Adaptistration

The 2008 Compensation Reports Are Almost Here

It's getting close to that time of year again and the 2008 Adaptistration Compensation Reports are on track to come out a little early this year. For those new to the reports, the articles present the most recent compensation information on nearly 300 executive director, music director, concertmaster, and base musician positions throughout 76 ICSOM, IGSOBM, and ROPA orchestral ensembles. There are only a handful of outstanding IRS Form 990's but once those are delivered, the reports will be ready for publication...

Windows Vista, How Do I Hate Thee? Let Me Count The Ways.

Actually, I only need to list one big reason right now. As it turns out, windows vista decided to install a major upgrade last night and in the process it destroyed all copies of everything created via Microsoft Word saved to my hard drive, including the article which would have been published this morning. As luck has it, most of the other files created yesterday were sent to associates via email and those copies are stored safely in my email client's "sent" folder.

The lost article examined a Berlin Philharmonic microsite and although I'll take some time later today to re-write the article, take a moment on your own to stop by the Berlin Philharmonic's "Cello Challenge" and see if you think it successfully accomplishes some of the goals identified in an article about orchestral websites from 2/14/2008.

New Features At Adaptistration

This week has ushered in some design and content enhancements at Adaptistration that are worth taking a moment to mention although judging by email messages, many readers have already noticed. They include comment feeds, social networking shortcut links, an eleven language translation tool, and refined contextual advertising tools…

Progress On The Internal Service Project - Interlochen Index

Although it is slow going, progress is being made at Adaptistration's Internal Service Project which is designed to fix all of the broken links and missing graphics that resulted from switching to an independent server in October, 2007. One advancement recently completed was creating a separate index for and restoring all 24 of the articles about the Interlochen Center for the Arts…

Inside The Arts Welcomes Frank Almond

Inside The Arts continues to grow and today marks the addition of the newest column: non divisi; Frank Almond writes a column instead of practicing. A column differs from a blog in that blogs publish several articles per week whereas columns publish less frequently. As Frank states in his About page, "For the time being, I'll post something the first Monday of every month, maybe more often if circumstances warrant, or if I'm just trying to avoid practicing." Much like Inside The Art's other column, non divisi is something entirely new and unique among the growing number of online culture sites. Frank captures this idea best in the opening of his inaugural post…

State Of The Blog: Adaptistration Turns Four

Thanks to a steady stream of regular readers and in influx of newcomers, Adaptistration's 2007 traffic reached record-breaking levels…

Brian Dickie Joins Inside The Arts

Inside The Arts continues to grow and today marks the addition of the newest blog: Brian Dickie, Life as General Director of Chicago Opera Theater. Brian has been writing his blog for more than two-and-a-half years and during that time he has carved out a position of great esteem, consequently, the addition of his blog to the Inside The Arts adds another solid block to the site's foundation. With the addition of Brian's blog as well as a new column beginning January 7, Inside The Arts has found itself in need of a redesign to make room for all of this growth…

Books On Culture: A New Inside The Arts Blog

There's excitement in the air as today marks the launch of the latest Inside The Arts blog. Books On Culture; discovering books on music and culture with John Rosenkrans is one of the most unique arts and culture blogs to enter the fray since the medium winked into existence several years ago. Although it seems like you can't swing a virtual dead cat without hitting a book review blog (or reader reviews through mega-sites like Amazon.com) there isn't a single blog devoted to reviewing books on music and culture - until now…

Inside The Arts Puts Butts In The Seats

Regulars to the cultural blogosphere are likely familiar with Joe Patti's blog, Butts In The Seats; musings on practical solutions for arts management. It has been one of my favorite blogs ever since its inaugural post nearly three years ago and I am pleased to announce that Joe has agreed to make Butts In The Seats part of InsideTheArts.com…

Inside The Arts: A New Hub For Cultural Discourse

There's excitement in the air as today marks the launch of a new cultural blogging exchange, Inside The Arts. Since moving to an independent server at the beginning of November, Adaptistration has expanded to offer two new blogs, Sticks and Drones and Arts Addict. Both blogs have done very well since their respective launch and with more blogs on the way, it made sense to create a clearinghouse where readers can find all of the latest entries in single location for easy viewing. As such, InsideTheArts.com was born.

From this point forward, Sticks and Drones as well as Arts Addict will no longer be referred to as "Adaptistration" blogs; rather, they'll be known as Inside The Arts blogs. By the end of December, when the task of getting the new Inside The Arts blogs up and running is completed, you can expect to see InsideTheArts.com grow to serve as a source for something other than a shiny aggregator. In the meantime, take a moment to stop by and while you're there, don't forget to add it to your bookmarks.

TAKE ME TO INSIDETHEARTS.COM

Weekly Email Summary Notice

After sending out the weekly email summary newsletter this week, I received some unusual bounceback messages. I know that some of the major internet providers have been playing games with each other by shutting down incoming email from a competitor so if you subscribe to the newsletter but did not receive one this weekend, let me know and I'll send one out to you via a different email server.

Sprucing Up The Homestead

After remaining relatively static for two year, it was high time to update my consulting website. First order of business was to freshen up the site’s color palette and to that end I ran across an absolutely fantastic website that makes it easy to put together a tight color-coordinated theme…

Giving Thanks

I’m thankful for being able to live in such a wonderful city with a thriving arts environment.

I’m thankful for my blog’s new home and the freedom to invite other talented voices to begin their own blogs.

I’m thankful for having the opportunity to earn a living while working from home.

I’m thankful for a wonderful public transpiration system that takes me where I need to go when I need to be there (and I hope the state of Illinois straightens up and realizes the importance of keeping it that way).

I’m thankful the internet continues to evolve into a healthy tool that promotes social interaction and maintains interpersonal connections.

I’m thankful for being able to spend my Black Friday working and having lunch with friends instead of joining the herd of zombies roaming the malls of America.

I’m thankful for being able to work on the most environmentally sound cultural project in the U.S. (more on that in a few months).

The Arts Addict: A New Adaptistration Blog

There’s excitement in the air as today marks the launch of the latest installment of a developing three-way mirror of cultural conversation designed to provide a comprehensive view on the field of performing arts. Arts Addict is self described blog about life “as a classical music bottom feeder.” Authored solely by the popular and well respected double bassist and blogger Jason Heath, Arts Addict will be an outlet for all of Jason’s non-double bass oriented writing…

Democracy In Action: An Adaptistration Poll

In the first demonstration of how much control over content management exists at the new Adaptistration, readers will get to decide how comments will be displayed; in either ascending (oldest first) or descending (newest first) order. Since the move to the new server, comments have been posted in descending order (newest first), which is opposite of how they were posted at the old server.

As such, some readers have been asking whether or not we could go back to the previous setting, ascending (oldest first) order. Instead of doing only what I want, it seems better to allow the readers to decide. As such, please take a moment to complete the following poll, which will remain open until midnight, Sunday 11/18/2007. Whichever method prevails will go into effect for the entire site starting Monday, 11/19/2007.

Are You Ready For The Arts Addict?

I hate to give away upcoming events too early but the flood of emails asking about the new blogs set to launch over the next few months have persuaded me to offer up a few more details…

Sticks and Drones: A New Adaptistration Blog

There’s excitement in the air as today marks the launch of the first of several new blogs here at Adaptistration. Sticks and Drones is all about the world of classical music from the perspective of two conductors, Bill Eddins and Ron Spigelman. If you are hoping the blog will be chocked full of filler such as discussions about whether or not Stokowski’s orchestration of Pictures at an Exhibition is superior to Ravel’s edition and the advances in graphite baton design, you might be disappointed.

Instead, Sticks and Drones is all about providing a public forum for two very insightful musicians who live and work in classical music’s trenches. With the comment throttle thrown wide open, they’ll examine where classical music is, where it needs to go, and the challenges along the way. In due course, Sticks and Drones is the first addition to a growing three-way mirror of cultural conversation designed to provide a comprehensive view on the field of performing arts (more on that at a later date)…

Welcome To Adaptistration’s New Home

After more than 1,200 entries and nearly four years at ArtsJournal.com, Adaptistration has moved to a new home here at Adaptistration.com. Although this official announcement comes a few days after the fact, I certainly appreciate the flood of personal email messages and calls from colleagues and readers curious to know more behind the sudden change. A few folks even went so far as to toss out a public inquiry such as Butts In the Seats proprietor Joe Patti with his blog from 10/15/2007 entitled Scoobie Doobie Drew (McManus), Where Are You? (who said mangers aren't creative)…

The Updated Website Report Is Now Available

Hot on the heels of the 4th Annual Website Review, the print version of the review is now available. The 124 page report serves as an invaluable resource guide for any orchestral organization looking to redesign, update, or validate recent changes to their website and although it contains an additional year's worth of material, the price remains exactly the same as least year's edition...

Weekly Email Summary: Important Notice

TOO MUCH OF A GOOD THING: Due to the flood of new subscribers this week, I had to place a special request with my mailing list host to lift the mass email restrictions they have in place to prevent spam. As a result of this restriction, only a handful of newsletters went out at the scheduled time this morning but rest assured, everyone will receive their copy of the newsletter, including the 2007 Orchestra Website Review Top 10 sneak-peak.

If you are a subscriber but do not receive a copy of the newsletter by the end of today, Saturday 9/15, please let me know via email and I will personally send you a copy. Furthermore, some subscribers will receive duplicate copies of this week's newsletter; I apologize in advance if this causes any inconvenience.