Arts Intranet

On-line events calendars and community arts portals – like those created and run by numerous arts councils, service organizations and other local partnerships – are widely recognized as today’s “state of the art” collaborative strategies for raising visibility and increasing arts and cultural participation.

Today, I'm delighted to share news (and invite participation) in a Mellon Foundation-funded “planning process” – www.ProjectAudience.org – whose aim is to envision the next generation of technology and practices for such collaborative, community-level audience development work.

written by Ron Evans

At the recent NAMP Conference in Providence, a lot of focus was put onto Twitter, and what use it could be to connect with patrons and have them join in on the conversation. Those of you who use Twitter already know how quickly life flies by tweet by tweet (if you're new to the idea of Twitter, read up on an excellent article on what Twitter is at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter). A few days ago, a female blogger who goes by the name "Broadway Girl NYC" wrote a post called "The BroadwayGirlNYC Dating Service: Let Love Shine on Broadway." Her blog and her original post can be found here and her twitter page is: http://twitter.com/broadwaygirlnyc

On a whim, she designed a contest of sorts -- she challenged her single Twitter followers to write a tweet and add the hashtag "#SingleOnBway" (a hashtag is a way for Twitter people using the same term in their post to find other people who want to talk about the same topic) as a way for single folks to find each other and potentially make a connection via public messages on Twitter. If there was a spark, they were told to send a tweet back to BroadwayGirlNYC, and she would choose two winners to give two free tickets to MCC Theater's "The Pride" for a "blind date."

The response has been amazing.

"I hate marketing."

I hear that a lot.

Of course when people say that they are also saying some version of the following . . .

I hate money or I hate when people come to see my work.

They are basically the same thing.

But the truth is you probably don't hate marketing. You hate what you think marketing is all about.

This week Stanford University released a study on iPhone addiction. The 200 college students surveyed said: “On a scale of one to five, where five is full blown addiction and one is not addicted at all, 10 percent of the respondents ranked themselves as a five, 34 percent a four …”

Now, I am a few years out of college, but I am whole-heartedly addicted to my iPhone. That’s why I was excited to hear about Americans for the Arts’ inclusion in a new free app called CauseWorld (also available for Android). It’s a micro-giving social media app that is easy to use and allows you quickly (and frequently) support your favorite causes. CauseWorld works similar to Foursquare: just open it up when you are near retail stores or local businesses, check-in to receive Karma Points, and then donate those points to one of the featured causes such as bringing art to schools. Karma Points are actually real funds provided by sponsors, Citibank and Kraft foods.

It seems that everyday cell phone apps are opening up new doors for promotion, fundraising, and productivity for those working in the nonprofit arts. So here is my list of the Top 10 iPhone Apps for the Arts.

What word (or words) best NAME the community that we represent?

Consider the breadth of organizations, missions and functions of our sector: theatre companies, music organizations, dance groups, art museums, galleries, zoos, science centers, natural history museums, botanical gardens, arts presenters, libraries, cultural heritage organizations, independent & art film presenters, poetry groups & so much more!

We are obviously bigger than an “Arts Community.”

American Express and cause-related website TakePart.com have chosen to feature Americans for the Arts as one of only 10 Arts & Culture organizations in their new social media Members Project campaign. The participation of Americans for the Arts means added visibility and exposure for our organization and its work in arts advocacy and other critical programs, but also a chance to win a $200,000 award from American Express. TakePart.com is a go-to site for volunteering and donating in a variety of topics and causes and is the social action network of Participant Media, the social change-oriented media company behind An Inconvenient Truth and Food Inc.

The Americans for the Arts page of the Member Project can be found here, with links to registering for TakePart.com and for voting in the campaign which runs through May 24, 2010. If you have a Facebook account, you can easily register from this page through Facebook Connect.