{"id":119,"date":"2009-06-24T03:34:39","date_gmt":"2009-06-24T03:34:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wp\/2009\/06\/a_few_years_ago_arts\/"},"modified":"2009-06-24T03:34:39","modified_gmt":"2009-06-24T03:34:39","slug":"a_few_years_ago_arts","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/06\/a_few_years_ago_arts.html","title":{"rendered":"Power Curve: Four (Short) Stories About Empowering Audiences"},"content":{"rendered":"

A few years ago arts organizations had the bright idea that they should sell tickets online. Not wanting to invest much in the effort, they turned to the obvious ready-made ticket seller: Ticketmaster. It wasn’t an encouraging experience. Orchestras reported mediocre online sales. It wasn’t until a customized ticket-selling web application came online that online sales proved their worth. <\/p>\n

What was the difference? The new ticket services not only had seating charts and more information about performances, you could see the prices of every seat, and when you clicked on a seat, you could see the view of the stage from that seat. Customers loved it. Not only did online ticket sales take off, the average ticket sale went up 14 percent. Turns out when you put more control of the experience in the hands of the customer, they use it. And they choose to treat themselves better.<\/p>\n

\"nike+.jpg\"<\/span>Nike<\/b> has learned a similar lesson<\/a>. The company’s Nike+ pairs running shoes with monitors that measure a runner’s workout.<\/p>\n

\n
\n

Few things illustrate the power and promise of Living by Numbers quite
\nas clearly as the Nike+ system. By combining a dead-simple way to amass
\ndata with tools to use and share it, Nike has attracted the largest
\ncommunity of runners ever assembled–more than 1.2 million runners who
\nhave collectively tracked more than 130 million miles and burned more
\nthan 13 billion calories.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\"guardiancrowdsource.JPG\"<\/span>The Guardian newspape<\/b>r found itself at a distinct disadvantage recently when the government dumped half a million million documents detailing expense claims submitted by members of parliament. Sorting through the documents would take reporters a year. So the Guardian decided to enlist readers. Editors put the pages online and asked readers<\/a> to look at them and report back what they found.<\/p>\n

\n

How to lure them<\/a>?<\/p>\n

<\/span>By making it feel like a game. The Guardian’s four-panel interface — “interesting,” “not
\ninteresting,” “interesting but known,” and “investigate this!” made
\ncategorization easy. And the progress bar on the project’s front page<\/a>, immediately giving the community a goal to share<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Within a few days more than 20,000 readers had reviewed 181,829 pages and the newspaper began reporting on what they had found. Editors had mobilized their community to help produce the product, and readers were enthusiastic about it. <\/p>\n

“Any time that you’re trying to get people to give you stuff, to do
\nstuff for you, the most important thing is that people know that what
\nthey’re doing is having an effect. It’s kind of a
\nfundamental tenet of social software. … If you’re not giving people the
\n‘I rock’ vibe, you’re not getting people to stick around.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"logo_dashboard.jpg\"<\/span>This is the kind of thinking<\/b> behind the Indianapolis Museum of Art’s Art Babble<\/a><\/strike>. (UPDATE: Lesson to self: Don’t post so late at night – I meant the IMA’s Dashboard<\/a>. AB is also a project of the IMA] The idea is to empower the museum’s community by being as transparent as possible. So on the website you can find out how many people visited the museum that day, what art is hanging and what is in storage. You can even find out the value of the museum’s endowment at the close of the market.<\/p>\n

Are most people interested in this level of detail? No. Is it a bit scary to have your endowment figures up for everyone to see in this financial market? Absolutely. But if people take more ownership of a community when they have more information, and if they feel encouraged to participate in that community because they can see how it works from the inside, then this is a smart strategy for growth.<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n
<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A few years ago arts organizations had the bright idea that they should sell tickets online. Not wanting to invest much in the effort, they turned to the obvious ready-made ticket seller: Ticketmaster. It wasn’t an encouraging experience. Orchestras reported mediocre online sales. It wasn’t until a customized ticket-selling web application came online that online […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-119","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4ePZm-1V","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":59,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/03\/is_ticketmaster_hurting_becaus.html","url_meta":{"origin":119,"position":0},"title":"Is Ticketmaster Hurting Because Of Ticket Sales? Nope – Business is Sweet!","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"March 20, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"Ticketmaster announces a billion-dollar loss, blaming \"declining ticket sales, costs associated with layoffs and a massive impairment charge.\" The loss is real (in a 2009-paper-losses, bank-accounting kind of way), of course. But:The bulk of Ticketmaster's loss was because of a $1.1 billion charge the company took because of a precipitous\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"ticketmaster.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/ticketmaster.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":127,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/08\/air_hassle.html","url_meta":{"origin":119,"position":1},"title":"The Upgrades That Make You Feel Worse","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"August 27, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"I've been on a lot of airplanes recently. Flying isn't much fun, but I like being in other places. So in the process of travel I tend to see those around me as either obstacles to my getting where I need to go, or neutral (other passengers) or helpful (hopefully,\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 5 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 5 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/08\/air_hassle.html#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"airplaneseats.jpg","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/airplaneseats.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1296,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2017\/01\/are-orchestras-a-ticket-or-an-art-maybe-were-thinking-about-the-made-up-model-wrong.html","url_meta":{"origin":119,"position":2},"title":"Are Orchestras A Ticket Or An Art? Maybe We’re Thinking About The (Made Up) Model Wrong","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"January 26, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"As recently as 1990, American symphony orchestras accounted for an average of 60 percent of their budgets in earned income. This meant, at the time, that if you weren't selling enough tickets (and other services) to make 60 percent, then you weren't considered healthy. A report in 1991 - The\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "culture business models"","block_context":{"text":"culture business models","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/category\/culture-business-models"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/orchnumbers.png?fit=959%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/orchnumbers.png?fit=959%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/orchnumbers.png?fit=959%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=525%2C300 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/01\/orchnumbers.png?fit=959%2C1200&ssl=1&resize=700%2C400 2x"},"classes":[]},{"id":80,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/04\/while_the_recession_might_be.html","url_meta":{"origin":119,"position":3},"title":"The Romance Of A Really Big Audience","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"April 8, 2009","format":false,"excerpt":"While the recession might be hard on some publishers, the romance novel genre is booming, reports the NYT. Harlequin Enterprises, the queen of the romance world, reported that fourth-quarter earnings were up 32 percent over the same period a year earlier, and Donna Hayes, Harlequin's chief executive, said that sales\u2026","rel":"","context":"With 2 comments","block_context":{"text":"With 2 comments","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2009\/04\/while_the_recession_might_be.html#comments"},"img":{"alt_text":"harlequinfeature.JPG","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/harlequinfeature.JPG?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1151,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/diacritical\/2016\/09\/some-of-our-orchestras-seem-to-be-thriving-is-this-a-new-trend.html","url_meta":{"origin":119,"position":4},"title":"Some Of Our Orchestras Seem To Be Thriving – Is This A New Trend?","author":"Douglas McLennan","date":"September 20, 2016","format":false,"excerpt":"There's been a change in the news coming out of symphony orchestras over the past summer. Usually there's a background drumbeat of struggle as orchestras fight to stay alive. But for months now, the beat has shifted, and we're hearing about orchestras that are not only surviving but thriving. 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