation online and let your audience, as well as others who are staging a similar show, to access the details or add their own ideas.  Provide personal notes about your interpretation of the script.  Share a picture or diagram of the stage layout.  Include the back-of-the-napkin drawings that were first shared with the costume department.  You can create a basic Powerpoint or Keynote file and load it up to SlideShare (www.slideshare.net) or Scribd (www.scribd.com).  Integrate the links into all your marketing activities, promote the 'process story' to media and bloggers, even consider hosting pre-show discussions or events to discuss the notes that you have provided.  The more information you can provide to help a member of your audience gain greater understanding of the production, and the more accessible you can make those details, the more opportunities you create as an organization to engage people in a meaningful, measurable way.

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Brian Reich

DIGITAL EXTRAS #4: More from the Conversation With Brian Solis

Posted by Brian Reich, Oct 08, 2010 0 comments


Brian Reich

Brian Reich

The latest book from Brian Solis, Engage, is written for champions and executives alike in business, marketing, branding, interactive, service, and communications with a mission to help all aspects of business to the table. But Brian Solis understands how arts organizations work, and how the lessons from his book, and his work with brands all around the world, can be applied to arts organizations.

More from my conversation with Brian Solis:

Reich: Arts organizations are ultimately competing for an audience’s attention just like every other brand out there – and in most cases, the competition has more resources to support their efforts to reach and engage customers. When an organization is small, its focus somewhat narrow, and its resources more limited – how can an arts organization compete?  Are there enough people who are interested in the arts, or who are looking to support a small organization, to justify the time and energy required to truly engage?

Solis: It comes down to the idea of a switch. Imagine that you are hosting an event, a conference. The challenge that arts organizations face will actually be very similar, and thus they will need to approach social media and audience engagement in much the same way a non-profit arts organization would. First, a conference, like an arts organization, is looking for people who are contextually bound – an audience focused on specific topic or theme. Well, one of the most underestimated powers of social networking and that is that you can identify clusters of individuals connected around topics and themes. But, to identify those clusters requires a little layer of intelligence. You need to you to connect the dots without necessarily saying: “I want to find everyone whose interested in, say, arts in Chicago” for example. You have to dig one or two layers deeper and develop a more complete understanding of the individuals you are trying to reach. There are so many different capacities on which you can connect with individuals. So if you’re working for an arts organizations and your job is to increase subscribers or donations, that’s one thing. If your role within that organization is filling seats in that particular house, maybe that’s something that complimentary but more likely the challenge is a little different. And then who you connect with and where are all going to be dictated by the results that come out of that initial searching. So if someone you are trying to reach is active on LinkedIn versus Twitter versus Facebook, that intelligence is there, and how you connect with them will be based on how people are interacting in those communities right now. I used conferences as an example because it is one of the more difficult things that you have to do – filling the seats in a particular house for a series of events in a local area for a very specific event. And then when you book a conference, for example, and you now have people who are connected from all over the world and you interact with them, and everyone is fighting for their attention, the challenge becomes even greater. The similarities to arts organizations are pretty clear.

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Mary R. Trudel

Oh yes -- THERE’S AN APP FOR THAT! -- CONNECTING WITH AUDIENCES VIA MOBILE TECHNOLOGY

Posted by Mary R. Trudel, Oct 07, 2010 0 comments


Mary R. Trudel

Mary Trudel

I’ll be moderating a NAMP session on Saturday, November 13, 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm featuring up to the minute presentations by colleagues Rory MacPherson, Ron Evans and Ayokunle Omojola on how arts organizations can harness their creativity to develop apps and use existing mobile platforms to build connections with audiences. We’ll also engage with representatives from Bay Area organizations: the Center for Asian American Media about creating custom applications for the iPhone and  Yerba Buena Center for the Arts which has forged a community of supporters using mobile-accessible Twitter and Facebook feeds.

One concern I’ve heard is that technological ways of connecting with arts organizations might limit or compete with live participation.  But to quote Clay Shirky’s new book Cognitive Surplus:  “The old idea that media is a domain relatively separate from ‘the real world’ no longer applies…to any of the myriad ways people are using social media to arrange real-world action.”  And the latest NEA research report, Audience 2.0, contains surprising, reassuring news: More is Better!  People who engage with art through media technologies attend live performances or arts exhibits at TWO to THREE times the rate of non-media arts participants.

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We All Want the Same Thing

Posted by , Oct 08, 2010 1 comment



Amelia Northrup

The world of arts management is changing, as all industries are changing, with the proliferation of technology. Especially with the increasing popularity of online media, we as arts managers have had to reconsider the way we see our performances. Is online video footage merely a vessel for our product? Or is it, in fact, our product? Or, can it also be a means to an end?

Many see social media and its democratization of internet content as the tool that will restore relevance to the arts, which critics claim is no longer present.

In recent weeks, we’ve seen changes in the social media landscape that make the issues surrounding performance footage all the more relevant. Twitter is adding video embedding capability. YouTube will soon be able to handle streaming video for content partners. These are signals of a trend that is already in progress—a movement of online video footage becoming not only accepted, but commonplace. Like it or not, online video is here to stay.

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