September 2016 – Adaptistration

Crowdsourcing Labor Disputes

Friday, September 30th, 2016 by Drew McManus

Norman Lebrecht pointed out an interesting development in the ongoing Fort Worth Symphony Orchestra (FWSO) strike in that the musicians recently received a donation from the crowdsource funding platform they’ve been using to raise money. Specifically, GoFundMe.com decided to donate $1,000 to the FWSO musicians’ GoFundMe project, which helped put them over their $25,000 goal. That’s a fascinating human interest story in and of itself but the other intriguing angle is …

We’re Still Our Own Worst Enemy When It Comes To The Online Buying Experience

Thursday, September 29th, 2016 by Drew McManus

While attending the 2016 Arts Midwest conference in Milwaukee last month, I noticed one of the sessions was a pro/con debate on the subject of subscriptions. Instinctively, I let out a big sigh then furrowed my brow for a good five minutes. Despite how much time the field spends debating subscriptions, it never ceases to frustrate me that the real conversation is on how much revenue is being left on the …

The Most Creative People In Arts Administration

Wednesday, September 28th, 2016 by Drew McManus

One of the best parts of working with such a variety of culture publications is working with some genuinely amazing people. To that end, Ceci Dadisman (my fellow contributor at ArtsHacker.com) came up with an absolutely wonderful idea a few months ago to highlight wonderfully creative arts administrators and their projects and I’m extraordinarily pleased to officially announce the official launch of ArtsHacker’s Most Creative People in Arts Administration program! Ceci …

How Much Did That Meeting (Or Rehearsal Error) Really Cost?

Tuesday, September 27th, 2016 by Drew McManus

In 2007, I published an article with this very title so as to highlight a handy online tool designed to calculate the cost of meetings. Unfortunately, that tool faded away over time but something new from Harvard Business Review (HBR) has more than filled that void. HBR’s Meeting Cost Calculator is a wonderfully simple and effective tool to help calculate the labor costs related with meetings. I published an article at …

All About Orchestra Negotiations

Monday, September 26th, 2016 by Drew McManus

Last May, we examined some new capacity at Adaptistration which provides the ability to package several articles on related content into an easy to find resource. Fortunately, metrics made it easy to determine what readers are looking for and for the past year, the most searches focus on how orchestra negotiations work. As a result, it was clear the inaugural series should address this need so I’m pleased to introduce a …