My weblog neighbor, Drew McManus, has been slogging through orchestra web sites for his second annual Orchestra Website Review, which this year ranks 80 websites of professional orchestras based on his detailed criteria. This year, he decided to teach an important lesson to symphony marketing departments about the on-line world, specifically, the importance of grabbing […]
Now the entrepreneur comes in ”mini”
Trendwatching.com has a feature on the emergence of the ”minipreneur,” defined as: …a vast army of consumers turning entrepreneurs; including small and micro businesses, freelancers, side-businesses, weekend entrepreneurs, web-driven entrepreneurs, part-timers, free agents, cottage businesses, seniorpreneurs, co-creators, mompreneurs, pro-ams, solopreneurs, eBay traders, advertising-sponsored bloggers and so on. Evidence includes the 724,000 Americans who claim eBay […]
Exploring the ”common” wealth
The folks over at the University of Massachusetts – Amherst have an interesting forum topic coming this academic year: The Forum on Social Wealth (thanks to OnTheCommons.org for the link). The program overview states the problem rather well: Our common wealth is endangered. The natural wealth of our ecosystem, the social wealth of our families […]
The problem is postponed, but the debate continues
September 6 was supposed to be the day the U.S. Senate voted on permanently repealing the estate tax — that percentage the federal government takes when folks pass away and pass along more than $1.5 million in assets to their young’ens. The permanent repeal seemed on track until the devastation of Hurricane Katrina, which many […]
Policy is NOT abstract…just ask Blockbuster
Those who still believe that ”policy” is a stale and detached endeavor — the stuff of three-ring binders on dusty shelves in the Human Resource department — should attend the tale of Blockbuster, and the chaos wrought by a single policy change. Back in December 2004, the company announced its bold plan to discontinue its […]
The Five Modes of Arts Participation
Interesting stuff, as always, from arts market researcher Alan S. Brown…this time in his work with the University of Pennsylvania’s ”Social Impact of the Arts Project,” and their efforts to benchmark cultural participation in and around North Philadelphia. There’s lots to dig through in the final report by project leaders Mark J. Stern and Susan […]
SOMEBODY must be teaching creative thinking
Fred Kirschnit in the New York Post rants about what’s wrong with America’s top conservatories, suggesting they focus on technical excellence over creative voice. Says he: I’m not suggesting that the practical side of the classical music curriculum be ignored, but the conventional conservatory wisdom is so antithetical to artistic excellence as to be positively […]
Returning to a classic…Jack Schmidt
It had been so long since I read it, that I had almost forgotten. But a friend reminded me of Garrison Keillor’s short story, ”Jack Schmidt, Arts Administrator,” the other day, and I finally gave it a fresh reading: hilarious, thoughtful, biting, insightful…please go read it if you haven’t. It’s more than 20 years old […]
Packaging and selling your attention
As consumers, we’ve all been tracked for decades based on what we buy, where we keep our money, what credit cards we use, and what ZIP+4 we live in. We’ve even become used to individual web sites tracking our page choices, visit duration, and viewing sequences (Amazon.com even tells us what else we should buy). […]
Big carrot, big stick
Public funding for cultural activities is often either diffuse (spread among many departments) or fairly passive (responding to standard grant requests around conference tables). But the Allegheny Regional Asset District is neither, offering a concentrated chunk of annual cash to regional nonprofits (including cultural organizations), and using the opportunity of that big carrot to demand […]
