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…

Just the Facts

2007-trafficBy the end of 2007, Adaptistration’s archives reached 1,287 posts and 1,165 comments. Average daily traffic, page views, and length of visit all increased throughout 2007. Not only was there a 17.5 percent increase in the number of daily unique visitors but those same readers spent 22.35 percent more time reading through all Adaptistration had to offer, as illustrated in the chart to your left (click to enlarge). In addition to daily visits, those who subscribe to the Weekly Email Summary more than doubled in size.

The Only Thing Worse Than Being Talked About Is Not Being Talked About

Just as the Oscar Wilde quote dictates, the number of traditional print media publications which quote or refer to material appearing at Adaptistration steadily increased throughout 2007. On average, Adaptistration appeared in a traditional print media publication in 2007 slightly more often than it did in 2006 – about 3.3 times per month – which is a 10 percent increase. According to Technorati, Adaptistration’s popularity among other bloggers nearly doubled in 2007 as its authority score increased from 53 to 98 (Technorati defines an Authority score as the number of blogs linking to a website, measured in six month intervals). According to Google, Adaptistration is even more popular as calculated recently by Scott Spiegelberg, author of Musical Perceptions. According to his research, Adaptistration is the 6th highest ranked classical music blog out of 50.

2007 Top 10

Based on incoming traffic the 10 most popular articles or series of articles, for 2007 were:

  1. Annual Orchestra Website Reviews
  2. Top-Tier orchestra musician salaries (here and here)
  3. 2006 Compensation Reports
  4. San Antonio Symphony bargaining stand-off (the first article is here)
  5. 2007 Compensation Reports
  6. “The Fragile Powerhouse”
  7. Institutional Transparency (here and here)
  8. The Adaptistration Cartoon Contest
  9. All About Potential (Part 1
    Part 2)
  10. Take A Friend To Orchestra

Conclusions

Although blogging is indeed a solitary activity it simply doesn’t work without input from the readers. As always, I want to extend a sincere thank you to everyone who enjoys Adaptistration and to those who think enough of it to share it with friends and colleagues.

About Drew McManus

"I hear that every time you show up to work with an orchestra, people get fired." Those were the first words out of an executive's mouth after her board chair introduced us. That executive is now a dear colleague and friend but the day that consulting contract began with her orchestra, she was convinced I was a hatchet-man brought in by the board to clean house.

I understand where the trepidation comes from as a great deal of my consulting and technology provider work for arts organizations involves due diligence, separating fact from fiction, interpreting spin, as well as performance review and oversight. So yes, sometimes that work results in one or two individuals "aggressively embracing career change" but far more often than not, it reinforces and clarifies exactly what works and why.

In short, it doesn't matter if you know where all the bodies are buried if you can't keep your own clients out of the ground, and I'm fortunate enough to say that for more than 15 years, I've done exactly that for groups of all budget size from Qatar to Kathmandu.

For fun, I write a daily blog about the orchestra business, provide a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, keep track of what people in this business get paid, help write a satirical cartoon about orchestra life, hack the arts, and love a good coffee drink.

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1 thought on “State Of The Blog: Adaptistration Turns Four”

  1. I’ve got a question that seems to be appropriate for this blog.

    Who owns a symphony orchestra?

    -The boards of directors seem to think they do.
    -Some managers act as if they do.
    -The cities obviously do not, even though they brag on the local orchestra when touting their civic virtues.
    -The people who contribute money do not, even though they keep the orchestras alive.
    -The audience members to not — they are just a necessary evil as far as management is concerned.
    -The musicians, with some notable exceptions — LSO, VPO, BPO, do not.

    So who does.

    For industrial orgs, people who contribute money get stock, giving them a share of the biz. Contributors to SOs get a free CD and tickets for some rehearsal.

    Should people who contribute to SOs be entitled to some say in the management. Disaster could ensue, but what if it didn’t?

    If a SO folds, who gets the money? Would it be possible to rig it so that somebody benefits financially from it?

    And other such considerations.

    Paul Alter

    Good questions Paul, this has been touched on before but I think it’s high time for an update. I’ll try to have something up for Friday on this. ~ Drew McManus

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