It's been a while since we redesigned ArtsJournal. AJ is now 14 years old, and this will be the fifth redesign. And a new content platform as well, as the site moves to WordPress. This week we're testing the new design while I chase down bugs (for example, the site is currently loading too slowly). I'll write more about the direction the site is taking once it launches, but for now you can see it … [Read more...]
Are Arts Leaders “Cultural” Leaders?
The two terms sometimes get mixed up. They're not interchangeable. For the most part, the big cultural debates of our time take place without participation of our artists and arts leaders. If artists aren't participating - let alone leading - it's difficult to make the case that they're cultural leaders. Somehow, our public debates about values - and by extension, what our culture looks like - … [Read more...]
What if an Arts Organization was a MOOC?
That's "Massive Open Online Course" and they're everywhere right now. Some of the most prestigious universities are creating courses online and attracting tens of thousands of students. Among them is Curtis, the music school in Philadelphia, which became the first big music conservatory to sign up with Coursera. We live in a time in which we're overwhelmed with information, with choices. People … [Read more...]
How Do You Promote Arts Blogs? (A Competition And A Rationale)
How does somebody who wants to write about the arts get an audience? In the old days you found a small local publication to write for while you learned your craft, and graduated to bigger publications and larger readership. Readership, and often influence, depended on the reach of your venue. Now, theoretically, since anyone can start a blog or write on Facebook and Twitter, an unlimited … [Read more...]
The Party of Can't And Won't (So Let's Change The Conversation)
Mitt Romney said last week he'll kick funding for the arts and public broadcasting to the curb if he gets to be president. "We're not going to kill Big Bird, but Big Bird is going to have advertisements," Romney said, while speaking at Homer's Deli in Clinton, Iowa. Like virtually every other conservative candidate, Romney has had it -- had it! -- with government expenditures like public … [Read more...]
The Excellence Problem
If I built the best-ever VCR, would you rush out to buy it? Of course not. Even though my VCR might be the most excellent VCR, no one cares about VCRs anymore. Being excellent at something no one cares about doesn't get you very far. What was excellent yesterday doesn't necessarily matter today. If I'm all about apples and you bring me oranges, I don't care how good the oranges are. So when … [Read more...]
Are you a Channel or are you a Library?
TV used to be an appointment medium. It's Thursday night at 8 and you're in front of the set watching or else you missed your favorite show. Then VCR's, DVD's and DVR's progressively pecked away at the appointment schedule. Many of us now wait till a show has aired and then watch a saved copy at our leisure. On-demand TV and mobile subscriptions from channels like HBO and services like Hulu … [Read more...]
Do you want to be my cable company or my TV provider?
I pay my cable provider to supply me with TV. Since I don't want to watch on my cable provider's schedule I pay for Tivo. Since my cable provider doesn't have all the movies I want to watch, I buy DVDs. I also have a Netflix subscription. Since I travel a lot I use Hulu. My cable provider isn't cheap. My cable provider thinks the value it delivers is access to its pipe. But I don't care about … [Read more...]
Sharing, The New Default
Build something in the physical world and the minute it's used it starts to decay - scuffs, dents, chips. Drive a car off the new car lot and it immediately loses ten percent of its value. Use something a lot and eventually it wears out. Art is different. A work of art gets more powerful when more people use it. Music that gives voice to people grows in meaning. A play that doesn't get discussed … [Read more...]
The New Literate?
Literacy has traditionally been described as the ability to read for knowledge, write coherently and think critically about printed material. - Wikipedia Literacy at its most basic is the ability to read and write. Someone is judged "literate" by what they've read or written, and notions of literateness (as opposed to "literacy") have changed over time. Time was when definitions of literate … [Read more...]