In Case You Missed It - March 2012

March was a delightful month, and I hope you also enjoyed that brief taste of summer we got here in Pittsburgh. We featured some great posts here, and if you missed them the first time around, here’s a brief recap:

We took a dive into the world of QR codes with QRpedia, then headed to Wikipedia with part one and part two of our interview with Lori Byrd Phillips, a Wikipedian in Residence. Not yet satiated, we took on Pinterest in a mini-nar and a work of art that will Tweet back at you.

There’s also a theoretical side to technology and the arts, and we heard from a Millennial about the death of telemarketing. However, people love to give to the arts through Kickstarter, and we had a great discussion on the role of the arts in economic development. Not all is well, and we took a look at the loss of public funding for the arts in Europe.

Carnegie Mellon hosted a lovely TED event, TEDxCMU, which had some artistic implications.

We have another installment to our speaker series today (March 30), starting at 12:30 EST – with the Art Program Director of KICKSTARTER, Stephanie Pereira. Hit us up on Twitter to follow along with the conversation @TechInTheArts

Dang, what a great month! Here’s hoping April is just as awesome. Enjoy your weekend, folks!

Engaging Technology: uCurate and uExplore at the Clark

What’s going on at the Sterling and Francine Clark Institute in Williamstown, Massachusetts? Let’s see, there are iPads, tablets, interactive digital programs, touchscreens and kiosks throughout the galleries, the new exhibition, Clark Remix, and oh yes, new curators- YOU. In a February press release, the Clark announced its exciting new initiative to encourage visitor interaction and participation in its galleries. According to the press release, Clark Remix is "a dynamic salon-style installation featuring some 80 paintings, 20 sculptures, and 300 of the institute’s finest examples of decorative arts."

As part of the exhibit, the Clark has introduced the interactive, digital programs uExplore and uCurate. Both programs are accessible online, on the visitor’s own personal device, on touchscreens and kiosks throughout the gallery and on iPads and tablets provided by the Clark for use in the museum. Basically, the programs are EXTREMELY accessible and user friendly- I myself have spent all afternoon here in Pittsburgh exploring the Clark’s collection and building my own exhibition, instead of reading for class (ahh priorities).

The Director of the Clark, Michael Conforti explains the premise of Clark Remix,

Clark Remix represents one of many programs that the Clark is developing to engage audiences in exciting ways. Clark Remix allows us to present our permanent collection in an installation that is both beautiful and innovative. Our salon-style presentation provides a very different and intriguing perspective on many of the works that have become familiar favorites for Clark visitors. Adding virtual components to the exhibition allows us to reach new audiences and invite them to discover and interact with our collection.

It works like this. uExplore allows the visitor to learn more about the Clark’s collection in a visually stimulating, highly organized, and digitally oriented way. Items are grouped into categories (paintings, sculpture, glass silver and ceramics) to allow the user to navigate with ease through the extensive collection. Selecting an image of the desired object, a more detailed, but not overwhelming, explanation of the item becomes available. When appropriate, audio and video clips accompany the information.

It is a beautifully designed and easily navigable interface. uExplore’s presence in the gallery encourages visitors to delve more deeply into the history of the collection, while they are on-site.

The second digital application to accompany the exhibit, uCurate, gives visitors the opportunity to participate in the curatorial process. As the name implies, YOU, aka the visitor, plan and design a 3D virtual exhibition with the Clark’s collection. The participant makes all decisions, from what to include and how to arrange

the objects, to wall color selection and wall text. Users of the program have the option to submit their designs for consideration by Clark’s curatorial team AND to share their designs through social media channels (promoting the museum and the digital program). Submissions to the Clark will be reviewed regularly. Why submit your design for professional review by Clark curators? Because if selected, the virtual design will be transformed into an actual exhibition! The lucky designers will be invited to assist in their exhibition’s installation, in the decision-making process, in the creation of wall text and in writing the curator’s statement.

uCurate and uExplore were designed by the Clark in collaboration with Swim Design Consultants and Virtual Gallerie to afford the public a voice and role in the museum’s exhibition planning process. Allowing the public to suggest actual designs for implementation challenges what has been the accepted and traditional decision-making process in the museum. That is, all decisions are made internally; the public only receives, not contributes. But the Clark is trying something different. In a recent New York Times' article on the Clark’s innovative crowd-sourcing approach, Conforti said,

For generations, curators ran the show and told you what to believe. In a world of blogging and Wikipedia, we realized that we can learn from our audience, and from multiple interpretations.

This is Museum 2.0 in action. Where visitors become users and museums become, as Nina Simon explains, “dynamic platforms for content generation and sharing.”

So Kudos to you, Clark Museum. This is an engaging and relevant use of technology where the user AND museum win.

Expanding the Dialogue with the CultureCode Initiative

While the intersection of technology and the arts has always presented a series of exciting opportunities for us here at Technology in the Arts, the reality is many cultural and arts organizations find technology challenging. It can seem especially prohibitive to small organizations and individual artists who may lack expertise. The Arts Council England and Codeworks have developed an interesting forum to increase the dialogue between arts organizations and the developers of this intimidating technology, the CultureCode Initiative.

No definition fits the CultureCode Initiative better than the one straight out of their digital press release,

“The CultureCode Initiative is a series of free events designed to open up new opportunities for highly skilled developers, designers and assorted geeks to work collaboratively with cultural organisations and artists.”

Here’s why I find the idea of the CultureCode Initiative so fascinating: technology often overwhelms people and appears antithetical to cultural organizations that feel that new technology can make them obsolete. The CultureCode Initiative seeks to completely debunk that myth, as Tyneside Cinema Chief Executive Mark Dobson explains, “You don’t need to have any previous experience of digital to attend this event”.

The CultureCode Initiative’s website even states “you don’t need an IT department” to partake and learn from their events, and some are guaranteed to be "jargon-free". The advent of web 2.0 and the current culture of sharing absolutely everything via the internet has democratized information. The CultureCode Initiative, to me, is increasing accessibility and informing arts and cultural organizations know that it is possible and it is easy for them to join this discussion.

Most importantly, perhaps, the discussion is not meant to be in one direction. While most similar opportunities are aimed at instructing arts organizations in utilizing technology, the CultureCode Initiative encourages two-way dialogues, with events showing developers how they can take a new look at cultural organizations and how cultural organizations can reconsider their “digital assets”.

If you’d like to join the discussion live, their first events start early next week (Tuesday, February 21^st ) and CultureCode ends with a huge twenty-four hour Hack towards the end of March.

If you don’t happen to live in the North East of England (where these events take place) you can join the discussion digitally by tweeting @Culture_Code.

Any of our readers going? Be sure to let us know your perceptions of the events – you can bet Tech in the Arts will be watching to see what cool solutions come out of the CultureCode Hack.

Solve for X

Try not to have horrible flashbacks of high school algebra! In this case, Solve for <X> is a new Google initiative, defined as “a forum to encourage and amplify technology-based moon-shot thinking and teamwork”, and <X> is defined by as the intersections of “huge problem”, “radical solution”, and “breakthrough technology”. http://youtu.be/uDDy7QSdt6A

While the website is fairly vague, Solve for <X> sounds like a hub for crowdsourced solutions with a focus on innovative thinking and technologies. The website already has some brilliant talks online – as a visual person, I found Mary Lou Jepsen’s discussion on “Imaging the Mind’s Eye” fascinating.

http://youtu.be/SjbSEjOJL3U

Solve for <X> has a Google+ page to encourage and facilitate discussion; anyone with a relevant talk is invited to share it on the page as long as it meets the criteria (huge problem, radical solution, and breakthrough technology). Solve for <X> even hosted a conference in the beginning of February to bring together innovators to discuss major problems and solutions of the modern world. There’s a YouTube channel with more videos from the site and their conference, with presumably more on the way.

Crowdsource thinking like Solve for <X> and the TED talks certainly provide an interesting set of viewpoints on a wide range of topics. You can bet we’ll be watching to see how Solve for <X> has an affect on culture and the world of art.

Coming Soon - MOCA TV

Wanna check out a documentary on street artists? Maybe an interactive, educational art program? Turn your dial to YouTube, and check out the new channel from the Museum of Contemporary Art (MoCA) in Los Angeles, called MOCA TV. Part of YouTube’s original programming initiative, MOCA TV is the first contemporary art and culture channel in the programming. It will be “aggregating, curating and generating the strongest artistic content from around the world” according to MOCA TV Channel Executive Jeffrey Deitch. MOCA TV original programming will feature global art news, art and music, art and fashion, artists in the studio (think MTV “Cribs” style), and aforementioned educational pieces in a series called “MOCA Univerisity”.

Deitch referred to MOCA TV as “the ultimate digital extension of the museum”, which has us curious about this growing digitization of art museums. The Walker Art Center’s new magazine-style website, increasingly sophisticated web exhibitions around the world, and MOCA TV point to general embrace of modern technologies.

MOCA TV has a July 2012 release date, so we have a while before we start streaming any shows. Shepard Fairey’s design studio is doing the graphic identity and an extensive social networking campaign promises MOCA TV will be cool and on point with tech-savvy Millennials. In the mean time, what original arts programming do you like to enjoy on YouTube?

The Warhol: Art – An App for Droid, iPhone, and iPad

I don’t want to shock anyone, but since my last post, another art museum has released another app. The Warhol: Art is a production of the Andy Warhol Museum and Toura, and perhaps the sarcasm was unwarranted. It shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone that a museum dedicated to such an influential part of pop culture stays on top of the latest pop culture mediums. Andy is a Carnegie Mellon University alum, so I plopped down my three bucks on the Droid Market for this application (available on the Droid, iPhone, or iPad) and proceeded to check it out. This is the Andy Warhol Museum’s third app, and The Warhol: Art is focused on informing the users about the life and art of Andy Warhol, as well as helpful information about the museum itself. The app is useful for those who would like obscure information about Andy’s life (such as his Carpatho-Rusyn heritage) at a moments notice, and great for art history buffs. The Warhol: Art is described as a “behind-the-scenes glimpse” at some of the Warhol’s works of art, especially pieces which are lesser known. Users can explore the life and times of Andy Warhol through sections divided by years in his life. Each section comes with a selection of related art works that he created during the time period. There's a neat "Favorites" function that allows users to star the pieces they like best from these sections. The starred items list can be accessed easily from the first screen of the app, allowing users to check out their favorite pieces quickly. A few select pieces have curator commentary buttons, which I really enjoyed. The Warhol: Art commentary buttons, however, do not actually appear on the pieces that they describe. For example, while viewing Mao, 1972, I clicked on “Curator’s Insight”, only to hear a curator discussing Warhol’s Hammer and Sickle series.

Yes, I see and understand how those pieces are related. Yes, I enjoyed the commentary on the piece because I am a huge art nerd. Practically speaking, however, were I a museum patron standing in front of Mao, 1972, hoping to hear more about it, I would be disappointed and perhaps upset to receive commentary on a completely different piece.

I believe mobile applications are quickly becoming a new way to encourage museum patrons to interact with the art, and I applaud the Warhol for encouraging this effort. The Warhol: Art is an informative app chock full of information and great art, including many lesser known and not on display pieces. However, I found some features tedious (see above), while others just did not work (none of the videos would play for me, and I could not zoom in on any of the works – this is could be due to user error).

Overall, this app is great for those who’d like to learn more about Andy Warhol in an informal setting. The Andy Warhol Museum certainly is not alone is releasing an app for art history fanatics, which begs the question: is the next wave of art history coming through our smart phones? Is this the future of education? What do you think?

Center for Arts Management and Technology Update

Some of you may have heard that the Center for Arts Management and Technology is undergoing a restructuring process. David Dombrosky, CAMT's former executive director, recently resigned from Carnegie Mellon University. Everyone involved with CAMT thanks him for his service and support these last four years, and we wish him the best as he starts a new chapter in his life. Many of you may know me from my years with CAMT (2004-2009) and my involvement in the founding of its Technology in the Arts resource line. I will be assisting Dan Martin in the restructuring of CAMT to integrate all of its products and services under Technology in the Arts. CAMT is currently not accepting new software clients, but we're continuing to support existing clients during this restructuring process.

Please continue to take advantage of the Technology in the Arts resources, and we look forward to bringing you an even stronger arts and technology service line in the very near future.

If you have any questions, please contact Brad Stephenson at bstephenson@cmu.edu.

Tech tools for your arts job search

After two years writing for Technology in the Arts, I am leaving the Center for Arts Management and Technology. The unfortunate part about being a graduate student is that you will have to leave a place you love after a certain number of years, and my number is up! Special thanks to David and the rest of the CAMT staff for making the last two years amazing, educational, and memorable. I am very excited about my new position with the data-driven arts and entertainment consulting firm TRG Arts. I have been hired as the Strategic Communications Specialist, which means I will serve as a writer and editor for the firm’s consulting projects, Data Lab research and analytics projects, and a contributor to TRG’s knowledge center online.

Before I leave Technology in the Arts, I wanted to share some of the secrets I learned during the last few months of looking for arts jobs, mainly at non-profit organizations. Because nonprofits usually begin their fiscal year in July, new positions at these organizations are often posted in the summer. That means now is the prime time for you to find your new dream job in the arts.

Here are my favorite tech tools to help you find that job:

Changedetection.com

Arts jobs often need to be filled quickly, which also means the time you have to apply is limited. We’ve all had the experience of finding a great—no, perfect—job and finding out that the “apply by” date has passed or being informed after you’ve submitted your resume that the company had already extended an offer to someone.

Changedetection.com comes in handy when you know that there is a company (or companies) you’d love to work for. Obviously you aren’t going to check in on the employment page of their website every day. Better that you just be notified when they post a job, right? Well, through the magic of technology, you can find out when that employment page changes. Changedetection checks the page every day, week or month (you specify which) and sends you an email when there has been a change.

If there is a specific geographic location you know you’d like to work in, changedetection can help too. For example, I was looking for jobs in Portland at the beginning of my search. I looked on the arts council website and there wasn’t a job board, but I wasn’t going to let a silly little thing like that stop me! What the arts council site DID have was a listing of all the arts orgs in Portland. I put a changedetection on the employment page of each organization I was interested in and got on with my search.

The downside of tracking all these pages is that you might have to sort through some jobs that aren’t for you. For example, I looked mainly at full-time marketing jobs, but I was notified for ANY job at those companies, including development and box office jobs, and in some cases, internships. However, you can take this as an opportunity to build networks. If you see a great job in finance, maybe you have a friend who looking who also happens to be a finance whiz. Forward the job to her and not only have you strengthened your friendship, but also she may want to return the favor if she comes across a job that fits you.

I would recommend setting these up relatively early in your job search and keep adding as you find companies that are of interest to you. This way, you will also see which jobs come up and how frequently as well as important information like salary ranges and organizational structure information. (For example, will you be working for someone who is a new hire herself/himself? Is there a new Executive Director at the org?)

The interface for monitoring a page on ChangeDetection.com

LinkedIn

LinkedIn has attempted to tout itself as a job-finding service. However, at the early-career/emerging leader level, I find that is less helpful for finding jobs and more helpful for simply networking. There’s not that many headhunters out there for arts jobs, except in the executive level and maybe for IT people.

Anyway, how many times have we heard that the arts world is a small world? I use LinkedIn to see if there’s anyone I know who may know someone at the company I am applying to. If your relationship is good with that person, ask them to put in a good word for you.

Sometimes LinkedIn groups will have job postings; I haven’t found this to be true for most of the arts admin/management groups though. Please comment below if you know of a good group for this.

GuideStar

For non-profit organizations, it’s essential to check out the company on GuideStar. GuideStar is a free service that gathers and publicizes information about nonprofit organizations. Much of the information is geared toward donors and foundations, but there is a lot of useful information on it for the job seeker.

Once you register (free), you have access to almost any arts organization’s 990 tax forms, which means you can see what the organization’s budget size is and how they are doing financially. Note that for many organizations, the most recent year might be 2008 or 2009, so the information could be slightly dated or influenced by the recession—which is still important to know. The 990 serves not only as a way to see if the org has a record of keeping a balanced budget, but also as a historical snapshot of the organization, in terms of grants received, senior staff turnover, and capital campaigns and similar projects, among other things.

GuideStar is also extremely helpful to estimate salaries, especially if you are applying to a director-level position. The IRS requires non-profits to list the salaries of their five highest-paid employees. This is pretty valuable information, as the size of most non-profit arts organizations means that you aren’t likely to find very accurate information on that exact job at that exact organization.

Arts Jobs Sites

One of my friends posted a status update recently “wondering if CareerBuilder is really a builder”. I replied that all it had “built” for me was piles of emails in my spam folder. Personally, I’ve had a lot more luck overall with industry-specific sites, some of which can be used in conjunction with changedetection, as discussed above. (Bonus: The industry-specific sites manage to present you with jobs without asking if you want information from University of Phoenix every other time you go to look at a job. Just saying.)  Here are my favorites:

General:

• CAMT’s own ArtsOpportunities
• Americans for the Arts' Job Bank

By discipline:

• Playbill Job Listings (mostly theatre)
• Theatre Communications Group's Arts Search (need a log-in and password for this one)
• Association of Performing Arts Presenters Job Bank
• Opera America Job Listings (also available as an RSS Feed)
• Dance USA Jobs in the Arts
• Association of Children’s Museums
• American Association of Museums' jobHQ
• Chronicle of Higher Education (mostly faculty positions at colleges and universities)
• Also, Createquity will occasionally post interesting opportunities, so that is worth adding to your RSS feed if you haven’t already.

State and local arts councils may have a good job posting site, depending on where you’re looking to find a job. For example:

• Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance
• Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington (Washington D.C., not Washington state)
• New York Foundation for the Arts

Lastly, if you have an interest in development or program management, heads up! There are a few sites/ email alerts that I’ve found especially useful:

Philanthropy News Digest (A service of Foundationcenter.org)

PND has created a job alert system that will email you a daily summary of recent jobs in your area of interest. I cast my net wide by checking a lot of states and position types (communications, development, program management, etc) when I signed up for the alerts. I now get about 15 job postings a day. The fields of the organizations are quite diverse too. A recent email contained jobs from Napa Valley Opera House, University of Chicago, the Rainforest Alliance, and Vera Institute of Justice.

Chronicle of Philanthropy

Chronicle of Philanthropy posts mostly development jobs, which, like PND, you can sort by location, position type, and the field of the organization (education, health, museum, etc).

DotOrgJobs

It’s also worth mentioning that DotOrgJobs is good for fundraising jobs and other nonprofit jobs; however, I have not seen a lot of arts-specific jobs from them. You can subscribe via email or RSS feed.

On organizing email alerts:

You might be saying to yourself, “That’s a lot of email alerts to deal with.” I use gmail and have set a rule to have these emails automatically labeled “job search” and archived so that they don’t clutter up my inbox. Then I set an alert on Google Calendar reminding me to go through them once a week, so that I actually read them! This can also easily be done with Outlook.

Do you know of any other good sources for arts jobs? If so, please post them below!  Happy hunting!

Upcoming Webinar – Inspiring Online Audiences: Jacob's Pillow Dance Interactive

The word "engage" gets thrown around a lot. But what does it really mean? Our upcoming webinar takes a look at how arts organizations can inspire their audiences through online platforms by focusing on a case study from Jacob's Pillow, which recently launched their own online exhibit.

Inspiring Online Audiences: Jacob's Pillow Dance Interactive May 9, 2011 2pm-3:30pm Eastern Register today ($25)

How can online engagement with arts audiences be meaningful, inspiring, and ultimately worth all the effort we put into the online space? Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival presents their recently launched online exhibit Dance Interactive, a collection of videos from 1930s dance pioneers to today's most visionary artists. Looking through the lens of crafting "inspiration", this webinar will help you define for your own organization what that catch-all term "engage" really means and the greater challenge of how to measure it.

Panelists:

Connie Chin is General Manager of Jacob’s Pillow, an international dance festival, school, archives, community programs, and National Historic Landmark, which recently was awarded the 2010 National Medal of Arts. At the Pillow, Connie’s special projects have included Virtual Pillow, the Nonprofit Finance Fund's Leading for the Future initiative funded by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, and the Wallace Foundation’s Leadership and Excellence in Arts Participation initiative. She has consulted as a Peer Advisor for the Massachusetts Cultural Council, and served on grants panels in Connecticut and Westchester. Prior to the Pillow, she was in brand management at Kraft and Ocean Spray; and has also worked at the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival and New York Foundation for the Arts. As a dancer she has performed with Bill T. Jones, Jawole Willa Jo Zollar, Muna Tseng, Sincha Hong, Ze'eva Cohen, and others. Connie holds a B.A. from Harvard College and an M.B.A from Yale School of Management.

Lisa Niedermeyer is an independent consultant currently managing digital projects for Jacob's Pillow, home to America's longest running international dance festival. Lisa also serves on the advisory board of Movement Media, a NYC-based organization that empowers dance artists as curators, creators, and strategists of media. Past project highlights include working with the online marketing team at Soundwalk, an international media firm specializing in sound art and iPhone audio tours, as well as collaborating with Jane Comfort and Company (with whom she performed for 7 years) as digital content director for the company's 30th anniversary rebuild of their website.

The Coming of the Mininar! (Mini + Webinar)

Technology in the Arts is proud to announce that we are starting a series of "mini-nars", short videos that tell you not only the basics on new tech trends, but also how to actually implement them yourself! Hear more about mini-nars here:

Mininar Preview from Technology in the Arts on Vimeo.

The first mini-nar will be released soon with info on what the heck a QR code is, how to make one, and how to track one. With screenshots! And costumes. Get excited.

We are looking for ideas for future mini-nars! If you have an idea for a subject that we could cover in about 5-10 minutes, please comment below or suggest one any time via Facebook or Twitter.

Three days left to complete the Ticketing Software Satifaction Survey!

Click here to take survey. Photo: Gyorgy Kovacs via Flickr.

The 2011 Ticketing Software Satisfaction Survey is closing Friday, February 18!

Now in its second year, we designed this short survey to see how satisfied arts and cultural organizations are with the ticketing software products they are currently using. Many ticketing software vendors have used the results of last year’s survey to find out what is important to arts and culture managers. This survey is your chance to tell them, and the field at large, how satisfied (or not) you are with your current system.

If you are a box office manager or staff member, house manager, business manager, executive director, board member, marketing staff, or anyone else who has contact with a box office software system, then this survey is for you! Results will be sent to survey participants in April 2011.

Fill out the survey today!

If you have already filled out the survey, please share with colleagues by clicking the "ShareThis" icon below.

Technology Adoption and Implementation in Arts Organizations

Technology in the Arts has just published the results of a  survey regarding technology adoption and implementation in the arts and cultural field. (Access the PDF publication here).

In order to uncover emerging trends and differences in the use of technology amongst arts and cultural organizations, we asked arts managers to provide us with baseline information as well as a self-assessment of the role of technology in their organizations.  Respondents shared information about where they are now, which technologies they hope to adopt in the coming year, and how they find the resources they need to implement and maintain technology.

This report, which includes responses across a broad spectrum of arts and cultural organizations representing a variety of disciplines in the United States and Canada, reveals a snapshot of how the field approaches technology.

What did we discover?  Here is a small sampling of the findings that emerged:

• Over three-quarters of organizations with annual budgets of less than $500,000 spent under $5000 on technology in the past year, while half of organizations with budgets of $5 million or more spent over $100,000.
• Nearly half of organizations with budgets between $2.5 million and $5 million have no full-time technology staff, and that figure jumps to 82% for organizations with annual budgets of less than $500,000.
• Organizations with annual budgets of less than $500,000 currently use static websites at a higher rate than dynamic websites, while all larger organizations are more likely to have already moved away from static websites.
• A large percentage of respondents, regardless of organizational budget size, did not respond with any specific technology plans for the next year--which may indicate an overall lack of planning for future technology.

Want to find out more?  Check out our report and see how your organization compares.

Make your Voice Heard!

Click here to take survey. Photo: Gyorgy Kovacs via Flickr.

The 2011 Ticketing Software Satisfaction Survey is now live! Now in its second year, we designed this short survey to see how satisfied arts and cultural organizations are with the ticketing software products they are currently using. The survey will close on February 18, and results will be sent to survey participants in April 2011.

Many ticketing software vendors have used the results of last year’s survey to find out what is important to arts and culture managers. This survey is your chance to tell them, and the field at large, how satisfied (or not) you are with your current system.

If you are a box office manager or staff member, house manager, business manager, executive director, board member, marketing staff, or anyone else who has contact with a box office software system, then this survey is for you!

Fill out the survey today!

And please share with colleagues by clicking the "ShareThis" icon below.

Why the Arts Matter - Video Contest Winner

Earlier this year, Americans for the Arts launched an online video contest to encourage U.S. residents over the age of 13 to answer the question, "Why do the arts matter to you?" Congratulations to all of the winners!

Grand Prize Winner - Starting Artists, Inc. Over 18 Winner - Student Advocates for the Arts Under 18 Winner - Linzy Paige

Firing Up Museums With Sparks! Ignition Grants

From digital archiving techniques to mobile websites, museums around the country are finding news ways to innovate in our current and rapidly changing information age. There is now an emphasis on experimentation and testing the boundaries of what traditionally defines a museum. The Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) has initiated a new grant program with this emphasis in mind and is seeking proposals for the current fiscal year. The Sparks! Ignition grants can be up to $25,000, are available for a period of up to one year, and have no matching requirements. Yes, you read that correctly. No matching requirements.

The Sparks! Ignition program is intended for all eligible institutions that want to utilize innovative methods to address some of the current problems that museums and libraries in the U.S. are experiencing. For more information about the application and to find out if your institution meets the criteria for eligibility, visit the IMLS website .

On November 3^rd, IMLS staff will be offering a webinar explaining the purpose of the grants, articulating the application process, and answering questions. Your organization will have to move quickly though, the application deadline for all Sparks! grants is November 15^th, 2010.

Are You Getting the Most Out of Twitter? - November Webinar

Getting the Most Out of Twitter

Thursday, November 18, 2010 2:00pm-3:30pm Eastern Register today for $25 Presenter: David Dombrosky

As the ninth most popular website in the world, Twitter has quickly grown into a formidable communications platform. But what can you really do with 140 characters or less? How can arts managers make the most of this increasingly useful tool?

In this webinar, you'll learn:

• Who uses Twitter, and why they want to engage your organization.
• What aspects of Twitter distinguish it from other social sites, how your organization can use these aspects to communicate more effectively.
• The 70-20-10 rule for engagement, and how you can use it to your advantage.
• Best practices for arts organizations using Twitter
• What third party applications can arts managers use to share media, expand your reach, and much more.
• What analytic tools exist to help you chart your Twitter success

David Dombrosky is the Executive Director of the Center for Arts Management and Technology (CAMT), an applied research center at Carnegie Mellon University investigating ways in which arts organizations can use online technology to more effectively meet their goals. He frequently presents technology and social media workshops for arts conferences – most recently for The Association of American Cultures, Performing Arts Exchange, Chorus America, Opera America, College Art Association, and Grantmakers in the Arts.

Future Focus: The Public Art Archive

Sharing information and digital media about public art has never been an easy task for arts administrators. The Western States Arts Federation (WESTAF) seeks to change that when they launch the Public Art Archive - an online, searchable database for public art in the United States. A tool for both arts administrators and the general public, WESTAF’s vision is for the Archive to serve as an easy to use, central source of information about public art. I recently had a chance to speak with the creators of the Public Art Archive and take a guided tour through the site.

The Public Art Archive has a straightforward, user-friendly interface.  Entry to the Archive takes place through a simple search bar on the front page, powered by Solr, an open-source search platform from by the Apache Lucene project.  You may already be familiar with Solr, as it is the search engine used by both Etsy.com and FoodNetwork.com.

Solr allows you to refine simple searches on the Archive through multiple filters with a variety of search criteria such as artist, location, materials, collections and even nicknames. The search criteria and vocabulary for the site was built from the same standards as those used by reference websites like ARTstor and the digital library projects at Harvard.

Once they’ve found the artwork they are searching for, users are presented with a variety of information and media about the work. In addition to the artwork’s basic info, users can view pictures and video, download PDFs about the artwork, and listen to audio describing the piece.

While the capability for all this content is built in, individual administrators must submit all information and media for each artwork. The Archive has no limit on the amount of content that can be submitted for each work and submission of the content is free. At a minimum, the site requires a full description for each work, as well as its location, and one high quality image.

To enable use of the Archive when an individual is physically in front of a work of public art,  the Archive will be accessible from any web-enabled mobile device. No specific apps will be required, users just plug the main url for the Archive into their phone's web browser to access the full functionality of the site.

The Public Art Archive will also be fully integrated with Google Maps.  By clicking the site’s “Map This” icon, users will be able to view exactly where the artworks are located and build custom maps of artworks that can be shared with others or saved for later use.   Administrators can use the mapping function to create custom maps for use in tours of their collection, maintenance tasks, and advocacy initiatives.

The ability for organizations to create personalized pages so they can maintain their identity will be added as the Archive progresses. WESTAF also plans to have licenses available to give organizations access to the more administrative functions of the Archive.

The Public Art Archive will be launching in the near future, but until then visit westaf.org to check out some of WESTAF's other projects that offer technological solutions for arts administrators.

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.

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!