Just a quick, friendly reminder that the Early Bird registration deadline is coming up fast… less than two weeks away! Register by August 19 to take advantage of the lowest registration rate.
Our Latest Sponsor - The School of Visual Arts
We are pleased to announce our most recent Quality Assurance sponsor, the School of Visual Arts (SVA).
Based in New York City, the SVA has been providing high quality art education for more than 60 years.
Check out their Web site for more information.
Thank you, SVA, for your valuable contribution to the conference!
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It was a wonderful two weeks for Technology in the Arts...
...with the addition of two partners.
The ArtsTech Award Ceremony & Reception is exclusively sponsored by ERC Systems, a California based creator of artist registries and online event calendars. Read more about their services at www.ERCSystems.com.
The VIP Dinner is graciously supported by Fig Leaf Software, a software provider and technology consultant firm based out of Washington, DC. More information about their products and services may be found at www.figleaf.com.
CAMT staff thanks both of these organizations for their support of the conference and is pleased to include them in the array of exciting programming coming this fall.
If you're coming to the conference...
...don't forget to join us as we kick things off on October 11 with a tour of two Pittsburgh arts organizations:
- The Pittsburgh Glass Center - In honor of Pittsburgh's 2007 celebration of glass art (www.pittsburghcelebrates.org), we'll take a tour of this 16,000-square-foot glass art facility and be treated to a glass-blowing demonstration.
- The Entertainment Technology Center - This state-of-the-art technology training center at Carnegie Mellon University offers a two-year Masters of Entertainment Technology degree, jointly conferred by Carnegie Mellon University's College of Fine Arts and School of Computer Science.
Pre-conference also includes the "Birds of a Feather" affinity dinner. Be sure to sign up for this fun-filled afternoon for only $50 when you complete your online conference registration.
CAMT Partners with Historic Pittsburgh Hotel
CAMT is proud to announce its Technology in the Arts conference partnership with the Omni William Penn Hotel in Downtown Pittsburgh. Located close to all conference activities, as well as a wide array of cultural and dining experiences, the Omni William Penn will be offering special rates to Technology in the Arts attendees. View more information about our partner hotel.
Conference Registration Now Open!
CAMT is pleased to inform you that early bird registration for Technology in the Arts 2007 is now open! Don’t miss this opportunity to attend the conference at the low advance rate of only $160, which gets you two days filled with interesting sessions, workshops, exhibitors and hands-on activities. And for just $50 more, you can join us for some exciting pre-conference fun on October 11, including site visits and the “Birds of a Feather” affinity group dinner.
(Please note: If you attended the conference last year, you can log in with your existing account.)
Also, the Technology in the Arts 2007 scholarship application is now live as well. Through the generous support of the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, attendees residing in Pennsylvania may apply for a travel and/or registration scholarship.
Please let us know if you have any questions about registration, scholarships or the conference in general.
We look forward to seeing all of you in October!
ArtandCulture.com Joins Exhibitors
It is my pleasure to announce that ArtandCulture.com, a very cool Web site showcasing a wide array of artists and arts organizations, has joined the Technology in the Arts 2007 exhibitor fair. The preliminary plan is for the folks from ArtandCulture.com to set up an informational booth where artists can learn about the site, discuss the tool's many interactive features and future development plans and even add their own profiles.
Thank you in advance to ArtandCulture.com for taking part in our conference.
And can you think of a better Web address than that?
Thank you pair Networks!
Technology in the Arts welcomes its latest supporter, Pittsburgh-based web hosting company, pair Networks. We are fortunate to include pair Networks as a Development level sponsor for the second year in a row. Please visit their Web site at pair.com for more information about their services.
Stay tuned for more sponsor announcements!
eTapestry joins the Technology in the Arts line up!
Special thanks to eTapestry for partnering with Technology in the Arts and reserving an exhibitor space. This fall, pencil time in your conference schedule to visit with a representative from eTapestry and learn more about their products and services. Better yet, click on their logo below to visit their Web site right now!
CAMT in style at the NTEN Nonprofit Technology Conference
CAMT was in full attendence at NTEN's Nonprofit Technology Conference this year in Washington, DC, from April 4-6. Brad flew out early to attend the Day of Service on Wednesday. He helped an organization learn how to record and post a podcast.
Emily and I flew into DC together late Wednesday night and strategized our session attendence. The conference came at an integral time when Emily and I are looking for jobs, so we focused our networking opportunities to certain session tracks. She mostly attended Web 2.0 and communication sessions, while I focused on consulting and project management ones.
Some of the highlights of the sessions I attended:
Bill Strathmann's session, "The ROI Question: Demonstrating the value of technology to your organization," was particularly informative. He presented some nice models and diagrams of how to demonstrate your IT value to your funders or CEO in a clear and concise way. I'll definitely be looking to the complimentary thumbdrive that NTEN gave away to access that Power Point presentation.
The rule of managing expectations was re-enforced in a casual and anecdotal setting at the "Contracting with Consultants: How to engineer a better working relationship." Eric Leland and session attendees shared their expertise and stories about the consulting relationship.
CAMT had a prime spot in the grand hallway to the conference's main ballroom at the Innovation Plaza. Brad and I demonstrated CAMT's new CueRate tool, a visual art panel review management system, to conference passerbys. I also had the chance to talk to professionals who were interested in presenting at Technology in the Arts 2007.
The conference finale came when Grassroots.org awarded CAMT a one foot tall glittery tree statuette and $1000 for CueRate, one of the top 6 innovative tools recognized for the Techie Award of the Year. Cary pleased the audience and placated the time-laden MC with a quick victory pose.
Photos and the award video will be up soon on Flickr and YouTube, respectively.�
Aspiration 2007 Nonprofit Software Development Summit in Review
If you can imagine the geekiness that drives the creation of such innovative projects as Drupal, combined with the passion that is dedicated to seeing nonprofits successfully serve their constituents, you would be witnessing a typical attendee at this Summit. The energy present in Oakland that week was amazing. I walked into the Summit a day late during the skill-sharing session. Rather wide-eyed at how I was supposed to enter into the space, a nearby participant approached and welcomed me to sit down and chat until the session was over. This incident wasn't particular either; many individuals were very friendly, thus making the experience all the more rich.
The Summit had the perfect balance of application and theory sessions. I walked out of there learning about new technologies and how to use them, in addition to being aware of current policy and field issues. I was however, wishing that more people who served the arts were present.
Here are some highlights of a few of the sessions I sat in on. You may visit the Aspiration Summit wiki to gain insight as to how all the sessions went.
Case Study: Benetech's Miradi Project
Kevin Smith was very generous with his knowledge- catching me up with concepts of Agile Development and the process of specification gathering in this case. This information was woven into the narrative of how the Miradi Project came to be. After getting the meat of this session, I hopped over to Where are the Biggest Tool Gaps - a practice not so common in this type of small setting, admittedly. :) I came into the tail end of Laura Quinn's colloborative session that tried to pinpoint exactly where some of our energies might be spent to build a more cohesive and exhaustive link among the available technology tools.
Next Steps in Breaking the Integration Deadlock
Tate Hausman, from DotOrganize, along with Holly Ross from NTEN, set out to begin some formalized steps towards addresssing Open API issues. The session began by presenting the various definitions of what Integration could look like, and ended by discussing the many facets involved with resolving the scope of issues. Look forward to a potential API gathering- from NTEN or DotOrganize- to address integration issues!
Software Project Management Mind Meld
This session was particularly relevant to me as I see myself fulfilling a similar capacity in my next job. Jeremy Wallace, of the Fund for the City of New York, moderated a session where a room full of project managers discussed the benefits and drawbacks of various project managent tools: bug trackers, general project management, time tracking, collaborative editing and discussion. Some beneficial themes that also arose were: managing client's expectations, dealing with scope changes and various methods for distilling the requirements gathering process.
Exploring Opportunites for Collaborative Development
Laura Quinn and Jeremy Wallace led this session of mixed developers and administrators. Issues such as intellectual property rights, licensing, branding, buy-in and follow-through, and sharing development practices all arose as common barriers to the collaboration process. This session was hearty and intense. I suggest you review the wiki notes.
I didn't know what AJAX was when I showed up to this session and my brain was satiated with resolution upon leaving. Evan Henshaw-Plath presented the history of AJAX, how websites use it, what the features look like, and the benefits and negatives. I also learned about the code libraries that support AJAX development, ways of using the DOM to create a separate AJAX file from your html one, and how to troubleshoot new browsers. It was awesome, but admittedly, I will never put myself in the position of using it. Hey, but concepts are all I focus on anyways.
Upcoming Conference on Museums and the Web
From April 11 - 14, 2007, Archives & Museums Informatics is hosting a conference on Museums and the Web in San Francisco, California. Workshops focus on everything from content management and archiving to Second Life, social media, and museum mashups. Check it out!
TitA 2006: In Review
Check out our expanded Technology in the Arts 2006 In Review page, where you can view conference photos on Flickr, read our press coverage in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and download summary reports for conference session evaluations. While you're reflecting on TitA 2006, please consider taking a brief survey to help us better understand what you would like to learn, share and experience this year at TitA 2007 (October 19 - 20). The survey will remain open until Friday, March 2 at 11:59 PM, Pacific.
Aspiration Nonprofit Software Development Summit
On Feb. 21-23, Aspiration will be holding its first "convening to bring together the range of developers, technologists, managers, eRiders, integrators, users and other practitioners who self-identify under the umbrella of 'nonprofit software development,'" in Oakland, CA. I will be attending on Thursday and Friday and hope to network with the many pioneers of this niche sector. It's a loosely organized event, but it aims to base its content on the following themes:
- Practices, Processes and Community will address concepts, themes and essential issues in the nonprofit software development realm.
- Software Engineering Topics and Trends will dive deep on a host of technical and strategic issues relevant to nonprofit software developers.
- Going Vertical: Application Focus Areas will explore specific “vertical” categories of nonprofit software.
Check out the website for more details, and I'll be sure to report on how my experience went.
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Stay Tuned...
After all the audio interviews from the 2006 Technology in the Arts conference have been published, CAMT will continue its podcast as a series of arts/technology discussions and interviews. Jason Hansen, Carnegie Mellon IT professor and a former CAMT developer, will join me as co-host, and we plan to speak with artists, arts managers and tech professionals from all over the country about their work and interesting trends in the field. Today we discussed Windows Vista, Microsoft's new operating system set for consumer release next month, with MS account technology specialist Ian Lindsay. Lindsay explained what organizations interested in upgrading to Vista should know and how much they should expect to spend.
Our two-part interview with Lindsay will be released to our podcast feed in a couple weeks. For now, enjoy our most recent podcast update, featuring my interviews with state arts agency representatives Philip Horn (PA Council on the Arts) and Carla Dunlap (MD State Arts Council).
If you have any questions or interesting technology updates, please submit them to podcast@technologyinthearts.org.
Pittsburgh Podcamp: Nov. 10-12
If you caught the podcasting bug at our conference last month, join Pittsburgh Filmmakers and Three Rivers Film Festival this weekend for an "un-conference" and participate workshops on blogs, vlogs, audio podcasts, web video, content networks and new media monetization. In addition to the broad range of sessions, the schedule includes several social events, including a networking event at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh on Friday night, and a Saturday night dinner at Bossa Nova. If you can't make it to Pittsburgh this weekend, check out upcoming podcamps planned for Philadelphia, Atlanta, San Francisco, Toronto, and New York.
See you soon!
It's hard to believe it's the Monday before the conference! The programming is set, the program book is done, the rooms and equipment are reserved, the party planning is down to the nuts and bolts of setup and installation...
Now all we need is you! I'm so excited for Friday and the chance to welcome all of you to our first Technology in the Arts conference. We've got a deliciously wide spectrum of organizatoins attending including theaters, ballets, museums, arts service orgs, arts agencies, universities, arts funders...
There will be about 120 of us representing 75 organizations, which will make for a nice, intimate atmosphere, ideal for in-depth dialogue, brainstorming and relationship building. We'll be in Hamburg Hall (home of CAMT) on the CMU campus, with shuttles running us where we need to go throughout the event.
Also, the committee for our closing party has truly outdone themselves, and all indicators point to a fun, art-filled conference-closing camt@ten.
As always, if you have any last-minute questions or concerns, feel free to contact us!
Acquity Joins the Technology in the Arts Lineup!
A huge thank you and a warm welcome are extended to Technology in the Art's newest sponsor, the Acquity Group. Rick Nash, Managing Director of the Kansas City branch, will join us in Pittsburgh October 20-21. Acquity Group is a leading provider of business and technology solutions designed to optimize business performance. For more information, visit them at www.acquitygroup.com or in person at Technology in the Arts!
Wiki what?
Wiki is a new term for me, and the following article was very helpful in providing insight to one of many mysterious internet terms: http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,71733-0.html?tw=wn_culture_3
If you, too, have not yet decoded this and other internet terms, join us in Pittsburgh this Fall! Erika Block will present the session, "Demystifying Technology Buzz Words", on Saturday, October 21 at 4PM on the Carnegie Mellon University campus.
Please continue to visit our Web site, www.TechnologyInTheArts.org to view the updated schedule of events and speakers.
Tessitura to exhibit at Technology in the Arts
Thank you Tessitura Software for reserving a table in the Exhibitor's Fair. Tessitura offers a variety of services and software specifically tailored to the needs of performing arts organizations. Please visit their website or better yet, visit them in person October 20-21 at Technology in the Arts! We still have room available for organizations and business to showcase products and services. If you have a product you want to share, go to the Exhibitor section of the Web site or contact us for more information.