Are You Making the 5 Biggest Facebook Mistakes?

In preparation for next week's webinar How to Make the Most of Your Facebook Page, I asked Maryann Devine from smArts & Culture and Jacquelyn Kittredge from e-bakery social media to share with us the 5 biggest mistakes that arts organizations make on Facebook.  Here is their reply: 1. Using Facebook as a broadcast channel rather than interacting with your fans. If your aim is to become invisible to your fans, this is the way to go. Facebook determines where you show up in your fans' default Top News stream based on the interactions of the fans and their friends with your page, and the kind of content you put up. Less interaction means your page is less visible to your fans -- the very people you want to reach.

2. Using the same voice on Facebook (and other social media) as you do in your traditional marketing. Many arts managers have trouble making that leap, and it's understandable. They're used to communicating with their patrons in a particular style -- it's hard to shake that off. The reality is that using the same voice on Facebook as you do in your ad copy is just not going to work, and you'll likely be ignored. Social media spaces are more personal, like a backyard barbeque or the kitchen table, and you need to adjust your tone accordingly.

3. Forgetting that the page is for your fans, not for your organization. As Jacquelyn often points out, fan pages harken back to fan clubs. Fan clubs were all about giving special access and fan-club-only perks to the most loyal enthusiasts. Research shows that most people 'like' Facebook pages for discounts and special offers. Keep that in mind as your interacting with your group's fans.

4. Creating a personal profile or group for your arts organization rather than a fan page. Fan pages allow you to analyze stats on how people interact with your page AND the demographics of your fans. Personal profiles and groups can't do that. Fan pages can have an unlimited number of fans. Personal profiles are limited to 5,000 friends. Most importantly, Facebook is indexed by Google and your page can improve your Google ranking -- it may be easier to find your fan page through Google than your own web site.

5. Not having a Facebook Page at all because you already have a website. People are spending more time on social networks and less time on static websites, so Facebook allows you to meet your fans where they are already are.

In addition to addressing these common mistakes, Maryann and Jacquelyn's webinar will discuss:

Why your organization may be invisible even to fans of your Facebook page, and what to do about it.

Why it’s important to engage with your Facebook fans — beyond the usual clichés about ‘conversation’ — and how to do it.

What is a ‘landing tab’ and why it gives you an advantage.

How it’s possible for even the smallest organizations to use Facebook applications like contests and advertising without breaking the bank.

The webinar is on Tuesday, October 19th from 2pm-3:30pm EST.  Registration is $25. Click here to register today.

New Poll: One Social Site to Rule Them All?

There have been a lot of recent upgrades across various social media platforms over the past few months. Among them Twitter is rolling out their site overhaul, Facebook is upgrading their groups pages and photo-hosting, and LinkedIn has been bulking up their features as well. More and more, social media sites are starting to add each other’s specialties to their own bag of tricks. This points towards a trend of each site trying to become your one-stop-shop for all things social media. This brings up an interesting question.  Which is a better approach for an arts organization: participating in a single social media site that does it all, or continuing to use various sites to engage different online communities?

Cultivating Citizen Critics

This post originally also appears as part of the Arts Marketing Blog Salon hosted by Americans for the Arts.

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?

Consider this perspective from *ahem* blogger Corinne at Blogging by the Numbers:

Theatre blogging is a niche pursuit. But then going to sit in a darkened auditorium and watch people speak – or in the case of opera, sing – someone else’s words multiple times a month (or some times a week) is also a niche pursuit. The internet, in all its multifaceted joy, allows a niche to flourish. Like attracts like (or compels like). It not only cements tendencies (that of reading about theatre, of continuing going, of knowing more than you could ever keep in your head), it also allows tendencies to grow. Knowing there is a community of people out there doing the same thing – theatre-going is a tribe as much as anyone else. Of course not all repeat theatre goers blog but, in 2010 with the ease of Google, I’d be surprised to find a repeat theatre-goer (who wasn’t directly involved in the industry*) who had never read a theatre blog. These people – the people whose names might otherwise be simply one in a marketing database – should be hugely valued (and respected).

How can you embrace citizen critics? Here are a few initial ideas to consider:

1. Send press releases optimized for social media to citizen critics whom you’ve identified in your community.
2. Host “meet-ups” for local online critics, where they can interact with each other as well as directors, performers, writers, curators, etc. There are proponents of hosting these “meet-ups” prior to the artistic experience and others who prefer to host them as follow-up events.
3. Draw inspiration from programs like the Broward Center for the Performing Arts’ Teen Ambassadors and encourage young audience members in your community to write reviews and share them with their peers through online social networks?
4. During intermission, encourage the audience to pull out their mobile phones and send status updates or tweets with their impressions of the performance.
5. Consider using tools like Talkbackr to actively encourage your audience to provide you with feedback.

That’s enough out of me. What ideas do YOU have?

October webinar - Making the Most of Your Facebook Page

How to Make the Most of Your Facebook PageTuesday, October 19, 2010 2:00pm-3:30pm Eastern Register today for $25 Presenters: Maryann Devine and Jacquelyn Kittredge

You've probably heard a lot about Facebook in the media this past year, and you may have a lot of unanswered questions. You may be hesitating taking the plunge, for a variety of reasons -- it takes too much time or loss of brand control, for example.

In this webinar, you'll learn:

Why you should consider creating a Facebook presence for your arts organization, even you've already got a great web site or blog, even if you're using other social media tools like Twitter.

Why it DOES make a difference whether you create a personal profile, a group, or a page on Facebook.

Why your organization may be invisible even to fans of your Facebook page, and what to do about it.

Why it's important to engage with your Facebook fans -- beyond the usual clichés about 'conversation' -- and how to do it.

What is a 'landing tab' and why it gives you an advantage.

How it's possible for even the smallest organizations to use Facebook applications like contests and advertising without breaking the bank.

Participants in this webinar will also receive $25 off registration for the online course "Facebook Contests for Arts Organizations."

Maryann Devine is a teacher, blogger, and consultant who helps arts people and connect with their biggest fans. She was director of marketing and public relations at The Academy of Vocal Arts before starting her own company, smArts & Culture. There she has worked with arts organizations large and small, as well as individual artists, and created classes and e-courses especially for people in the arts who have little time to spare, but a passion to learn. She has taught audience development and technology courses for Drexel University's graduate program in arts administration.

Facebook maven Jacquelyn Kittredge created her company, e-bakery, to help small businesses mix social media into their marketing strategies. A consultant with a checkered past, Jacquelyn has been a programmer, corporate trainer, user documentation specialist, middle school teacher, and fundraising organizer (as well as a gift-wrapper and surf-shop chick!). Her teaching and training experience helps her keep the technical information people-friendly and easy to learn. To that end, she recently created the online course, "Facebook Contests for Arts Organizations." Formerly the Director of Marketing and the Chief Evangelist for a healthcare start-up company, VoiceCode.net, Jacquelyn lives in Alexandria, Virginia with her husband, one dog and their three (wild) boys.

Building “Real World” Relationships Online: Alan Cooke of Convio

Alan Cooke of Convio

Alan Cooke knows arts donors. This opera-lover also happens to be a master marketer (formerly with Hewlett Packard) and he puts his passion and his skills to good use at fundraising software company Convio, specializing in systems for non-profit organizations across the spectrum.

Convio’s most visible campaign is likely the Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure team fundraising efforts. (They have also done a fantastic job with Pittsburgh’s own Carnegie Museum.) However, Convio provides a range of different tools—at the core is Convio online marketing, which is a collection of tools—email marketing, website design, platforms for peer-to-peer fundraising, etc.

I recently interviewed Alan after seeing his presentation on online fundraising at the Opera America Conference in June.

Arts organizations, more often than other non-profits, have two messages that they’re getting out there. They’re asking people to buy tickets and on the other hand, they’re asking for a donations. How do you find that different from your other non-profit clients when you’re working with performing arts organizations?

The ticket-selling organizations are a little bit different from the majority of our organizations which only have contributed income. I think that, in terms of opera companies, many people really don’t understand the economic model of an opera company very well. I certainly did not understand that when I was an occasional single ticket buyer for the opera.

Perhaps one of the things that needs to happen is that organizations need to do a much better job, first of all, of making the case that simply selling tickets is not going to cover the cost of the productions. A lot of that is just education. You can make that case pretty well on your website and also through your communications with people, but you do need to make that case. Secondly, there’s the question of where you want to start. In the case of ticket-selling organizations, it’s logical to optimize your website for ticket purchases. There are things that you can do after someone has actually purchased a ticket where you can start to move them down a path and start to make your case--really simple things, like when they buy a ticket give them the option of making a small donation or trying to get people on a monthly plan where they’re giving a relatively small contributions every month. It’s automatic, you don’t have to worry about it and typically the lifetime value of those donors is very, very high.

One of the things that I have seen with digital communications in arts organizations is that you have the marketing department… And then you have the development department. Sometimes they play together very well, but sometimes, you’ll see accounts that are very obviously controlled by one or the other, and not a lot of overall relationship building. Your thoughts?

This problem of silos is a very common problem throughout the whole non-profit world. I think we have marketing departments that have their own agenda and their own tools and then you have a development department that has their own separate tools and they don’t talk about it to each other very much, which causes all kinds of confusion. Breaking down those organizational silos is easier said than done. Often smaller organizations have an easier time because they have fewer people, but as organizations get large, those walls sometimes can become very, very strong. It’s true that there is a lot of marketing chatter, which often doesn’t have very much to do with relationships. I think we’re starting to figure out how to build relationships the way that the development people have always done—you can do those same things online.

A lot of organizations are getting people’s email addresses after they’ve attended one performance and then they get an email asking for, for example, a $150 donation. Marc Van Bree has made the point that that’s like asking someone to marry you after the first date.

That’s right. It’s all about relationships. The online world is not dramatically different from the real world. You need to ask permission and you need to build a relationship with somebody before you start hitting them up for money. That’s a simple thing to do but there’s a surprising number of people who don’t do that.

Then how do you build that relationship and making the case for support to new pools of donors? In your Opera America session, you mentioned the concept of a welcome series.

So, the idea of a welcome series is that when somebody takes that step of raising their hand and saying, “I am interested in what it is that you have to offer” by giving you their email address, at that point you can’t just ignore them. You can’t just take it for granted and then immediately start asking them for money. Just like you would in a normal face-to-face relationship, you need to welcome that person to your community and you do that by seeking out some spaced email communications thanking the people for getting to know your organization and giving them some background information. Gradually, as you move down what we refer to as the relationship pathway, you give them more and more ways to become involved and to get more deeply embedded in the culture of the organization.

One of the very good things about using a technology platform is that you can automate all that, so you don’t have to write these things every time. It can be completely built out beforehand and automated. And we have found that by doing that, by making sure that as soon as someone joins your list, they get put into that communication stream. Not only are the open rates higher, but the conversion rates are much higher. And once they actually convert and donate, becoming a financial supporter of the organization, you can take them out of that stream and put them in a different stream. All of that can be automated and set up quite easily.

One of the ways that you mentioned non-profit arts organizations could combat the current economic climate is to reposition themselves as a community resource. How can an organization do that via digital means?

This came out of a conversation that I had with the general manager of my local opera company in Austin and I think that what they had said was fascinating. The difficulty that they encounter, especially in a medium-sized market like Austin, Texas, is that it’s not easy to sell opera. There is a relatively small audience for opera in that kind of a city and particularly in times of recession, it’s difficult to make the case. So this was an enormous struggle for the opera company in Austin, as I feel it is for many opera companies.

What they decided to do, which I thought was very clever of them, was they built an excellent music school on the premises right next to the concert hall and they started to garner quite a bit of attention in the city because of the quality of the music education that they offered to children. They had promoted that pretty heavily on their website and they have started to build a whole new pool of supporters for the opera who are people who would have never been on their list before—parents of children who now go to the school at the opera. It’s a completely new donor pool for them and it’s a donor pool that is amenable to different techniques, so they have started to do a fair amount of online fundraising to that audience, and that’s been pretty effective. They are obviously younger people and people who are not perhaps as familiar with the opera as the traditional audience. It’s basically given them a new pool of donors.

I heard that you recently added a database component to your collection of online tools. Tell me about that.

The database component an interesting new development for us. There are obviously a lot of vendors out there that sell databases to non-profit clients, but it became apparent to us that a lot of clients didn’t only want a set of on-line tools. They wanted a set of online tools, but they also wanted an entire CRM [Customer Relationship Management] system, where everything worked together. I think we have done a pretty good job in the past of integrating with programs like Raiser’s Edge. Data flows back into the master database and flows the other way.  But it became apparent that a lot of those database tools were expensive and were relatively complex and that there was an opportunity for us to build a more integrated system together, and that was really the approach that we took.

What we decided to do rather than actually building something from scratch ourselves is we partnered with Sales Force. Sales Force has what they refer to as a non-profit template, which is a kind of a database for non-profits based on their commercial product. We built on top of that core piece and we built a product which is called Common Ground™. It’s a database specifically for non-profits, which talks to our online pieces.

So, if I were a development director, sending out emails and getting fine return on investment, but I really want to take my fundraising to the next level, what’s the first thing I should look into from Convio?

Rather than even looking for a tool, Convio is known for extremely interesting and high-quality research. For someone who is just thinking about how to get to the next level, I think they are thought-provoking. Obviously, they are not going to get you there automatically, but there very interesting. For a technology company, we do a lot more research than many technology companies and I think that’s one of our great assets. It depends on who you are; if you are a small organization, I would hope that you are really at the point where you are strongly thinking about bringing in technology to help you get to the next level, I would hope you’d look at product tours, which are short. They are a pretty good way to see what’s possible.

Social Media Spotlight: Vancouver Opera

Welcome to the first installment of the Social Media Spotlight, our monthly feature focusing on arts organizations’ social media strategies.

Vancouver Opera’s social media presence, headed by photography/fashion buff and technology maven Ling Chan, goes where few opera companies have gone before. In order to achieve their goal of increasing brand awareness and facilitating two way communications with their followers, the $9 million opera company has launched initiatives like manga (a traditionally Japanese style of comic) and an annual animation contest, for instance. Currently on the company’s blog is a serial feature written in the voice of the main character of their world premiere opera, Lillian Alling.

Vancouver Opera takes ideas that many non-profit arts companies might deem risky or unsustainable and, through a combination of sheer creativity, thorough execution and diligent tracking, have made the Vancouver Opera social media sites vibrant, interesting, and unique.

Social Media Manager Ling presented her work this summer at the Opera America Conference. I caught up with her to chat:

Everything in the Vancouver Opera social media presence looks so vibrant. When you first set out, what were your goals for your organization and your audience?

Thanks! Vancouver Opera is a vibrant and innovative company that loves to engage with our community. When we first started out with social media, our goal was to put a face on the organization as well as increase awareness of the art-form of opera through educating and entertaining our tech savvy, minimally to moderately engaged supporters. Vancouver Opera was one of the first arts organizations to really use social media tools. From the start, we were committed to reaching the next generation of opera lovers using the media of the times and integrating it into our marketing/PR mix.

Your summer blog features keep your readers captivated during Vancouver Opera's off-season. Tell me about Opera Mania 101 and the other summer blog features.

During the summer months, we needed to come up with ways to keep our followers engaged, so we came up with some regular features for the blog. • Operamania 101 is a feature I came up with and thought would be helpful for the opera-curious. It’s opera education from a pop culture perspective. Everyone’s heard snippets of opera in movies, TV shows, cartoons and commercials and yet people might think they don’t know opera. They are more familiar with opera than they think. Some other blog features have included: • Bizarre Opera Videos where we post odd, unusual, or notable performances of opera found on YouTube. • Tuesday Trivia where we come up with opera themed quizzes. • Top Ten Lists where we invite readers to vote for their #1 choice. For example: Top 10 Villains, Top 10 Opera Tearjerkers, Top 10 Fantasy Operas • Other features: 20 Questions with an Artist, Everyone’s a Critic, Lunchtime Poll, Opera Props

Lego Carmen, one of the "Bizarre Opera Videos" posted by Vancouver Opera to keep interest in opera during the summer months

You have a background in photography. Was this the impetus for Flickr Fashion at the Opera? What are the goals of the program and what inspired you to create it?

I love taking pictures and I have always had a passion for fashion. I went to fashion design school years ago and worked as an assistant stylist on a couple of magazine and music video shoots. While working down at the theatre during Eugene Onegin in November 2008, I couldn’t help but notice how many young people went all out, dressing themselves “to the nines” for our operas. It wasn’t all just formal wear either. Our audiences mixed dressing up with elements of street, punk and preppy fashion, bringing a whole new flava to the world of opera. The people who dressed up for our operas inspired me to come up with Fashion at the Opera, which you can find on our Flickr.

Describe Blogger Night at the Opera. How did it engage new audiences? Did it show an increase in sales?

Our very first Blogger Night at the Opera was in January 2009 for our Carmen opera. A prominent local blogger named Rebecca Bollwitt, aka Miss 604, came to our Eugene Onegin that previous fall and she ended up blogging about the experience on her own personal blog. We got to talking and she suggested we coordinate a blogger night, which we did and it has since became so wildly successful that other opera companies started calling us to find out how to set it up for themselves.

We invited bloggers who were opera newbies to join us, blogging pre-show and during intermission their thoughts on the opera and the whole experience of being at the opera. We gave them backstage tours and also invited them to mingle with cast, staff and guests at the post-show party on opening night.

We live streamed their web links on our VO blog, so that our readers can follow along in real time. This was great exposure for us and a way of getting the next generation interested in opera. Most of their readers have never been to the opera. But after reading about Blogger Night at the Opera, they became excited about our operas and what we’re doing with social media and bought tickets to the next performances. I had a few of them seek me out on the theatre floor to tell me they were here because of Blogger Night at the Opera.

What's Opera Ninja and how did you come up with the idea? How do other people in the organization feel about giving control of their communications over to (basically) a volunteer?

Opera Ninja evolved from Blogger Night at the Opera. We had blogger night on Opening Night. What should we do for dress rehearsal? We came up with Opera Ninja March 2009 for our Rigoletto dress rehearsal.

It was inspired by Welsh National Opera when they tweeted 12 hours in the life of the Welsh National Opera's The Marriage of Figaro, including a live relaying of the performance (also translated into Welsh).

On our dress rehearsal nights, the Opera Ninja would live tweet. Followers were engaged with seeing an event unfold and have an insider view of what was going on behind-the-scenes. The tone of Opera Ninja is cheeky, fun, irreverent. We didn’t necessarily want it to be a play-by-play of what was happening on the stage. Instead it could be the Opera Ninja’s reactions to what was going on. Our followers have found this entertaining and fun. They would add comments and also re-tweet our tweets to their own followers.

I was the original Opera Ninja but have since invited our bloggers to take on the character in their own voices. I give a lot of freedom to our Opera Ninjas in what they tweet because I trust them. They are high-profile and active Twitter users. They know the etiquette, the advantages and the drawbacks of Twitter. They understand that they can have fun as the Opera Ninja but as they’re also representing VO for the night, they have to be professional too.

Vancouver Opera has started publishing manga, a comic book based on the opera. Manga is sort of an unusual foray for an opera company to take. What inspired you to take the stories of operas to this new medium?

It may sound like a strange combination but the partnering of opera and manga has worked extremely well for us. We were approached by Vancouver artist & editor Roy Husada of Rival Schools four seasons ago with the idea of “manga-nizing” our operas. It started out in black & white and written in Japanese, but has evolved into colorful mangas in English. The mangas are eye-catching and it helps give readers an idea of what the opera is about, thus sparking their interest in coming to the opera. Our mangas have proven to be very popular with our followers.

By my count you have at least four Twitter accounts for Vancouver Opera. Why? What are the advantages to have many accounts? And how do you track and get a good picture of your audience?

We have 4 Twitter accounts: 1. Vancouver Opera which is our main Twitter account where I tweet daily. It's the one with the most followers and the most activity, so it’s this account where I keep track and measure all our questions, responses and re-tweets.

2. Operabot which was started for our Operabot contest, an animation contest for our Golden Anniversary season. Professional and student animators were challenged to create animated shorts of one of the four productions last year. The tweets posted to Operabot related to updates on the contest, the submissions received and any fun or wacky robots related links.

3. Opera Ninja – We wanted a dedicated Twitter account just for our exclusive “behind the scenes” tweeting during dress rehearsals.

4. Where’s Lillian – For our upcoming world premiere, we wanted to introduce our Twitter followers to Lillian Alling as she makes her epic North American journey from Ellis Island to the wilds of British Columbia. She travels on foot in search of a man named Josef. We have someone taking on the persona of Lillian Alling and tweeting in their own voice the adventures and hardships that the real Lillian Alling might have encountered. From these tweets, we hope that followers will become intrigued with Lillian Alling and want to come to the opera.

Each Twitter account serves a different purpose and we wanted to have a dedicated account for the audience who wanted just Operabot updates or just Opera Ninja updates. Also it frees up our main VO Twitter stream by not bombarding our followers with too many tweets or random-sounding trains of thoughts.

What have been the results of all of these programs for Vancouver Opera? Many times it is difficult to track the effects of social media programs. How have you been tracking your initiatives at Vancouver Opera?

Our social media initiatives have garnered a lot of positive attention from newcomers to opera, opera lovers, our peers in the industry and the media.

I track and report data to measure the impact of our social media efforts in various ways: • Blogger – Google analytics, Like This / Tweet This buttons • Facebook – analytics • I use the Bit.ly shortener for our tweets to see how many people click on our links • Through promo codes in our Tessitura software, I can find out how many tickets were purchased whenever a sales offer was put forth on our social media channels.

Any initiatives for the 2010-2011 season that you'd like to preview for us?

I have some exciting things planned but it’s a surprise. Everyone will just have to stay tuned to Vancouver Opera.

Help Us Help You

Last year around this time, we launched our Technology in the Arts webinar series.  To keep this service relevant to the needs of our online community in the coming year, please share with us the topics and types of webinars you would like for us to offer. Type your ideas directly into the box below and click on "Finish Survey" - it's that easy. Thank you in advance for your thoughtful responses!

Raising More Money for the Good Work We Do

This afternoon, I had the pleasure of working with Jerry Yoshitomi on a conference session dedicated to grassroots fundraising for the attendees of The Association of American Cultures (TAAC) conference in Chicago. Below are the slides for each of our presentations. Jerry's presentation on grassroots fundraising:

Grassroots Fundraising

Download presentation here.

My presentation on online tools and practices for grassroots fundraising:

Online Tools and Practices for Grassroots Fundraising

Download presentation and notes here.

The Quick & Dirty: Making a Video -- Upcoming Webinar

Has the spark gone out of your relationship with your audience?

Thursday, September 2, 2010 2:00pm-3:30pm Eastern The Quick and Dirty: Making a Video Presenters: Amelia Northrup and Corwin Christie Register today for $25

Video technology is a cost-effective way to promote your work and engage your current (and potential) audience through channels that are widely accessed and have a broad reach. Arts organizations can effectively harness this technology to improve their visibility, attract new audiences, and find exciting ways to tell their story. This webinar will help you identify ways in which a video might best be used by your organization and discuss the tools you will need to physically produce and promote your video. In this 90 minute webinar, you will learn:

• Strategies for using online video - identifying the message as well as your goals for using video.
• How to produce online video content in an affordable manner - assessing the available hardware and software to identify the best tools to meet your needs.
• Case studies and best practices - examples of arts organizations currently using online video to promote their work.

Presenters As the Web & Social Media Assistant at the Center for Arts Management and Technology, Amelia Northrup writes for the Technology in the Arts blog and has been featured on numerous podcasts. She has worked on numerous social media and multimedia projects with Kansas City Repertory Theatre and Wolf Trap Opera Company. Amelia is currently researching a white paper about the legal issues involved in the use of video footage from performances.

L. Corwin Christie graduated from Oberlin College before moving to Denver and founding a theatrical production company. Her work in development and marketing inspired her to attend Carnegie Mellon University's Arts Management graduate program. She recently worked as the Social Media Assistant at the Center for Arts Management and Technology, and is the current Marketing Director of Future Tenant Artspace in Pittsburgh.