Technology in the Arts 2008 - Award Winners and Updates

It's been almost a week since the kick-off of the 2008 Technology in the Arts Conference, and we have been busy:

• Gathering feedback from our attendees on how we did this year. Emails were sent out with links to our post-conference survey. Please take a few minutes and let us know what you thought of the conference.
• Putting together content from the conference for the blog. Our next podcast installment, loaded with interviews and insights from conference attendees and presenters, will be posted on Friday.
• Traveling to a fair number of other arts conferences ourselves in the days following Technology in the Arts (blog posts on these conferences will be coming soon).

In the meantime, we'd like to take this opportunity to recognize and congratulate the winners of the 2008 ArtsTech Awards.

Dan Trueman - 2008 ArtsTech Award for Artists Dan Trueman's approach to working with technology reflects both a sensitivity to the native artistic capabilities of new technologies and a fierce drive to invent and reinvent that technology as needed. The Princeton Laptop Orchestra, for instance, relies on an unusual hemispherical speaker, designed by Trueman, that emulates the way acoustic instruments fill rooms with sound. These speakers profoundly affect not only the sound that is generated, but also the social context within which the performers play; this is a fundamental reimagination of how we as listeners, performers, and composers might live with electronic sound. His work seeks to preserve and transform traditional ways of making music - living-room jam sessions, chamber music rehearsals, orchestral performances - reflecting a belief that these are crucial and powerful ways that music lives within our culture.

Minnesota Shubert Performing Arts and Education Center - 2008 ArtsTech Award for Arts Organizations Six years ago, in the initial phases of its development, the Minnesota Shubert Performing Arts and Education Center determined that a key piece of its mission would be to provide high-quality, accessible arts education resources through the use of technology prior to opening (scheduled for 2010). Their adapted/reinvented use of Internet videoconferencing technology to teach arts education - specifically dance education - to public school children enables artists at the Center to connect with K-12 classrooms throughout Minnesota and beyond. Now social studies classes are studying swing dancing and dance marathons as a way of understanding the depression era while physical education students learn about the history and culture of hip hop dancing while getting a great work out.

TechSoup Global - 2008 ArtsTech Awards for Benefactors Founded in 1987 as CompuMentor, TechSoup Global is one of the most comprehensive nonprofit technology assistance providers in the world. In addition to providing educational resources and a vibrant online community, TechSoup Global provides nonprofit organizations with donations of the latest software and refurbished Green hardware for free with an administrative fee as little as 5% of retail cost. Since its founding, TechSoup Global has donated to 13,248 arts organizations from around the world, providing a total technology savings to the arts community of over 100 million dollars.

Congratulations also go out to our Rock Band 2 rock-off contest winners. These folks kicked it with a tasty groove during our afternoon energizers.

• Gregg Johnson - Young Audiences Woodruff Art Center
• Adrienne Lloyd - Tafelmusik Baroque Orchestra and Chamber Choir
• Michael Moss - National Black Arts Festival
• Sara Schnadt - Chicago Artist Resource

And, thank you to all of our conference attendees, presenters, and sponsors who helped make this year's conference possible.

Web 2.0 Expo: Day Four

Location-Based Content Delivery Today marks the close of the 2008 NYC Web 2.0 Expo, and the very last session I attended offered one of the most intriguing tools. Chad Stoller, head of marketing for Drop.io, and Conor Brady, creative director for Organic, Inc., presented the result of their collaborative efforts.

Drop.io allows you to upload files to a secure online drop and share them with others. Combine the ease of Drop.io with the interactive marketing savvy of Organic, Inc. and you end up with Drop.io Location, which lets you drop a file and associate it with an area on a Web-based map. GPS-enabled mobile phone users can then download your files when they’re in the location you’ve specified.

I know what you’re thinking. We’ve come so far with technology that we’ve essentially traveled full-circle. Sending files electronically is a modern convenience that’s worn out its welcome, so we’re now creating tools that require people to travel to retrieve files?

True, you wouldn’t want to email your boss the following:

“Hey Mr. Johnson, I’ve completed the 2008 Second Quarter Report. If you’d like to review it, go to the Starbuck’s at the corner of 8th and Walnut.”

Mr. Johnson would probably tell you to pick up your pink slip at the corner of No Way Street and Suck It Avenue.

But Stoller and Brady offered some thoughts on how Drop.io Location might have practical value, and I’ll translate their examples to befit the arts.

Example 1: A local band has written some new songs exclusively for a theater company’s new production, and the only way for people to get those songs is to attend a performance of the play. The songs have been uploaded to Drop.io and associated with the theater’s address.

Example 2: A city has launched a new public art exhibit and wants to offer site-specific content beyond the traditional audio guides. Files could be dropped based on the location of each art piece and visitors could use their mobile devices to retrieve the content.

It’s a truly amazing tool, and it’s clear that Stoller and Brady are looking ahead. Location-based interactivity is the next major phase of marketing.

Drop.io Location is currently in beta, and you can request an account here.

Thought for the Day

If I Google search your name and get no results, does that reflect poorly on you as a human being? I think it does. Shame on you.

Web 2.0 Adventure

As there were nearly 5,000 people in attendance at the Web 2.0 Expo, it wasn’t a simple feat to physically connect with people. Case in point - my meeting with Jason Fried and David Heinemeier Hansson of 37Signals.

At about 4:30 PM yesterday, I received a text from Fried: “We’re at the keynote hall. Want to come our way?”

Me: “Cool. Be right there.”

As I arrived at the keynote hall, I received this from Fried: “Now we’re in the main lobby.”

Me: “OK, Headed that way.”

I rush to the main lobby only to receive: “Now we’re upstairs near registration.”

By this point, I was hearing the theme music from 24, and I felt like Jack Bauer in a race to save the life of some random dignitary.

Ultimately, I caught up with the 37Signals guys, and my interview with them will be featured on Technology in the Arts Podcast #51 next Friday, September 26.

Web 2.0 Expo: Day Two

The highlight of my day was interviewing Eileen Gittins, the founder, president and CEO of Blurb, an online publishing service that provides print on demand tools for the general public. With Blurb's book layout software, BookSmart, users can create books using their own text and images and upload them to the Blurb server for purchasing, printing and delivery. Like Lulu.com (see Josh Futrell's recent blog post), Blurb empowers writers, photographers, graphic designers, and other artists to control the publishing of their work.

Gittins is a passionate entrepreneur who truly understands her client base. (She started Blurb based on her own frustrations with the publishing industry.) Blurb and the related project Photography.Book.Now exemplify what is truly phenomenal about the power of the Web.

No more spoilers. You can listen to my interview with Gittins (and a few other Web 2.0 Expo players) on Technology in the Arts Podcast #51 on Friday, September 26. (Go ahead and subscribe already, you slouch!)

I also digested this morning some tips on viral marketing during Jonah Peretti's Web 2.0 Expo session, Viral Marketing 2.0. Peretti, known throughout Web circles as a guerilla media guru, is the co-founder of HuffingtonPost.com and BuzzFeed.

Peretti explained that, contrary to popular opinion, a message doesn't become viral because of influential users. Rather, a message spreads because of the network that supports it. For instance, he explained, a fire spreads when the conditions are perfect and not because the spark that ignited it was special.

"Facebook created a network that would make the driest forest possible so the fires would spread," said Peretti.

The network Peretti highlighted today is what he calls the "Bored at Work" network, which is a huge people-powered network comprised of distracted corporate employees. However, he explained that a big problem with trying to spread a viral message is the "radical unpredictability" of the Web. There is no way to know who will make something popular or what will become popular.

So how can Peretti possibly offer any advice on delivering messages that will succeed in a viral way? He admitted that he didn't have a perfect answer. Still, considering his repeated success at gaining viral acclaim (see The Contagious Media Project for a list of his online exploits that have blown up), there is a great deal of cred behind the tips he offered.

For instance, may absolute favorite of Peretti's techniques is one he dubs "The Mullet Strategy." As most people know, a mullet is a hair style that features a short, professional front-end with a long, flowing rear. Peretti compared this "business in the front, party in the back" approach to marketing. Since the most contagious media is often silly, fun and even shocking, it isn't always appropriate for that content to live on the front page of a Web site. However, if there is a "party in the back" and people are enjoying and sharing that party, it will most definitely drive traffic to the other areas of your site.

Web 2.0 Expo: Day One

Today was "workshop" day at the 2008 NYC Web 2.0 Expo, and while I enjoyed the two three-hour sessions I attended, I would not consider them workshops. I always expect a workshop to provide attendees an opportunity to put into practice some of the concepts discussed. I'd strongly encourage artists and arts organizations involved in the planning of a conference or professional development series to be cautious about the use of the word workshop. Any session that exceeds two hours should have some type of engagement activity or risk losing the attention of the laptop/iPhone-wielding audience.

That being said, the leaders of both sessions I attended today managed to keep my attention. I was especially engaged during Josh Porter's presentation, "Designing for Community." Porter is the founder of bokardo design and author of the book, Designing for the Social Web.

Toward the beginning of his talk, Porter mentioned two very important things. First, your message will get out into the world, and you can either choose to ignore the message or engage with users.

An arts example: A theater company is getting negative reviews in the local newspaper for its current production, but audiences are greatly enjoying their experience with the show. Unfortunately, those audiences are shrinking because users are believing the newspaper's message. If the theater had created an online space for actively engaging its audience, it could allow the community - not the voice of a lone critic - to define its show's success.

Second, Porter said that organizations probably already have communities, whether they know it or not. The idea is to "cultivate" that community. Often in the arts, an organization will try to artificially create a community rather than managing the one which already exists. In order to build a passionate online community, Porter says, an organization should "support an activity and make people better at the activity."

So how do you make people "better" at being an arts audience? Well, that's a much larger discussion than I care to launch here, and the answer is different from one discipline to another. But the point is that an organization should work with and grow its existing community and should not try to manufacture one.

"You want the people to identify themselves as a community," said Porter.

Another great point Porter made - which has been mentioned in many forms on this blog and on our podcast - is that when an organization is considering which interactive features to add to its Web presence, it should simply "model the interactions that already exist." In other words, study how your users are already connecting (both online and offline), and provide tools that support those connections.

Finally, according to Porter, most successful community-based Web sites comprise "objects" and "verbs." For instance, a YouTube page has objects (i.e., video pane, user profile, related videos, responses, etc.) and verbs (i.e., play, upload, respond, etc.).

I'll leave you with the following image from the "Creating Passionate Users" blog, which Porter mentioned today.

Web 2.0 Expo Updates

Technology in the Arts blog and/or podcast subscribers know that I despise the buzzword "Web 2.0." So why this week am I attending the New York edition of the conference that officially launched that term into our tech lexicon? Because no matter what you call today's interactive, social online experience, the tools and applications that serve as the foundation for the modern Web are incredibly important.

So I just arrived in Manhattan for the 2008 NYC Web 2.0 Expo, where I'll enjoy a full slate of sessions and workshops designed to "immerse" me in the concepts and practices that are shaping the "Internet Revolution." (Note: I forgot to bring my big red flag, so I hope I'm not left behind when we storm the digital Bastille.)

I'll be blogging from the Web 2.0 Expo all week, so be sure to check in every day for my regular updates. Better yet, simply subscribe to our RSS feed (how?) to have my entries delivered to you as soon as I post them.

Some of the sessions I'll be attending include:

• Rich UX ("user experience") Documentation
• Designing for Community
• Future of Mobile Social Activity
• Web 2.0 and the Reinvention of Marketing and PR

If you have specific questions about Web 2.0 or the NYC Expo, please feel free to send them to info@technologyinthearts.org.

Also: Be sure to follow my Twitter feed for regular updates.

Early Bird Extension and Other Conference Deadlines

Believe it or not, the 2008 Technology in the Arts Conference is only a month away.  I know how fast the days and weeks have been flying for me, so I wanted to highlight upcoming deadlines for those of you planning to attend (or thinking about attending): September 10th - Extended Early Bird Registration Deadline We've heard your requests and will be extending the Early Bird Registration deadline to Wednesday, September 10th. As a reader of this blog, you are eligible to receive 25% off all conference registration fees.  When combined with the Early Bird discount rate, your total cost for registering for the 2008 Technology in the Arts Conference is only $187.50.

To take advantage of this opportunity:

• Go to https://www.acteva.com/go/TITA2008 to complete the online registration form.
• In the box labeled "Activity Questionnaire," enter one of the following promotion codes.
  • If you have previously attended the Technology in the Arts Conference, enter TITA01.
  • If this will be your first Technology in the Arts Conference, enter TITA70.
  • Either code will deduct 25% from your registration costs during the online payment process.
• This discount applies to the Hands-On Training Workshops as well as general conference registration.

September 15th - Deadline to PA Residents to Apply for Conference Scholarships Thanks to the generous support from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, we are offering a limited number of registration and travel scholarships exclusively for artists and arts administrators living and working in Pennsylvania.  Click here to learn more and apply online!

September 16th - Hotel Reservation Deadline for Discounted Conference Rate Call 1-800-445-8667 and give them the group code - CAM - to receive the conference rate of $129/night.

OTHER CONFERENCE INFORMATION: Conference Schedule - Learn more about this year's conference lineup

• Hands-On Training Workshops
• Breakout Sessions
• Keynote & Awards Luncheon
• Social Networking Soiree at the 15 Minutes Gallery
• Closing Plenary

Scholarship Opportunities for Technology in the Arts 2008

Thanks to the generous support from the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, we will be offering a limited number of registration and travel scholarships exclusively for artists and arts administrators living and working in Pennsylvania.

• Scholarships are available exclusively for artists and arts administrators living and working in Pennsylvania.
• Two types of scholarships:
  • Full registration:
    • Covers registration expenses for the general conference as well as the hands-on training workshops
    • Eight of these scholarships will be awarded in 2008
    • Available to both previous and new conference attendees
  • Full registration plus travel expenses:
    • Covers registration expenses for the general conference as well as the hands-on training workshops
    • Also reimburses travel and lodging expenses up to $700
    • Allowed expenses include:  air or train fare, taxicab, car rental, gas, mileage, and hotel accommodations.
    • Five of these scholarships will be awarded in 2008
    • Available ONLY to new conference attendees
• Applicants will be evaluated on their ability to articulate how attending the conference will assist them in their work and professional development.
• Applications MUST be submitted online.
• Applications MUST be submitted by Monday, September 15, 2008.
• Applicants will be notified of their status by Friday, September 19th.

Questions?  Contact David Dombrosky.

Apply Online Now!

Technology in the Arts Registration Now Open!

Registration for the 2008 Technology in the Arts National Conference is now open. The Technology in the Arts Conference is a resource for the arts community, sparking dialog around the role of technology in our planning and programming, discussing best practices as well as lessons learned, and providing hands-on, practical skills where possible. Explore the conference schedule for breakout and hands-on session information.

Click here to register now!

CONFERENCE RATES

General Registration: Early Bird Rate - $250 | Standard Rate - $300 | On-Site Rate - $350 General Registration fees cover all conference activities from Thursday evening’s Networking Reception through Saturday night’s Closing Party.

Hands-On Training Workshops: Either One AM Workshop OR One PM Workshop - $30 Both One AM Workshop AND One PM Workshop - $50 Fees for Thursday’s six Hands-On Training Workshops are separate from the General Registration.  Due to their limited capacities, you will be asked to select the hands-on training workshop(s) you would like to attend during the registration process.

Student Discount: College students with a valid student I.D. will receive an 80% discount on the conference and workshop registration fees.

1. To receive this registration discount code, send an e-mail request with the subject line “Student Discount” to David Dombrosky.
2. You will receive a reply message containing the discount code to use during the registration process.
3. When you arrive at registration, you MUST present a valid student I.D.

For more information, visit our Technology in the Arts National Conference resource area.

A couple of arts consultants...

I attended an arts consultant round table at the National Performing Arts Convention last month, and I wanted to provide contact information for a couple of my fellow attendees:

• Lisa Mount - Lisa led the session, and her firm's Web site is www.ArtisticLogistics.org. Lisa offers a broad array of strategic management services.
• Jane Hill (artSMART) - Jane brings more than thirty years experience as a professional arts manager to provide practical and successful approaches to the challenges faced by small and mid-sized arts organizations today. Contact Jane at hill.jane1913@sbcglobal.net.

A reminder... the Center for Arts Management and Technology provides technology consulting for nonprofit arts organizations. Read more about our services.

Note: CAMT does not endorse either of these consultants. All consultants in the session were given the opportunity to be listed here.

Community Theatre Conference - July 10-11, 2008

I will be visiting New York City later this week for the American Association of Community Theatre Conference. If you plan to attend, please visit me in exhibit hall room C. I'd be happy to spend some time chatting about your technology needs and providing a bit of free consulting.

Nothing ever happens in Blaine.

By the way, the image above is NOT meant to be offensive. I have acted in many a community theatre production, and I love every minute of it.

If you're involved in theatre and you don't love Waiting for Guffman, then shame on you!