The Latest Data Breach

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You may have received a data breach notice from an arts organization that uses Blackbaud products. Long story short, Blackbaud was the target of a ransomware attack where the criminals managed to make off with some user data. The League of American Orchestras notified individuals in their database who may have had Personally Identifiable Information (PII) compromised. According to that email message, this included information “such as your physical and email addresses, …

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Basic Metrics Reporting Has Never Been Easier

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Your group probably uses Google Analytics, but are you also using Google Search Console? Spoiler: you should. Fortunately, it’s easy to set up and once you do, you’ll benefit from one of the new features they rolled out this year in the form of monthly performance reports. Even if you’re someone who rarely touches analytics, you can get a good bit of useful top-level information from these reports. I published an …

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We Covered All the Topics

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Last Sunday, I had the pleasure of being a guest on Silence of the Tacets, when trombone players have time on their hands, a video podcast hosted by Vancouver Symphony Principal Trombone, Brian Wendel, and Vancouver Symphony Principal Bass Trombone, Ilan Morgenstern. It was a great conversation with a solid stretch of time to cover a wide range of topics. It’s always engaging to chat with professional musicians who are interested …

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What’s Worse: Launching One Nuke Or All Of Them?

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Last Friday, we took a look at the labor dispute unfolding at the Colorado Springs Philharmonic (CSPhil). In a nutshell, the CSPhil board decided that after declaring impasse during their recent master agreement reopener talks, they would cancel the union agreement entirely. The only other orchestra to do this was the Louisville Orchestra in 2011. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there’s a good bit of unusual back-story in this situation which begins with the …

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Colorado Springs Philharmonic Decided To Follow The Path of Louisville, c. 2011

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In 2011, the Louisville Orchestra had the dubious distinction of becoming the first professional US orchestra to attempt to cancel the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) and replace those employees with replacement musicians. It didn’t end well. The orchestra’s executive leadership took a beating in the court of public opinion and the dismissed musicians and their union colleagues across the country managed to hold firm. Along with their supporters, they managed to …

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