Drew McManus on the Orchestra business | est. 2003

Things Are Going To Get Worse For The Met Before They Get Better

Tue, Dec 12, 2017
Adaptistration People 192
Initial fallout over The Metropolitan Opera’s (The Met) suspended music director James Levine’s alleged sexual misconduct is positively radioactive. There is no shortage of discussion on the topic, you’ll find thousands of comments across social media threads and online classical music outlets. Passions run deep and a sizable portion of that outrage is directed toward

Might Makes Right: A Predator’s Paradise (Update: Met Suspends Levine)

Mon, Dec 12, 2017
Adaptistration People 127
Over the weekend, the New York Post published an article by Isabel Vincent and Melissa Klein that reports on a Lake Forest, IL police report that accuses conductor and Metropolitan Opera (Met) Music Director James Levine of alleged child molestation. A host of additional outlets followed up with their own accounts in the wake of

The First Step In Preparing For Post Net Neutrality Slowdowns Is Creating Speed And Performance Benchmarks

Fri, Dec 12, 2017
ArtsHacker.com
Here it is: the first of several installments on what you can do to push back again impending slowdowns once #netneutrality is gone.  I published this at ArtsHacker.com yesterday and it provides step by step instructions on how to use three of the most popular page speed test tools: WebPageTest.org, GTmetrix, and Pingdom. With loads of screencaps, it provides everything

#TBT The 2017 End Of Year Giving Campaign May Be The Most Important In Recent Memory

Thu, Nov 11, 2017
Adaptistration People 033
Just in case you haven’t put 2 + 2 together yet to figure out that if either version of the GOPs proposed tax plan becomes law, it will likely produce an adverse impact on annual giving (details). As such, your 2017 end of year online giving campaign may be the final opportunity for donors to

Did You Experience #GivingTuesday Fatigue?

Wed, Nov 11, 2017
Giving Tuesday
Thanks to the generosity of the Gates Foundation matching funds for donations made through Facebook, participation in #GivingTuesday is expected to reach all-time highs. From my own perspective, within the first hour of logging into my Facebook account, I had more than 100 notifications inviting me to fundraiser pages. By 12:00 noon CT, I stopped

It’s Easier To Show You Than Tell You

Tue, Nov 11, 2017
Adaptistration People 044
Yesterday’s post about the impending net neutrality slowdowns garnered a good bit of attention but one common question I received from colleagues is how much of a difference all of the optimization work I suggested is really worth. After several exchanges, it seemed clear this is one of those items where showing is better than

Now That Net Neutrality Is Going Away, Here’s What You Should Be Doing To Prepare

Mon, Nov 11, 2017
Adaptistration People 026
Right before the Thanksgiving holiday, Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman, Ajit Pai, laid out his plan to repeal existing net neutrality rules. Net neutrality is the name given to the set of regulations that require Telecom providers, (like Internet Service Providers Comcast, Verizon, Time Warner, and AT&T) to deliver all web content at the same

You Underestimate The Power Of Dark Meat

Thu, Nov 11, 2017
Happy Thanksgiving From Adaptistration

Implementing Water Management On A Flood Zone Armed With Nothing More Than A Spork

Wed, Nov 11, 2017
Spork This
“Damn it.” This was the thought that crossed my mind at the end of a very long day after realizing I still had to write a blurb for a group post at ArtsHacker about what I’m grateful for as an arts manager. And yes, the group post was my idea in the first place so

In The Game Of Executive Musical Chairs, Philly Can’t Find Someone To Sit Down

Tue, Nov 11, 2017
Adaptistration People 075
At a time when both the LA Philharmonic and the Dallas Symphony Orchestra announced new CEOs within the span of one day, the Philadelphia Orchestra continues to be vexed by finding someone to fill their top executive gig. On the other side of that coin, Philly may have pulled out the chair for one or
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