Venture Crosses The Finish Line

There’s nothing quite as gratifying as completing an enormous project and the Venture Project has been precisely that. The programmers have completed every task and we’re in the process of packaging everything up and using the final product to generate the remaining content needed for the sales site. However, that doesn’t mean you have to wait to see what Venture can produce…

For those who have followed Venture’s progress, you already know that one of the fundamental components is the Creative Control Engine (CCE); an extraordinary website publishing architecture and content management system. Although it is one of the most flexible platforms available today, it’s still point and click easy to use. So much so, it won’t matter if organizations use outsourced design firms or have a single employee with basic designing knowledge, either way, they’ll be able to create an attractive website to their predilection.

One the initial users, Chicago Sinfonietta, launched their Venture powered website earlier this week in advance of their new Music Director announcement. With the exception of the background and header images, the entire site was designed by Sinfonietta Administrative & Website Coordinator Ryan Smith (along with regular input from his Sinfonietta colleagues) using nothing but CCE’s settings controls. As for the custom site graphics, they were designed by the same Blueprint Design Studio graphics ninja who created Venture’s visual architecture along with its ten stunning, integrated visual styles (you’ll get to see those soon enough!).

The Sinfonietta site is an excellent example of how much can be done with targeted budget resources and dedicated staff members. Using CCE is almost addictively fun. I can’t count the number of hours spent playing with it and the depth of control produces a sincerely rewarding feeling. From there, the only limitation is your own imagination and budget; but then again, that’s precisely why it’s called the Creative Control Engine (and I haven’t even mentioned the robust event management system).

I simply can’t wait to finish up the sales site so other groups can start to take advantage of everything the Venture Platform has to offer. In the meantime, check out Sinfonietta’s new site and download the latest Venture FAQ file available at the placeholder site. Or if you’re all about immediate gratification, feel free to write or call.

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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