Adaptistration

Adaptistration Poll: RSS Preferences

Last week, a reader contacted me asking about why Adaptistration doesn't use full length posts in its RSS feed. A thoughtful exchange ensued and as it has been some time since I last surveyed readers on the topic, it seemed as though the best course of action would be to poll current readers on their RSS habits and whether or not they have any preferences with regard to feed length and format...

A Tangled Web Indeed

If you haven't read it yet, Ron Spigelman posted an excellent article on 3/22/2008 at Sticks and Drones about some recent changes made to the Shreveport Symphony Orchestra (SSO) website. Although the ongoing situation in Columbus has had a great deal of attention, there is an equally significant series of events developing in Shreveport between the SSO and the symphony musicians, the Orchestra Players United of Shreveport-Bossier (OPUS). The particulars of that situation will be examined here in the near future but the issues which Ron brings to light are worth immediate attention…

A Viral Marketer, An Orchestra, And A Brewmaster Walk Into A Bar…

Thanks to the seemingly endless creativity among the folks who marketing beer, Victoria Bitter (a brand in the Fosters chain commonly referred to as VB) launched a viral ad campaign toward the end of 2007 that featured 95 musicians from the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra and Orchestra Victoria performing solely on 451 VB bottles and 6 timpani. Composer Cezary Skubiszewski arranged the 40-year-old VB theme music and conducted the ensemble which recorded the video, featured to your right, at the Melbourne Concert Hall.

Another Take On Orchestral Microsites

As an interesting continuation to the topic of orchestral microsites a reader sent along a link to the Berlin Philharmonic Cello Challenge, a microsite of the Berlin Philharmonic website. The microsite is designed entirely in Flash and although it is apparent that they spent a great deal of time on the microsite's aesthetic quality, it is ultimately one of the thousands of simple, repetitive flash based games available across the internet…

Google Keeps Rolling Out The Goodies

In one of their latest efforts to colonize all of cyberspace, or at least whatever Microsoft can't hide, Google has created an easy-to-use and highly effective customizable search tool. In particular, the new tool allows registered Google users to create a search box capable of:

• Including one website, multiple websites, or specific webpages
• Host the search box and results on your own website
• Customize the colors and branding to match your existing webpages

Each one of these features is useful for standard orchestra websites and even more valuable for those sites which are becoming more complex and dynamic. Let's examine each of the features individually…

Chicago Symphony Rolls Out Some New PR Bling

Right on the heels of the How To Connect With New Media series of articles the Chicago Symphony rolls out an updated press page at their website which contains some of the items from my Marketing Wish List…

A New Way To Look Before You Leap

Earlier this month, the Los Angeles Times published an article about an interactive seating chart tool being developed for the Los Angeles Philharmonic's website. Called Seat Buddy, the online tool promises to let website users get a better look at the inside of the concert hall as well as what Seat Buddy's founder described in the article as the hall's depth…

I Wonder What They Would Do For Ticket Sales

An article in the 2/13/2008 edition of The Hollywood Reporter examines a NYU study that determined blog posts can triple album sales. This is an early step toward quantifying the impact new media has on the cultural consciousness…

Microsites: The Future Of Performing Arts Websites?

I was hoping that Monday's article about the "Ode To A Ford" project would spark a comment or two about the added value Ford's microsite added to what is a straight-up viral ad campaign. I remember having a conversation with a colleague who doesn't work in the orchestra business and isn't a musician about a year ago and we were talking about the quality of orchestra website education sites. In general, we concluded that most weren't very educational from the perspective of getting the user involved in the subject material. "As someone who doesn't know much about classical music to begin with, I don't come away from educational pages feeling like I learned anything." …

Ode To A Ford

Whatever you're doing, stop and gather around anyone in your immediate vicinity to watch this video and learn more about this project! The video, which has been released in certain parts of Europe and the UK, is a commercial produced by Ford Motor Company to promote one of their redesigned cars, the Ford Focus. You can watch a larger version of the video here and for any naysayers out there saying "no way, that has to be fake" read on…

How To Connect With New Media: Part 1

New Media: who they are and where to find them.

This installment is designed to help establish a collective understanding of what constitutes new media which can be used to move forward. Once that straightforward task is completed we’ll examine how to begin categorizing new media outlets in a way that will benefit your organization best…

How To Connect With New Media: An Introduction

This June, I have the honor of serving as a speaker in one of the National Performing Arts Convention’s breakout sessions titled The Online Salon Movement. The session’s description promotes the event as a wide ranging commentary and discussion on how performing arts organizations can interact with new forms of media and the public at large. “At a time when more traditional media outlets continue to shrink arts coverage, a wide variety of passionate bloggers writing about all of the performing arts have developed an audience of millions of readers and have challenged the critical paradigm by building a new dialogue about the arts.” I couldn’t think of a better way to describe the state in which new media exists and it got me thinking about how orchestras can enhance that interaction by refining how they reach out to these diverse outlets. To that end, I’ve come up with this series of articles to help orchestras identify, contact, and maintain relationships with new media…

Getting Ahead Of The Relevancy Curve

It isn't as though I keep up with Hollywood award shows but it was infinitely amusing to read that the Golden Globe awards were reduced to nothing more than a prolonged press conference due to the Writers Guild of America strike. At the same time, the topic made me think about awards in general and since I was also thinking about blog topics at the same time, it inspired me to go searching for blog awards...

Vote Early, Vote Often…

The 2008 Weblog Awards ("The Bloggies") closes midnight Friday the 11th of January (today!). If you think Adaptistration has been a worthwhile resource throughout 2007...

Make A Fortune In Virtual Cash

Do you enjoy the fictional world of the fantasy blog stock market? If so, you're likely involved with one of the most entertaining and longest running offerings available, Blogshares.com. The self described market where players invest fictional dollars on shares in blogs has been up and running since 2003 and now attracts more than 50,000 visitors per month. Regardless if you have an account or not, I have a hot tip that will likely pay off ten-fold in the coming months…

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

Substance Over Shadows

Last week’s article examining how orchestras should approach using new online technologies generated a great deal of interest. As it turns out, it was also well-timed as the Minnesota Orchestra (MN Orch) launched a website during the same week designed to feature nearly all of the online tools discussed in the article. The website came to my attention via an invitation at Facebook from Sam Bergman, MO violist, to attend a concert event from a series that is the new website’s namesake Inside The Classics. The website’s home page, (featured to your left, click to enlarge), is dominated by photos of Bergman and MO assistant conductor Sarah Hatsuko Hicks and demonstrates that this is not a typical orchestra website project…

Will You Be My Friend?

If you haven’t had the opportunity to go in and see what Facebook is all about, I recommend you carve some time into your schedule and get up to speed. According to their website, “Facebook is a social utility that helps people communicate more efficiently with their friends, family and coworkers. The company develops technologies that facilitate the sharing of information through the social graph, the digital mapping of people's real-world social connections.”  After giving Facebook a spin for the past week, I have to say that it is a fairly remarkable piece of technology that has some real potential for use by the orchestra field…