Congratulations!

Congratulations to the four winners of the Institue for the Management of Creative Enterprises iPod Nano giveaway. We collected business cards during the National Performing Arts Convention in Denver, CO, last week, and our winners were picked on Friday. The lucky quartet:

• Jodi Schoenbrun Carter, Managing Director, Westport Country Playhouse
• Julie Hawkins, Vice President of Public Policy, Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance
• Conrad Kehn, Composer/Vocalist
• Trevor Hunter, Technical Producer, Counterstream Radio

To all of those who entered but did not win, please remember this quote from William Shakespeare: "Having nothing, nothing can he lose."

Okay, folks, it's time for YOU to drop some serious knowledge!

Proposals for sessions and workshops are now being accepted for Technology in the Arts 2008 conference to be held at the Hilton Pittsburgh in downtown Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from October 9 - 11. The conference has two primary types of programming - Hands-On Workshops and Conference Sessions.

• Hands-On Workshops: Thursday, October 9th: Held in a computer lab environment, these workshops will provide "nuts & bolts" instruction to guide participants through technical processes toward concrete solutions to challenges. Each hands-on workshop will last 2 hours and 30 minutes.

• Conference Sessions: Friday, October 10th & Saturday, October 11th: Held in breakout rooms near Conference Registration and the Tech Expo, conference sessions may use a number of possible formats to cover relevant issues relating to the use (or potential use) of technology in arts management or production. Conference sessions will last 1 hour and 15 minutes.

Not an expert? You don't have to be one to organize a session. Here are some tips for pulling together a top notch session.

Proposal Criteria: A panel of arts and technology practitioners will review all submitted proposals to select the final program in early July. Sessions will be selected based on the following criteria:

• Exploration of new or compelling ideas, technologies or practices
• Speakers' expertise and/or experience with the topic
• Session's relevance to the conference

In addition to the above criteria, the panel will be charged to select workshops and sessions with an eye toward providing a well-rounded gamut of topics and ideas for conference attendees.

Benefits for Session Leaders and Participants: Individuals who propose sessions selected for the conference program will each receive a complimentary registration for the conference and hands-on training day. Other session participants or speakers will be offered a severely reduced registration rate of $50 for the conference and hands-on training day. All session participants will be responsible for their own travel and hotel expenses.

Proposal Components: To be considered, proposals must include the following information:

1. Session title
2. Session type - Hands-On Workshop or Conference Session
3. Session format - For Conference Session proposals only
4. Description of the proposed session
5. Explanation of relevance to the conference
6. Contact information and bio paragraph for session leader
7. Other potential presenters and what they would add to the session

Submit your session proposal online by June 30, 2008.

All applicants will be notified of their proposals' status by July 11. For questions or additional information, contact David Dombrosky.

2008 MUSE Awards Announced

Now in its 19^th year, the MUSE awards competition recognizes outstanding achievement in museum media. The competition is an activity of the Media and Technology Standing Professional Committee of the American Association of Museums.

The MUSE Awards competition received nearly 180 applications from a wide variety of museums in North America, Europe, Australia and Asia. Entries included audio, cell phone, and interactive handheld tours, interactive kiosks and multimedia installations, podcasts, blogs, games, websites, online collection and image databases, videos, and e-mail marketing campaigns.

Thirty eight judges – museum and media professionals from across the county – were involved in the process of selecting the winners. Winning entries were expected to demonstrate outstanding achievement in content quality; interface design; functionality; production quality; visual appeal; the user’s experience; and the intent to which new directions were charted or old challenges resolved through technical innovation. A complete list of judging criteria and MUSE Award winners can be found on the Media and Technology website.

Going North

Technology in the Arts bloggers David Dombrosky, Brad Stephenson, and I are packing up to go to our sister conference, Technology in the Arts:  Canada, hosted by the Centre for Cultural Management at the University of Waterloo in Ontario.  We're flying out tomorrow for the Friday-Saturday conference. I'll be giving a presentation on navigating the murky waters of CMS selection in a session called Content Management Systems: Would You? Could You? Should You?  The simile in my presentation that I'm most proud of myself for writing?  "Open Source Software (OSS) is free like a piano listed in the classifieds is free:  Free grand piano.  Needs tuned and refinished.  You haul."

Brad's delivering his hands-on session Attack of the Pod People: Engaging Your Audience with Audio Podcasts.  He's currently trying to figure out how to get 50 pairs of headphones into Canada without breaking them or causing him to be pulled aside at any security checkpoints.

If you're going to be at the conference, be sure to stop us and say hello.  If you're not, no worries.  We'll be posting thoughts and musings about what we learn from our friendly neighbors to the north during and after the conference.  Plus, there's the U.S. conference coming up on October 9-11, 2008, in Pittsburgh.

Notice something new?

Those of you who actually visit TechnologyInTheArts.org rather than simply subscribing to our RSS feeds may have noticed a change to the site earlier today. We just completed the first phase of a graphics and content overhaul to bring the Center for Arts Management and Technology’s various services together in one convenient location. We welcome you to explore the site and provide us with feedback by clicking here or using the Contact Us button on the main menu at any time.

Next week, I'll describe in detail the changes we've made and how we've tapped into the full potential of WordPress.

By the way, subscribing to our blog and/or podcast feeds is a good thing and not at all vile like I made it seem earlier in this post. Find out how to subscribe and have all of our content sent directly to you!

1...2...3...Upgrade!

We just upgraded the Technology in the Arts blog to WordPress 2.5 and I'm jazzed. The new version has so many new features back here on the administrative side of things: an auto-save feature, a simpler interface, and access to great plug-ins (or widgets). The process was quick, painless, and transparent to our loyal readers. But, we didn't just trust to luck that it would be so. When performing major system upgrades, here are some rules of thumb I like to follow:

1. Learn as much as you can beforehand. Does the product have a blog or a press release that will walk you through what's new? Are there any forums or discussions with additional insight about upgrading? Investigating before you upgrade will give you a jump start on the inevitable re-learning you'll need to do and it will also help you to decide whether or not the upgrade is worth doing in the first place.
2. Backup everything. Is there a chance something could go wrong? Absolutely. So backup everything (or as much as is practical). Before upgrading our blog, we backed up our files and database, just in case.
3. Put your foot in the water. If you have the ability or the luxury, perform the upgrade in a safe, test environment before applying it to any live or working systems.
4. Have an escape route. Even if you've tested the upgrade and it worked perfectly, always expect the worst. Have contingency/restore plans in place and the necessary tools and staff at hand should something, Spock forbid, go wrong.
5. Don't forget about the learning curve. Any upgrade is going to require at least some sort of re-learning on the part of the user. If the upgrade is significant, or if you have many people who are affected by the upgrade, don't forget to spend time developing a training plan before you move forward.

Managing Email

I have recently become interested in - nay, obsessed with - tracking down the most effective way(s) to manage my email inbox, and I wanted to share a couple things that really work for me.

1. Inbox Zero. Instead of letting my inbox fill up, I process everything at self-established intervals using Merlin Mann's Inbox Zero steps: Delete, Delegate, Respond, Defer and Do. Following these five rules at a regularly scheduled time will ensure a clean inbox. Keep in mind, though... When you choose to defer, you must move that email out of the inbox and create a task for yourself.
2. Three Folders. I have set up three main email folders: Follow Up, Hold and Archive. When I choose to defer (see above), I simply place the email in the Follow Up folder and create a new task list entry. If I'm waiting on a response before I can complete an item, I place it in the Hold folder. And if I simply need to save the email for future reference, it goes in the Archive folder.
3. Five Sentences. I try my best to keep email responses to five sentences or less, based on a Web site I discovered a few months ago. Thought I might occasionally run longer, this concept has helped me focus on the structure and purpose of my message: Who am I? What do I want? Why should I get it? When do I want it? I even put a little message about the five sentence philosophy into my email signature so people know I'm being efficient and not rude.

I also noticed recently that Getting Things Done guru David Allen offers a free document, Getting Email Under Control, on his Web site. It isn't groundbreaking, but there are several good ideas and reminders.

How do you keep your email under control?

Deadline Approaching for the 2008 Mellon Awards for Technology Collaboration

An announcement from the Mellon Foundation: The deadline for nominations for the 2008 Mellon Awards for Technology Collaboration (MATC Awards) is April 14, 2008. The MATC Awards consist of up to ten $50,000 or $100,000 prizes, which a receiving institution can use in a variety of ways to continue its technology leadership. The awards honor not-for-profit institutions that have demonstrated exemplary leadership in the development of open source software for one or more of the constituencies served by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation: the arts and humanities in higher education; research libraries, museums; performing arts organizations; and conservation biology.

An online nomination form and more information may be found at http://matc.mellon.org. The nominations are public: the community is invited to visit the site and comment.

Wired.com's Semi-Monthly Photo Contests

The folks at Wired.com have decided to host a series of semi-monthly photo contests for reader-submitted photography. I have been really impressed with the photography that has been submitted. Check out submissions for their current photo contest "Show Us Your Best Night Photo." Maybe I should submit this photo from the 2008 Toronto Winter Festival?

They just wrapped up a contest for reader self-portraits and posted the top photos as determined by Wired.com's photo department as well as the readers' picks for best self-portrait.

Wired.com is using a Reddit widget as the upload mechanism for their readers' photo submissions. Of course, Conde Nast Publications (Wired's parent company) owns Reddit - so they got to use the widget for free; but other organizations could use a simple contact form wherein the applicant places information and a link to their photo on Flickr or Photobucket .

What a great way for magazines, museums, galleries, art centers, and other organizations with a visual art connection to engage their audience and acquire user-generated content!

Upcoming Conferences - Register Today!

2008 Nonprofit Technology ConferenceBuilding Community: Connections Around the Globe and Around the Corner March 19-21 New Orleans, LA

2008 Museums & the Web Conference April 9-12 Montreal, Quebec, Canada