Janet L. McCall has been Executive Director of the Society for Contemporary Craft (SCC) in Pittsburgh since 1995. She is responsible for the management, artistic oversight,and fundraising. SCC is a gallery featuring work by local and international artists, an education center and retail store. AMT Lab contributor Peixiao Liu sat down to chat with Janet about her favorite apps.

PL: What are the apps you use every day and why do you like them?

JM: Given a hectic work schedule, frequent days of wall-to-wall meetings, and a challenging commute, I mostly use apps that allow me to de-stress, slow down, and stay healthy, as I strive for better work-life balance. As soon as I wake up every morning, I use my FitBit app to check my sleep quality and again throughout the day to track my activity against my daily goals. I’m a voracious consumer of news so I use the New York Times app and Safari app to keep in touch with what’s going on in the world and to especially stay current within the contemporary art world on sites such as Hyperallergic and Cfile. 

On my commute to work, I use iTalk to record my thoughts and capture insights and new ideas while I’m driving.

PL: Is there an app that surprised you with its usefulness?

JM: Shazam is an amazingly useful app that saves a great deal of time tracking down songs and lyrics. When I travel, I love using LiveTrekker to share images, maps, and audio clips in real time with family and friends back home.

PL: If you could recommend one app to arts managers, what would it be?

JM: I try to walk for 30 minutes every day, to clear my head and recharge my battery. For busy arts managers, I highly recommend building this into the workday. While I walk, I use the Audible.com app to listen to classic management books such as JimCollins’ Good to Great. I also love the LibriVox app that provides free recordings of the most diverse public domain books you can imagine. It reminds me of browsing public shelves in an old library — you never know what you’ll stumble across.

For more on Society for Contemporary Craft, see the SCC blog and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and Pinterest