During a 2013 meeting of the Minnesota Orchestra Laureate Society, the orchestra’s President & CEO, Michael Henson, declared that “blogs are senseless and must be ignored.” This comment was offered up within the context of the orchestra’s media coverage related to the season-long work stoppage. The Arabic quote serving as today’s headline was the first thing to pop into my mind when reading Henson’s quote; likewise, it didn’t sit very well with my Inside The Arts blogging neighbor, Bill Eddins, who thought it would be good to demonstrate the folly involved with such a statement by organizing a cross-blog event.
One thing led to another and within the space of a week, we collected a group of established blog authors alongside guest authors to come up with fourteen contributions focused on and/or inspired by on the Minnesota Orchestra lockout; the result of which is today’s Minnesota Orchestra cross-blog event.
My own contribution is simply this, a call to action:
Share, like, tweet, and otherwise distribute one or more of the cross-blog event URLs throughout your social network.
If you tweet, consider using the hashtag #MOA_CrossBlog (or perhaps #hensons_dunghill, you pick).
If you write a blog or contribute to any sort of online media outlet, I encourage you to post something this week about the Minnesota Orchestra. Again, consider using the # MOA_CrossBlog to help keep everything together.
The Minnesota Orchestra cross-blog event is a collection of more than a dozen bloggers, musicians, patrons, and administrators writing about the orchestra’s devastating work stoppage. You can find all of the contributions in the following list and the authors encourage everyone to participate by sharing, commenting, or publishing something at your own culture blog.
Drew, THANK YOU for this effort. There was a horrible full-page ad in yesterday’s StarTribune from the MOA mgmt which Scott Chamberlain described in his blog as exhibiting “elasticity of the truth”. Heavy-handed corporate PR. If anything has kept the cause alive it has been the amazing social media presence which has covered the globe for the past year. I couldn’t have participated as much if it hadn’t been for Facebook and email.
BTW the Young Musicians of Minnesota were AWESOME yesterday at the MN State Fair. I am so impressed by their action and advocacy. There is hope!
I saw that full page ad yesterday and just screamed at it. That felt so good. I do hate it when they put the big spin on their side of things and it’s spun so much it doesn’t look at all like the truth anymore. The sad thing is that some people will believe that ad.
If Mr. Henson were to notice the color and amount of hair in his audience, he would perhaps understand that blogging and the like is the access to the next generation of patrons and is therefore essential to the future of the orchestra.
Thank you so much for taking part in the effort Cinda; however, we aren’t able to update the link lists for each new participant. Instead, use your social network to tie in as much as you can by using the hashtags. Likewise, be sure to send a trackback to this article and others so the respective author can approve and add it to the list of articles that link here.
Thanks for you efforts. If the management is so concerned, as they state, why has there been so little coverage in the Star Tribune over the past year? It really is an issue that the greater public does not know what is going on. There is a clear conflict of interest with the CEO of the paper also being an MO board member.
I don’t know if I’d classify the ST coverage as little; I do think they’ve maintained a steady stream of attention. To a certain extent, there’s only so much to report when there’s no new details available but it would be surprising if there wasn’t plenty of installments over the next 7-10 days.The conflict of interest issue is always one for concern and if nothing else, it demonstrates the value of additional media outlets as opposed to relying on a single, primary source.
Drew, THANK YOU for this effort. There was a horrible full-page ad in yesterday’s StarTribune from the MOA mgmt which Scott Chamberlain described in his blog as exhibiting “elasticity of the truth”. Heavy-handed corporate PR. If anything has kept the cause alive it has been the amazing social media presence which has covered the globe for the past year. I couldn’t have participated as much if it hadn’t been for Facebook and email.
BTW the Young Musicians of Minnesota were AWESOME yesterday at the MN State Fair. I am so impressed by their action and advocacy. There is hope!
You’re welcome but the idea was all Bill’s, I just did all of the pay-no-attention-to-the-man-behind-the-curtain logistical stuff 🙂
I saw that full page ad yesterday and just screamed at it. That felt so good. I do hate it when they put the big spin on their side of things and it’s spun so much it doesn’t look at all like the truth anymore. The sad thing is that some people will believe that ad.
If Mr. Henson were to notice the color and amount of hair in his audience, he would perhaps understand that blogging and the like is the access to the next generation of patrons and is therefore essential to the future of the orchestra.
Hi, Drew!
Thank you to you and Bill for showing Henson how wrong he is. Please add my two blogs to your list — I wrote about the MN Orchestra at both last week. They are:
Eyes on Life: http://eyesonlife-ginahunter.blogspot.com/2013/08/locked-out-month-eleven.html
Anatomy of Perceval: http://ccyager.wordpress.com/2013/08/31/does-the-minnesota-orchestra-have-a-future/
Thank you so much for taking part in the effort Cinda; however, we aren’t able to update the link lists for each new participant. Instead, use your social network to tie in as much as you can by using the hashtags. Likewise, be sure to send a trackback to this article and others so the respective author can approve and add it to the list of articles that link here.
Thanks for you efforts. If the management is so concerned, as they state, why has there been so little coverage in the Star Tribune over the past year? It really is an issue that the greater public does not know what is going on. There is a clear conflict of interest with the CEO of the paper also being an MO board member.
I don’t know if I’d classify the ST coverage as little; I do think they’ve maintained a steady stream of attention. To a certain extent, there’s only so much to report when there’s no new details available but it would be surprising if there wasn’t plenty of installments over the next 7-10 days.The conflict of interest issue is always one for concern and if nothing else, it demonstrates the value of additional media outlets as opposed to relying on a single, primary source.