Putting A New Face Forward
A bit of new media oriented discussion today. Smashing Magazine published an intriguing article last week about what it defines as best practices for effective “about” pages. The article starts off with a simple but powerful statement: The “about me”-page is one of the most overlooked pages in development and one of the highest ranked pages on many websites. They’re correct, next to the home page, Adaptistration’s “About” pages are the most popular but for years now, they haven’t been meeting their potential…
As a result, I took some time to update both pages so they project an image that sums up what the blog is all about. When revising the blog’s about copy, I was struck by how little that needed to be changed. When Adaptistration was launched in 2003, the business was amidst one of the toughest economic climates experienced in decades.
At that time, orchestras were making short-sighted decisions and labor relations were turning sour. More than five years later and things haven’t seemed to change much as a new economic downturn threw philosophical gasoline on the remaining embers of panic driven decision making process from the post 9/11 state of mind.
If nothing else, one significant change made to the blog’s manifesto was to the change mantra, which used to read:
“Change is difficult, change is turbulent, and change is painful. But change is necessary for survival.”
Although all of that is just as true now as it was then, the particularly gloom ridden outlook of today’s orchestra environment warrants the following updated version:
“Change can be difficult. Change can be turbulent. Change can be painful.
Change brings success. Change brings order. Change brings comfort.
Most importantly, change is necessary for survival.”
In addition to Adaptistration’s new “About” page, you can find a heavily revised “About-Me” page.
Filed Under: Featured • Internal Affairs
About the Author: Regularly quoted as an industry expert in international newspapers and trade journals, 
Bruce Hembd wrote:
Drew McManus wrote:
Geof Applegate wrote:
Bev B. wrote:
Adaptistration is authored by orchestra consultant Drew McManus and since its launch in 2003, the blog has become standard reading for arts administrators and arts administration programs throughout the world.
