I found today’s Social Networking session interesting up to a point. But Russell Jones was spot on in his cry of “what about the dollars?” The speakers kept talking about the “new business model.” But Facebook and Twitter have no business model! They have no means of generating income.

Here is an excerpt of what I commented on his post:

Social networking is not “a business model.” Social networking is a tactic or tool in your strategy. Most managers will want to see dollars coming in from social networking in the short term. But that is exactly the wrong approach. Social media is not a short term solution. To think so is short-sighted.

Going into social media with the objective to sell tickets is, in my opinion, wrong as well.

There is a lot of pressure in marketing and public relations departments of orchestras to sell tickets. Fewer subscriptions bought and more single tickets to sell means more and harder selling. It’s not surprising that a lot of managers look at social media as an addition to their marketing and sales efforts.

In these departments, it might almost seem that selling tickets is the organization’s mission statement. I was glad to see another post on the League’s conference blog. Alan Jordan posted the following:

A constituency session comment re-iterated a line shared with me a long time ago from a concert hall manager in Concord, NH who passed away from cancer a few years back: the official moniker for 501(c)3s is not “non-profit,” but “not for profit.” For profit firms are obligated to their shareholders to produce results. We are obligated to the public to produce results, and those results are not necessarily—and most beneficially—financial ones.

In my comment to Mark Pemberton, I continued:

Although nonprofits need to make money to operate, they are not here for profits. Social networking/media can help you in your core mission: bringing art and music to people. It can extend the life of a performance and engage and build communities. And that’s a goal or objective too.

Beth Kanter writes about return on investment on the NTEN blog and hits the nail on its head:

If you approach ROI as a financial analysis only, you’re missing the point. An ROI process focuses on identifying and unpacking the benefits of efficiency and effectiveness and how these support your organization’s mission.

Well, what is your organization’s mission exactly? Let’s look at some of the mission statements from orchestras around the country:

New York
To maintain and foster an interest in the enjoyment of music and musical affairs, and to inculcate in its members in the community of New York city and the nation at large, an interest in symphony music and in order to foster such interest and the appreciation of music, among other things to cause the performance of symphonic and other musical performances in the concert and other halls, over the radio, television, by phonographic recordings, and in any other manner now known or hereafter to be.

Chicago
The central mission of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association is to present classical music through the Chicago Symphony Orchestra to Chicago, national and international audiences.

London
The LSO’s mission is to give the finest performances of music and make them available to the greatest number of people.

These statements speak of bringing art to communities and audiences the world over. While ticket sales and revenue are important for the financial stability of the organization, the statements do not mention financials.

Clearly, the New York Philharmonic’s statement was written decades ago—yet still pertinent—and I particularly like “in any other manner now known or hereafter to be.” Let’s add the Internet to the list.

Alexandra Samuel has an interesting article at the Harvard Business blog on why nonprofits are so good at social media. Although the article should have been more appropriately named why nonprofits are uniquely primed to be good at social media—because not many are so good—she does bring up a couple of excellent points. Alexandra writes that “in the nonprofit sector, relationships have always been the key currency.” How can social media build upon those relationships? She outlines five points, three of which I thought particularly noteworthy:

Engage your audience by speaking to their core concerns: What do your customers care about most, and how can you speak to those concerns?

Offer a mix of tangible and social benefits: What tangible benefits can you offer that will encourage their participation?

Innovate within the bounds of your core mission: What value or services do you offer that could be delivered through a social network or online community?

In the SWOT analysis found in my Orchestras and New Media e-book, I look at some of the market opportunities best suited to company strengths and capabilities: maintain strong relationships with patrons; extend the life of a performance; and open the door to other geographic and demographic markets. (Read the e-book for particular examples.)

Sure, it is okay to think about monetizing these market opportunities to strengthen your financial base, but more importantly, you should start thinking about how they can help your organization’s core mission of providing classical music to audiences in your community and around the world.

That’s your first order of business. Heck, that’s why you’re in business.

Day 1: Databases for Success

Arif Mamdani led this workshop on using databases and picking the right database software or service for your needs. This wasn’t necessarily about communications, but without a strong database, who are you going to communicate to?

The main takeaway for me was the need to have a strong plan on how to use and maintain your database. Think about the data fields strategically. The notes field, for example, can quickly become a dumping ground for too much information.

Arif stressed the importance of looking at your needs and picking the right tools and the importance of maintaining your database, perhaps spending some time daily on cleaning up contacts (press lists, e-newsletter recipients, donors etc.)

Day 1: Social Media Listening and Literacy For Nonprofits

I couldn’t have been more excited about any one particular workshop. Why? Because the incomparable Beth Kanter led the session. Beth took us on “a deep dive in listening techniques.” It wasn’t a social media listening for dummies kind of presentation. I think we are past the point of needing to explain what Facebook or blogging is at conferences.

I won’t go into what was covered. You can find that at Beth’s Blog and at her Social Media Listening Wiki.

But what did I learn? I thought I knew a lot of tools, but now I know even more. And what’s even better, I now have an idea to tie those tools together into an effective and central listening hub.

I’m excited to think through a listening set up for my new job at Chapin Hall at the University of Chicago. Back at the Chicago Symphony, I developed a pretty good sense of where to listen, but now I have to delve into a completely different industry and find out where and how the conversation is taking place. And a good feel for what kind of listening system to set up is crucial.

Day 2: Monica Davey keynote

Monica Davey is the Chicago bureau chief of the New York Times. What was supposed to be an address on what it means to be a newspaper of record in the age of social media, instead turned into a discussion on newspapers and the recession and how it is covered. A question from the audience on how reporters prioritize pitches, got a great response: “Don’t throw everything at us, all the time. Pitch what makes you think “this is the NY Times.”

Day 2: Words on the Web

We all know reading on the Web is nothing like reading print publications. People are scanning copy and do not read word for word online; sometimes they don’t read it in the correct order. Or, as one panelist put it, “the more you write, the less people are going to read.”

Panelists stressed to really asses your subject lines and preview panes, consider moving beyond the newsletter (in various shapes and forms), and declare a war on jargon.

Day 2: Metro News

After all the tech and social media talk, I wanted to make sure I was going to catch some old school journalism as well. And leave it to these veteran journalists to give us one of the better workshops!

There were some great pitching tips and general “how to approach journalists and editors” points. Many seemed so self-evident, but apparently public relations practitioners still need to be told that they have to do their homework before pitching and that you can’t call a reporter to simply ask if he or she received your e-mail.

The Sun-Times’ Don Hayner on what he thought was the biggest change in newsrooms: “Biggest change is speed. We’re going on Mach 5. Don’t meander, have something to say.”

The Tribune’s Mark Jacob said that “The “beat system” has changed. It’s hard to figure out the one or two people to go to.” But do your homework and find the people.

Telemundo’s Tony Martinez told us that the “common denominator is storytelling.” And WBEZ’s Cate Cahan admitted that “we’re not going to cover your event, because there have been many more ways for that information to get out.” You have to find the in-depth, back story.

One audience member asked about the process of journalists finding the organization, as opposed to organizations pitching journalists, and what the role of a Web site was in that process. All panelists agreed that Web sites are “very important.” A bad Web site can cost you a story. A good, and especially transparent, Web site adds credibility.

Day 2: Colonel Tribune

The second keynote of the day started with a fun animation, featuring the Colonel Tribune character, that conveyed many of the key points. Bill Adee, digital editor for the Chicago Tribune, delivered the address, because, of course, the Colonel “couldn’t make it.”

The big question, according to Bill, was “could a paper like the Trib enter into social media and NOT trip over itself?” He was very thankful for understanding superiors that let his team make some mistakes on the way.

The Trib was not engaging before. And that wasn’t necessarily the fault of the web staff, it was the policies that were in place (for example, not linking to YouTube). Now, Bill said, “it’s not about us, it’s about interacting with others.” The focus right now on Chicagotribune.com is local users. And that makes sense; that’s where the money and the potential is.

Day 2: Online Broadcasting

I decided to attend this particular workshop because of my current position, where I deal with Web conferences and the dissemination and distribution of research publications. I though it would be helpful.

One of the things YouTube has done is change the expectations about video quality. There’s still room for high-quality video, but compelling stories are key. Or, as one of the panelists said: “We don’t just want to read your mission. We want to see what your mission is.”

Online broadcasting is also about distribution. Going where the people are.

But manage expectations. Don’t ask for viral videos. “Viral videos are about kittens and boobs,” said Michael  Hoffman. He added that he knew about companies with 1 million views on YouTube that saw almost no increase in traffic or donations.

Day 2: Social Media, The News & Us

For this session, the audience was broken up into four groups to discuss social media and the news environment peer-to-peer. From those four groups, results were presented to the entire audience, after which there was a discussion among four funders from foundations about the news environment as they saw it. Perhaps the main takeaway for me in this session was that we should look at the Internet as infrastructure and look at journalism as content. One panelist pointed to a study by Free Press. I will have a good look at that one.

Conclusion

It was a tremendous learning opportunity. In the last session of the day, a panelist mentioned that “you can do all the virtual media you want, but it still comes down to face to face.” And that certainly rings true for conferences like this. I had some great discussions and met some truly knowledgeable people, but I was happy to share my experiences as well.

This was also the first time I really knew why I bought a laptop. Taking notes is faster, more efficient and easier. But more importantly, I could share my notes with the world. You can see the complete coverage of tweets from the conference at What the Hashtag?! (as well as http://wthashtag.com/mmc2009)

The Community Media Workshop also did a good job of offering online content surrounding the conference. Discussion could commence and continue there, and it still does.

There was another conference in town this week. The League of American Orchestras conference was held in Chicago. Interestingly, there were significantly fewer tweets (http://wthashtag.com/lao) from attendees (I didn’t attend, but Twitter was for me a way to get involved). The League did set up a blog for conference discussions and reporting, but the articles have no comments. Perhaps a sign that orchestras still have a lot of catching up to do in the world of social media.

That was putting 2,000 words worth of notes into a 1,500-word article. As you can imagine, I’ve learned more than what I have reported. Now on to putting what I’ve learned to work.

And a short while ago, I found Christian Henner-Fehr (@kulturmanager), or rather, he found me. Christian has an interesting blog named Kultur Management and he told me about the stART Conference in Duisburg, Germany, which will take place in September of this year and looks like a must-see event for any European arts managers that want to know more about social media.

A little while later, Frank Tentler, who is also involved with the stART conference, contacted me about the Duisburger Philharmoniker project Philharmonie 2.0. Frank told me in an e-mail he normally works with corporate clients, but:

it is possible to create a company-like concept for an orchestra. I was fascinated: normally you have to create a story to tell at first, then to produce content around the story. But here all content was lying in front of me and I only had to pick it up and lead it to the most important communities.

As project manager, he built a team including a musician, a content manager, and a professor in communication design and his students. And, as Frank writes, “with this experience, I had the idea for a conference – the stART.09. One of the co-initiators, Christian Henner-Fehr told me, that he had contacted you, too.”

Don’t you just love the possibilities of social media and social networking? Through my blog and Twitter I was able to connect to these great resources and share thoughts and comments.

I had a brief look at the Philharmonie 2.0 concept as introduced by Christian and Frank. Frank also forwarded an article from a German orchestra trade magazine, which describes the project, its successes and core ideas. What stood out from the article was the following sentence:

Klassische Musik hat kein Problem mit ihrem Inhalt – es geht darum, mit ihr Leute persönlich anzusprechen

Or, in English, “classical music does not have a problem with its content; the point is to speak personally with your patrons.” Indeed, as I wrote in my brief SWOT analysis, content is one of the main strengths of orchestras. Use it to connect. And make it personal. And talking about content, a lot of content by the Duisburger Philharmoniker is licensed under a Creative Commons label. Smart move.

The channels used by the Duisburger Philharmoniker include Twitter (including separate accounts for the general manager and conductor, although there has not been any recent activity), YouTube, Delicious and Flickr. The orchestra is most active on its blog and they seemingly reach out to newcomers as well, inviting bloggers and Internet users to a free concert (reminiscent of San Francisco’s blogger night). Strangely, and unfortunately, although the orchestra is actively blogging, there are not a whole lot of user comments underneath its posts.

I will keep an eye on these developments in Germany and will continue to browse around the Philharmonie 2.0 project. If only to keep up my fast-dwindling German language skills. I’m curious to see if the orchestra will keep it up and what they learn in the process.

Mach’s gut!

Marcia started the #operaplot craze, where tweeting opera fans summarize an entire opera in just 140 characters or less, using the hashtag #operaplot. (Search the tag in Twitter)

In its first incarnation, Marcia purchased a $30 gift certificate to give out as a prize. She barely had 50 followers on Twitter, but the word spread around the tweeting classical music world and soon there were about 80 entries.

The buzz continued after the contest and before long a second contest was set up. This time, it went truly viral and even mainstream. Opera star Danielle De Niese signed up as a guest judge, famous opera houses offered tickets for prizes and mainstream media including The Guardian and The Washington Post covered the initiative. After a week of tweeting opera plots, De Niese had more than 500 entries to judge!

I was curious about this phenomenon and Marcia graciously answered a couple of questions:

The big question is, how did you come up with the idea?

#Operaplot started on a whim.  I was writing program notes and tweeted that I was having trouble with word creep….one of those mundane details Twitter disparagers claim not to be interested in.  @pattyoboe, an oboist blogger from California suggested I should tweet the notes.  That seemed impractical but then I thought, what about opera? The irony of compressing the most extravagant of art forms into the smallest possible unit was appealing plus I’m relatively new to opera, so I thought the results might be an easy way to get a handle on what the operas are actually about.

Did most of the “promotion” of the contest come from Twitter? If so, do you have any idea how fast it spread and in what proportion?

It’s difficult to separate out because all the press outlets played off each other.  The original announcement was on Twitter and my website. The story was picked up by the Washington Post and The Guardian, which helped a lot. When the partners were finalized, I sent releases to papers in cities that had participating houses, which caused more people to check it out on Twitter.  Then people started blogging about it, which led to more traditional press and more Twitter and even Facebook.

Did you do any other promotions for the contest? How did the media learn about it?

If I remember correctly, Anne Midgette of the Washington Post was the first on the story, which was then picked up by Charlotte Higgins at The Guardian. Where other people found the story after that, I can’t really say. Everything is so connected, it’s likely they saw it on several sources before writing about it. Once Danielle De Niese got involved, her publicist sent out info to her list as well.

[If you're interested, a full list of press clipping is here]

Did you have any idea it would take off like this?

I hoped it would but I didn’t really think I had the influence to organize the press or the houses.  After talking to arts admin people at various houses, I think the reason for the contest’s success is that it was the right idea at the right time with someone who was willing to put the time in to organize everything.  I think the press was all over it because the story involved Twitter, which is a hot topic, there were a lot of houses involved and the contest is just plain fun.

For the second round, what was the reaction from opera houses when you approached them for the prizes?

The first house I contacted was a disaster.  I called for an email address and ended up having to give my spiel to three different people only I was completely unprepared for it so I didn’t inspire much confidence. Needless to say, I didn’t get the desired result there. I regrouped, wrote a good email and things improved markedly.  Houses were very receptive and took far less convincing than I expected considering no one had heard of me before.  I think the chance to explore the possibilities of Twitter in a no-risk way was appealing. The Washington National Opera was first on board with their monster prize pack, so that helped with my credibility and by the end, when I was calling to follow up, most people had already heard about the competition and were excited to join in.

What kind of audience do you think you reached with this contest?

The contest naturally excludes people who don’t know much about opera because you need at least some knowledge to summarize and a lot more to make jokes. I didn’t look at everyone’s profile but I’m guessing the age range is 25-50.  If I had to make further generalizations, I’d say they are the type of people that are looking for a new kind of relationship with performing arts institutions….one that is more transparent and honest rather than the traditional cursive script, lush images and WE ARE AWESOME AT EVERYTHING attitude.

Are there any lessons for classical music organizations to be drawn from this contest?

The big one is right idea, right time, right audience.  Difficult to predict but if you take the time to know your audience, or at least the one you’d like to attract, you’ll have a better chance.  Lesson two is that people will get excited about something they’re passionate about — harness that and have fun along with them.

Also, when using social media, particularly Twitter, be real.  Take the time to build relationships and put selling to the back of your mind.  Social media is all about saying, “Thought you might like to know that….” relationships rather than “SUPER WORLDCLASS CONCERT TONIGHT WITH FAMOUS PEOPLE – V PRESTIGIOUS (and also we are awesome by association for booking these people)”

I follow a couple of hundred arts organizations and get messages all the time about sales, promotions, the next superfantastic show etc.  The organizations that stand out are those that don’t try so hard and actually post things that might be off message but still interesting. They comment on what other people are doing, encourage their colleagues and contribute to the community.

I could go on at length here but the overall point is relax and enjoy connecting with people.  Your ROI, as it were (ugh), will come in a thousand small and unexpected ways.

Have you seen traffic to your own Web site increase?

Of course, although it remains to be seen how many will stick around after #operaplot fever dies down.

You’re a freelance music writer. What does this contest mean for your own personal “branding”?

In many ways, the contest is an extension of the brand I’ve created with my website, so it hasn’t changed anything as such.  As a PR exercise however, it means a lot for me because I don’t have the advantage of co-opting the brand of the newspaper or magazine at which I might have a staff job. There are loads of excellent freelancers out there but hopefully next time I pitch a publication, my name will resonate a little bit more than it otherwise would have. I live in a small market inside a small market (Canada) and being “that girl that did that competition” can’t hurt.

And lastly, of course, will it continue? Or do you have any other things in mind?

I always have something in mind!  Whether the ideas are viable or not is another story. I hope #operaplot will continue. At the moment, it’s just a matter of sitting down, looking at everything and finding a way to make it work even better.  People are welcome to leave comments about what they would like to see in future contests at http://theomniscientmussel.com/2009/05/operaplot-feedback-form/

The New York Times reviewed the concert fairly positively. Anthony Tommasini thought it went “quite well, actually.” Anne Midgette over at the Washington Post was somewhat less positive and wrote that the concert sounded “ragged, uneven, of wildly different quality.” But really, did this matter?

Those two questions, I believe, are central to “reviewing” the YouTube Symphony project. Was it a culmination, or alternatively what was the point? And did artistic quality matter?

Before I proceed in any kind of review, let’s bring up another YouTube sensation: Susan Boyle. What made her such a success? Immediately after I saw the video, I posed the question on Twitter whether she would be such a sensation if she were a pretty, 20-year-old. Of course she wouldn’t. Behold the power of the story; the hero’s journey in which the antagonist overcomes trials and tribulations to reach a glorious finale.

Brendan O’Neill quotes the London Times’ Minette Marrin:

Boyle’s rise ‘has all the symbolic power of a fairy story’, with the ‘ugly old lady, despised by all’ standing up to ‘the jeering audience of vain young people’. And the audience’s punishment for initially ’sneering’ at Boyle? ‘To be revealed as they truly are: heartless, thoughtless and superficial; the flotsam and jetsam of the polluted seas of celebrity, likely to sink without trace into toxic foam.’

We’ve seen it before. Even in the same television show, but with a different antagonist: Paul Potts. Anne Midgette writes about him: “like his story, don’t care for his voice.” Artistic quality does not matter when you have the power of story on your side.

Going back to the YouTube Symphony project: the concert could simply not have been good. It takes time to grow a good orchestra. In a comment on Greg Sandow’s blog, I referred back to a sports analogy: “Just like a thrown together all-star sports team would probably lose against a well-oiled local team.”

So the concert wasn’t all that good, even Tommasini wished that “the concert had been less gimmicky and more substantive.” Did it matter? Not in the slightest. The entire event was a powerful story. The story told us of the power of the Internet, bringing together a hundred or so wonderful young artists from around the world to make glorious music. The story basically dictated that the music was glorious. The fact that it was not, did not alter the audience’s belief in the story.

Greg Sandow blamed over-hyping and writes that the marketing message was perhaps a mistake. But really, the message could not have been different from a happy ending. The story required a happy ending and the world perceived it as such. Perception is reality.

What was the point? Just like the end is not the point of a story, the concert was not the point of the project. You don’t read just the last few pages of a book and you don’t fast forward to the end of a movie. You experience the hero’s journey with the antagonist. In that very same manner, you shouldn’t experience just the YouTube Symphony concert. You should follow the project on its journey.

Anne Midgette seems to agree at her Washington Post blog:

The real point of the YouTube Symphony, it seems to me after spending a few hours talking to players and hearing rehearsals, was what happened before the show: the connections, the conversations, and the excitement happening around Lincoln Center and the Juilliard School, which provided rehearsal space.

Anastasia Tsioulcas puts it in a different perspective on her blog and links it back to toddler development (not the musicians, the process!):

For very little kids, creative activities are about the process, not the result: feeling paint squoosh on your fingers, and seeing what happens when you mix green and red and blue and black and purple together, is much more important than the finished product, as much as you enjoy hanging it up on the fridge and admiring it afterwords.

So to speak of a culmination might be the wrong approach. The concert was never the real final product. The real final product was the story and the hundreds of individual stories as told by the participants. And in that aspect, the YouTube Symphony was a huge success. Just look at the news coverage, the retelling of the story, all across the world.

» The e-book can be downloaded for free from my Web site.

Executive Summary

The past 30 years have seen a significant proliferation of arts organizations and activities throughout the country. Cultural participation is up, yet arts coverage in print is down. But it would be an error to attribute this downturn to an attack on the arts. Newspaper circulation numbers have been going down since the mid 1980s; from a daily circulation of over 63.3 million in 1984 to a daily circulation of 50.7 million in 2007. On the other hand, monthly unique visitor numbers for newspaper Web sites rose from 41 million in January 2004 to 75 million in January 2009.

In the past decade, the Internet has moved to more participation (encouraging contributions), openness (no barriers to content and feedback), conversation (listening, not just broadcasting), community (gathering around a common interest), and connectedness (sharing content).

Seeing the decline in traditional arts coverage and the proliferation of culture, brands and media, the inevitable, it seems, is an increase in participation, openness and connectedness with your community, invigorating the conversation about the arts. And new media is here to help.

Survey the environment, determine what you are trying to accomplish and then find the right tools that work for you. The best advice to start? Just explore! Here are some of the places you must know about: blogs, Facebook and MySpace, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube, Digg and Delicious, Yelp, Wikipedia and Last.fm.

Connect with bloggers and content generators: read (know who is writing and what they are writing); participate (become a genuine and active member); build relationships (provide good customer service); and adapt materials (personalize your pitch and remember you are working with a multimedia outlet).

Social networking sites are the embodiment of new media; more than any other service they encourage participation, openness, conversation, community, and connectedness. Keeping that in mind, your approach to social networking should be based on the following three rules: add value; online relationships complement offline relationships; and provide content to be shared and syndicated.

Sharing content, word-of-mouth, is one of the key strengths of social media. Measuring results, however, especially return on investment, can be difficult. Page views and unique site visitor statistics can only tell you so much; they don’t tell you what kind of activity. In its most basic form, your measurement should consist of the following elements: interest: how interested are people in your company; attitude: what attitudes do people hold about your company; action: what actions that matter from a business perspective do people take as a result of your campaign?

The last step is to determine what impact these results have on your organization and the future actions of your organization. From a detailed SWOT analysis, the following recommendations ensued: use your strengths as cornerstones for strategy (content, brand, audience and infrastructure); pursue market opportunities best suited to your strengths (maintaining strong relationships; extending the life of a performance; other geographic and demographic markets; and collaborations and partnerships); and correct weaknesses that impair pursuit of market opportunities or heighten vulnerability to external threats (budget for new media; hire or train staff; review limitations of media contracts and copyrights; and keep track of changes in technology).

Where does classical music stand in this environment? Here below follows a top 10 list of what I believe are the best ideas in classical music online. This list is not meant to be a definitive ranking (and is definitely not in any particular order); it is merely a list of ten ideas I have come across in the past two years or so. If you don’t agree or have any ideas to add, please leave a comment or sent me an e-mail at dutchperspective (at) mcmvanbree.com. Here is the list:

• Liverpool Philharmonic performs in Second Life

While the Liverpool Philharmonic was not the first classical presenter to perform in Second Life, it was the orchestra that put the possibilities on the map. The concert cost $16,000 to produce, including building the virtual hall, which is still available to visit. Seeing the publicity and branding returns on the initial investment, the idea was well worth the price.

• Baltimore Symphony Orchestra gives away memberships to Naxos Music Library with subscriptions to the new season

The BSO enthusiastically proclaims “Imagine leaving a concert and wanting to go right home and hear your favorite parts of the music again and again…Well now you can!” on its Web site. And rightly so. This is a perfect example of a smart collaboration that adds value to the orchestra experience.

• YouTube Symphony

There’s a lot to be said about the YouTube Symphony project, but watch the videos, just as more than a million people have done so far, and judge for yourself. Sure, it hasn’t packed the viral power of some notorious YouTube videos, but it has highlighted classical music in a serious manner and put the spotlight on young musicians and music education. Not to mention the worldwide coverage in mainstream media.

• Concertgebouw offers free downloads

Celebrating its 120th anniversary, the Royal Concertgebouw Orchestra offered 10 free downloads of symphonies by Mahler, Beethoven and Brahms among others. In just a short few weeks, more than 600,000 people downloaded the music. Perhaps in similar fashion, a Mediterranean restaurant gave me some free Baklava recently. Now, every time I return, I make sure to buy some tasty Baklava for dessert.

• Berlin Philharmonic live HD streaming

The Metropolitan Opera boldly brings their operas to theaters all over the country. Berlin brings their concerts to homes all over the world. In a March 2009 Financial Times article, I learned that around 10,000 people registered for the Berlin site. Judging from that number, it might be a while before the initiative will be able to support itself. And I hope that we might see a free concert some time (remember the Baklava).

• Blogs: Alex Ross, Opera Chic and Sequenza21

Blogs come in all shapes and sizes, as is very apparent in the following selection. If I had to give a cross-section of classical music’s best blogs, here are the three I would suggest: 1) Alex Ross’ blog offers insight into the journalistic mind and snippets of what to expect in his book “The Rest is Noise.” As mentioned earlier, Ross’ blog was my main motivator for buying his book. 2) With a trademark sassiness, Opera Chic reports on the latest gossip, breaking and general news of the opera world. Quoted in papers such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Chicago Tribune, this blog is a force to be reckoned with. 3) Sequenza21 shows what a dedicated community can do with a blog. A must-follow for any contemporary classical music fan. Institutional blogs haven’t come as far yet, but there are some good efforts such as Brian Dickie’s blog (Chicago Opera Theater), the Metropolitan Opera blog and the London Symphony Orchestra’s tour blog.

• Keeping Score / Beyond the Score

Although they have distinct differences, I would put the San Francisco Symphony’s Keeping Score programs and the Chicago Symphony’s Beyond the Score programs in the same category of innovation. If it wasn’t for the negative connotations, I would be tempted to use the term “infotainment” to describe the presentations. Check them out and see how you would describe them.

• Blogger Night in San Francisco

A very successful event to reach out to local bloggers by the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra. The best part of the experiment: the bloggers received the same treatment that traditional press receives. The League of American Orchestras (link above) has a short case study. The orchestra has collected all responses and coverage at a del.icio.us account.

• Online availability of weekly radio broadcasts with additional content (New York Philharmonic, Chicago Symphony Orchestra)

Radio broadcasts have been part of the orchestral landscape since the beginnings of radio. The advent of the Internet has opened up exciting new possibilities. Orchestras, like the New York Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony, have capitalized on these possibilities by bringing additional content to its listeners. There are some real prospects of drawing listeners in. New York follows Amazon’s example and suggests “concerts you may enjoy.” Chicago regularly links to its CSO Resound catalog.

• Classical music on Twitter (Toronto Symphony, Aspen Music Festival, London Symphony, Atlanta Symphony)

I don’t know what orchestra was the first orchestra on Twitter. It doesn’t really matter; it’s how they use it that matters. The links above reflect some of the orchestras I believe are doing a good job. Twitter can be an amazing customer service tool (companies such as Comcast and Starbucks monitor any issues and respond accordingly). Think of Twitter as the concert concierge of the 21st century. Here’s a case study on the Chicago Symphony and Twitter.

It made me think about some very telling real-life examples from my time at the CSO:

• I learned about Alex Ross through his blog, not his articles in the New Yorker. I bought his book because of his blog.
• I met Washington Post classical music critic Anne Midgette at a Liverpool Philharmonic Second Life concert.
• My first point of contact with music critic Greg Sandow was on Twitter.

Twitter, especially, changes the rules of engagement. Just today, I posted an open letter at albanyparkneighbors.blogspot.com, directed to the candidates for the 5th congressional district of Illinois. I also e-mailed the candidates via their respective Web sites. But the Democratic candidate, Mike Quigley, also has a Twitter account (operated by his campaign). So I decided to draw attention to the letter via Twitter. Within an hour, I received a (public) response. I’m not sure if that could have been so easily achieved through the normal channels (letter, e-mail, phone call). Here’s the brief question and answer:

Introduction: Word of Mouth

Word of mouth is the key strength of social media. Statistics from cso.org and the CSO’s Twitter and Facebook accounts seem to confirm this statement. Currently, Facebook is the fifth largest third-party referral site to cso.org. Google has topped direct URL entry as the number one entry point to the site and mail.google.com is in the top ten of referrers.

What does this mean? First of all, search engine optimization (SEO) is increasingly important: Google refers nearly 45% of the visitors. Other search engines such as Live, Yahoo and AOL are also in the top ten. Primarily, this means optimizing content to match relevant and specific keywords; knowing what people search for. Equally significant, it means getting Internet users to link to cso.org, or in other words encouraging word of mouth.

The high placement of mail.google.com is perhaps not surprising either. Of course, our marketing efforts reach people’s e-mail inboxes. But another likely, and more important, factor is that people e-mail their friends and, for various reasons, direct them to the CSO page.

While the CSO’s Facebook fan page has more than 8,500 fans, Facebook surely didn’t enter the fifth place in referrals through our fan page alone. People on Facebook post links, notes and update their statuses. Their friends not only click on these links, they share them with their friends. Another clear case of word of mouth.

As the CSO’s Twitter following grows, it would not be surprising to find Twitter enter the top ten referral sites soon. Some examples on how this might work follow below.

Facebook

We launched the page with an incentive: a chance to win a free CD of one of the CSO’s recent recordings. Otherwise, there was no active campaign besides telling my friends to join and those friends telling their friends to join and so on. Within a week, we had over 1,000 fans. After this early explosive growth by word of mouth, the increase in fans flattened somewhat and now there are an average of about 40 fans joining per day. As of early March 2009, we have more than 8,500 fans.

The CSO’s page receives around 100 page views a day, but this visibly spikes if we send out an update through Facebook or post videos or photos. An update can generate 175-200 page views. Nearly half of our fans on the page are younger than 24 and more than 75% of the fans are younger than 34.

Social network services, including Facebook, are the embodiment of Web 2.0; more than any other service they encourage participation, openness, conversation, community, and connectedness on the Internet. Just as telephone, fax and e-mail changed the very way we communicate; social networking has revolutionized our conversations and social interactions.

Up to this point the key value has been simply listening and participating. Here below a fine example:

In the future, we need to formulate more concrete objectives. These may include community activation and participation (does the community respond to a message or a call to action?). We need to be cautious with pushing out messages to sell; community engagement, participation and conversations build longer and more beneficial relationships for the future. Three key components make up a communication strategy/approach to social networking for Facebook:

• Online relationships complement offline relationships
• Add value to a user’s time and life
• Provide content to be shared and syndicated

Twitter

In just a little over a month of active participation, the Chicago Symphony Orchestra has added more than 500 followers of the Twitter feed.

Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent messages.  People write short updates, often called “tweets” of 140 characters or fewer.  These messages are posted to your profile or your blog, sent to your followers, and are searchable on Twitter search.

BusinessWeek wrote in 2008: “The key question today isn’t what’s dumb on Twitter, but instead how a service with bite-size messages topping out at 140 characters can be smart, useful, maybe even necessary.”

How has the CSO used Twitter? Monitoring tweets allows us to learn about breaking stories in the industry and find out what fans, patrons and the media say about the CSO. Here below is a great example that includes a small conversation:

A powerful example of what Twitter can do, can be found here:

Hi Greg -

I was absolutely blown away by Twitter last night and felt compelled to share it with you since you and I have talked about the usefulness of Twitter.

Did you happen to see my Tweet yesterday about Willie Nelson and Asleep at the Wheel doing a free live in-store performance at Waterloo Records in Austin? We had this in-store performance scheduled sans Willie. About 30 minutes before the performance I get a call from the powers that be saying that Willie will indeed be showing up (He wanted to surprise Ray Benson and fans).
So, I post the short tweet (with maybe one or two Austin followers) and then start to pull out my TV and print contacts which took about 5 minutes. I made one call to the Austin Chronicle  and chatted with the music editor for 3 or 4 minutes.

This is important because it’s now T-minus 21 minutes until this performance. I then call the FOX affiliate newsroom.  The news desk says, “Oh, yes, we know. One of our editors just saw it on Facebook.” I kept dialing and kept getting similar answers from photo desks and TV assignment editors.

At 5pm Austin time, there were a sea of people at Waterloo Records, an entire press corps and the only people that were surprised were Asleep at The Wheel and Willie Nelson who didn’t know that people already knew!  I have NEVER in my life seen anything like it.

Behold the power of social networking sites!

As demonstrated in the CSO example, monitoring is the first step. The second step is increasing involvement and engagement, being accessible and creating conversations. Besides patrons, colleagues and fans, CSO followers include journalists, papers, magazines, blogs and bloggers (Greg Sandow, Matt Pais, Phil Rosenthal, Chicago Reader, Time Out Chicago, Chicagoist, Jason Heath and many more). Twitter can serve as a creative way of building relationships with the media, getting the attention and generating story ideas.

When the CSO sends out an update, more than 600 (as of early March 2009) followers will potentially see the update. If a link is provided, a certain percentage will click through. Twitter’s strength is rapid word of mouth (as demonstrated in the example from Greg Sandow above). If your update is interesting to others, they might “retweet” your update. This significantly increases the number of potential views and click-throughs. The same three principles discussed for Facebook, apply to Twitter as well:

• Online relationships complement offline relationships
• Add value to a user’s time and life
• Provide content to be shared and syndicated

Here below are two examples of Twitter’s word of mouth potential:

chicagosymphony: Happy 80th birthday Maestro Haitink! Free downloads of Bizet, Schumann and Beethoven @radio4nl http://tinyurl.com/bzylql

Reach of followers:

1. chicagosymphony: 556

Retweet followers:

1. laceyh: 481
2. aspenmusic: 394
3. wfiuarts: 107
4. SophiaAhmad: 1,142
5. Ugovalentini: 282
6. Londonsymphony: 336
7. twOrchestras: 62
8. Unnuagedecole: 59

Total possible impressions: 3,419

chicagosymphony: free community concert of “Dvorak in America” w/ Civic Orchestra at South Shore Cultural Center on Feb. 22, 6:30pm http://tinyurl.com/aftwgm

Reach of followers:

1. chicagosymphony: 556

Retweet followers:

1. VisitChicago: 3,242 (Twitter account of the Chicago Office of Tourism)

Total possible impressions: 3,798

Conclusion

As demonstrated above, social media channels can provide measurable results: positive effects of word of mouth, including increasing awareness and driving traffic to cso.org; and building relationships with the public, patrons and media.

Perhaps one of the more intriguing aspects of social media is the opportunity to tell a digital story and give others the opportunity to retell your organization’s story. Justin Davidson, in an article for Musical America, wrote about what social media can mean for the arts: “[…] an invigorated conversation about the arts, a built-in audience of readers who have been betrayed by the local paper and the beginnings of a strategy for surviving the implosion of traditional news.”

And Brian Reich and Dan Solomon in their book Media Rules!: “More than just realizing that they have lost some of the control over their audience they once enjoyed, organizations must embrace the relationships they have with their customers and work twice as hard to make sure the information customers are using to form their opinions comes from the organization. Customers want help, they want to be led—and organizations can, and should, fill that need. You must be their steward.”

For more information about the change from print to new media, an overview of tools of the trade and ways to measure results, view the following presentation on Orchestras and New Media.

What if Spinoza Encountered Intelligent Design?
December 15, 2005

“When they survey the frame of the human body, they are amazed; and being ignorant of the causes of so great a work of art, conclude that it has been fashioned, not mechanically, but by divine and supernatural skill.”

More than three centuries ago, rationalist Benedictus de Spinoza, wrote the above in his magnum opus, Ethica Ordine Geometrico Demonstrata and infuriated Jewish and Christian scholars. Today, school boards and politicians across the country would do well to take another good look at his writings.

Spinoza believed that nature equated God, often somewhat misquoted as the maxim Deus sive natura (Ethics, Part IV). He did not believe in a God with a personality. Two and a half centuries later, Albert Einstein agreed and said: “I believe in Spinoza’s God who reveals Himself in the orderly harmony of what exists, not in a God who concerns himself with fates and actions of human beings.

Today, hearing about intelligent design, Spinoza and Einstein would turn around in their graves and find the debate nothing more than a pseudo-debate about a pseudo-science.

However, the popular tendency of giving equal validity and weight to both sides of a debate in news reporting and political discussions is removing debates far from rationality and sensibility. The media, public, and politicians seem to forget that, sometimes, balance is unwarranted and the other side to an argument fictitious.

Richard Dawkins, professor of the public understanding of science at Oxford University, and Jerry Coyne, professor in the department of ecology and evolution at the University of Chicago, explain this further in their article One Side Can Be Wrong in The Guardian of September 1, 2005: “When two opposite points of view are expressed with equal intensity, the truth does not necessarily lie exactly half way between. It is possible for one side simply to be wrong.”

The basic idea of the intelligent design movement is that life is too complex to have evolved naturally, or, according to William Dembski in his book The Design Revolution: “There are natural systems that cannot be adequately explained in terms of undirected natural forces and that exhibit features which in any other circumstance we would attribute to intelligence.”

The intelligent design advocates look only to the insufficiently explained elements of the evolution theory and fill these gaps with speculative beliefs. Or, as Spinoza put it: “We must not omit to notice that the followers of this doctrine, anxious to display their talent in assigning final causes, have imported a new method of argument in proof of their theory–namely, a reduction, not to the impossible, but to ignorance; thus showing that they have no other method of exhibiting their doctrine.”

Dawkins and Coyne write in contemporary language: “There is a hidden “default” assumption that if Theory A has some difficulty in explaining Phenomenon X, we must automatically prefer Theory B without even asking whether Theory B (creationism in this case) is any better at explaining it.”

Intelligent design does not follow scientific method, violates many principles of what defines science, and makes a priori assumptions that are not open to empirical testing, change or corrections. Proponents of intelligent design use arguments from ignorance: the intelligent design proposition must be true on the basis that it has not been proven false, but since the designer cannot be observed, claims about its existence can neither be supported nor undermined by observation.

The existence of God is based on the very same principle, which is why religion is based on the concept of faith. Religious believes often cannot be proven true or false; and faith becomes the means of believing and accepting the existence of God without the need for evidence. This, however, is philosophy, not science, and therefore does constitutionally not belong in a science class.

Creationists and advocates of intelligent design have dubbed the scientists and proponents of evolutionary biology “Darwinists” and frequently use the term “Darwinism” to describe the science. They have, in effect, cast evolution in the light of a doctrine or belief opposing religion, strengthening the idea that there really are two sides of the debate. Spinoza, who experienced similar name-calling in his time, remarked: “Any one who strives to understand natural phenomena as an intelligent being, and not to gaze at them like a fool, is set down and denounced as an impious heretic by those, whom the masses adore as the interpreters of nature and the gods. Such persons know that, with the removal of ignorance, the wonder which forms their only available means for proving and preserving their authority would vanish also.”

It is not a contradiction to believe in God and simultaneously believe in evolution. One can, like Spinoza, believe that God exists in everything; that God is the natural world; that the natural world created itself; and that “All things are conditioned to exist and operate in a particular manner by the necessity of the divine nature.” The laws of nature and physics, including evolution, are part of the natural world, or God, and they are the conditions in which the world exists and operates. The more we know about evolution and nature and remove ignorance, the more we know about God.

Intelligent design campaigners have been successful in planting their questions in class rooms for some time now and “they will pursue their questions from cause to cause, till at last you take refuge in the will of God–in other words, the sanctuary of ignorance,” as Spinoza observed.

Dawkins and Coyne conclude that: “The seductive ‘let’s teach the controversy’ language still conveys the false, and highly pernicious, idea that there really are two sides. It would hand creationism the only victory it realistically aspires to. Without needing to make a single good point in any argument, it would have won the right for a form of supernaturalism to be recognised as an authentic part of science. And that would be the end of science education in America.”