Don’t You Love It When A Plan Comes Together?
Wed, Jul 7, 2016
by Drew McManus
One of the most satisfying aspects since launching ArtsHacker has been watching the contributors work organically from each other’s articles and ideas. Unlike the coordinated multi-author series, it isn’t uncommon for one contributor to read a post from a fellow author and think “I’m so glad they wrote about that and since they brought up
Schedule Fusion Release Update
Tue, Jul 7, 2016
by Drew McManus
Last week, I introduced a new resource scheduling app set to be released in Mid-August and I’m very happy to say that everything related to the release is coming along according to plan. That includes finalizing our style guide which means we can officially release the new platform’s name and website: ScheduleFusion.com. We’re on track
An Update On The Efforts To Save Military Music
Mon, Jul 7, 2016
by Drew McManus
It’s time for an update on current efforts to help block proposed a funding amendment in the 2017 Defense Appropriations bill designed to gut military music programs. If you’ve been keeping up with what has been going on, you already know that the next step in the process was to get the amendment removed prior to
Why Yes, That JPG Does Make You Look Fat.
Fri, Jul 7, 2016
by Drew McManus
We’ve examined the importance of page load speed here over the course of a few articles, each containing useful resources for measuring page load speed, but we haven’t taken a closer look at how you can help prevent the most common cause of page load speed: non-optimized image files. I published an article today at ArtsHacker
How Satisfied Are You With Your Ticketing Software?
Wed, Jul 7, 2016
by Drew McManus
While performing some work for Venture clients recently, my development team and I found the need to perform some research and in the process, I reached into my files for a resource that I sadly neglected to mention here when it was released: The 2015 Ticketing Software Satisfaction Survey report from Carnegie Mellon’s Arts Management
Solving Problems, One App At A Time
Tue, Jul 7, 2016
by Drew McManus
One of the really fun parts about working as an arts-focused software developer is coming across opportunities to solve big problems. To that end, we’re wrapping up work on a new web app designed to solve one of the most time consuming and frustrating problems: resource scheduling. One of our existing users, The Society Of
As National Political Conventions Convene, Could The Culture Cold War Turn Hot?
Mon, Jul 7, 2016
by Drew McManus
The Culture Wars from the latter decades of the 20th century managed to produce an ugly scar across the public arts funding landscape and although public debate tempered, the struggle was far from over. But unlike the very public debate that raged across national media during the 1980s and 1990s, recent battle grounds have emerged
Is It Possible To Manage A Large Budget Orchestra Using Mostly Consultants?
Fri, Jul 7, 2016
by Drew McManus
It certainly isn’t unheard of for larger budget orchestras to hire consultants for everything from temporarily filling staff holes to serving as the architect for marketing or development campaigns but relying on third party providers for the majority of admin functionality is decidedly not the norm. Nonetheless, that’s where the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra (BSO) is
When Was The Last Time You Saw A Genuinely Impressive Video Promo?
Thu, Jul 7, 2016
by Drew McManus
Norman Lebrecht posted an item at Slippedisc.com yesterday poking fun at what he calls “the worst-ever orchestra promo video” and I have to agree, it’s entirely uninspiring. But Lebrecht’s post got me thinking about video promos in general and I found it difficult to think of anything that really caught my attention over the past
Let’s Think About Funding Models