Archive for April, 2011
It’s OK to not like the Arts
A lot of interesting debate on audience development has come out of the UK recently preceding and following the recent funding cuts to the arts. Interesting pasages in the House of Commons Culture, Media and Sport Committee minutes and report on Funding of the arts and heritage.
The Director of the Theatre Royal, Danny Moar suggests that from his experience of dealing with the Arts Council he thought they had their priorities wrong:
“What I was struck by was the remorseless and obsessive preoccupation with what they would call audience development, which basically means making people who aren’t fundamentally interested in the theatre, come and see your show by any means possible. I think one of the real problems of the funding system in this country is that the system finds it very hard to accept that it’s okay not to like the arts. It’s okay not to like the theatre, it’s okay not to like music. All these things are fine, and it’s a testament to human diversity that some people like the theatre and some people don’t. I think that’s what the funding system has spent so much time doing, chasing after new audiences who, for perfectly legitimate reasons, are just not interested.”
19 April, 2011 at 1:50 pm Tim Roberts ARTS Australia 1 comment
A very shortsighted approach to relationship, let alone trust and permission?
katerpiddah blogged on No Nonprofit Spam which has this message for nonprofits “Your mission is noble, and your intentions are honorable. But if you subscribed us to your organization’s bulk email list without our permission, then you are sending us spam“
The blogger relegated ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union) to their Hall of Shame for selling their details to other nonprofits to badger them for donations.
“RT @deborah909: So, have any of you ever traced back your junk mail to the nonprofit that originally sold your address? http://ow.ly/4zRLB #nononprofitspam“
14 April, 2011 at 1:25 pm Tim Roberts ARTS Australia 2 comments
Forget new young audiences, we may be better off with the current oldies?
The Economist addresses the realities of changing media consumption in Peggy Sue got old.
Maybe the arts should take a cue from the media industry and focus on where it may have the most likely success now and into the future?
“media consumers are ageing even more quickly than the overall population. Rather than trying to reverse this trend by attracting younger people, many companies are attempting to profit from the greying of media.“
“If broadcast television is growing old gracefully (helped by Botox injections), newspapers are racing towards senescence.“
8 April, 2011 at 3:55 pm Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
Foursquare ‘Explore’ Tab offers new venue discovery options
I am not a big fan of the term “Social CRM
” as I think it distracts from the larger strategic focus of CRM by concentrating on one new medium.
Foursquare has allowed consumers a means for “sharing their activities and loyalty with their social network ” and a means for venues to allegedly attract new customers and reward the loyalty of existing customers.
Recent enhancements announced at South by Southwest (SXSW) may be taking Foursquare to a new level as described in Foursquare Upgrade Enhances Marketer Appeal.
It is adding more levels of potential engagement, rather than just a Mayor - “Previously, the most frequent patrons at some locations were named “Mayor” and were rewarded with special treatment by many businesses.”
The article also discusses the possibilities of “a new form of search optimization; B2C merchants will want to be sure their businesses show up at the top of Foursquare search results.“
“As we started to tinker with our recommendations algorithms, we started to see “expertise” starting to emerge from the data – we’re seeing friends that have been to every karaoke place within 10 miles or tried every burger in Los Angeles. … letting you seek guidance from your friends on the categories and places they explore most.“
It will be interesting to see where this development leads.
5 April, 2011 at 10:57 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
Hot off the press – The 2011 Ticketing Software Satisfaction Survey Report
The Technology in the Arts Ticketing Software Satisfaction Survey Report is out for 2011. A survey is oftens very useful.
But this seems to be a measure of overall satisfaction levels by organisation size as opposed to an assessment of satisfaction with specific software options. Surely a brand compariosn is what people are after?
2 April, 2011 at 12:33 am Tim Roberts ARTS Australia Leave a comment
