January 24, 2007

APAP: Technology Session and Educational Recommendations

During the APAP Conference, I attended a Burning Issues Forum titled:

"Creating Culture: How 21st Century Online Networks, Tools and Technologies Propel Innovation in the Studio, Sustain Performing Arts Venues and Build New Audiences."

This is a topic dear to my heart. I didn't catch the entire program. But I did see presentations by:

- Lane Czaplinski, artistic director of On the Boards, a Seattle, Washington-based performing arts venue, who discussed how he has been using his website, blog and audience reviews to create new approaches to building and engaging audiences, and

- Sean Elwood, director of grantmaking and services for the Creative Capital Foundation, which provides funding for individual artists, talked about his not-for-profit organization's approach to supporting artists that borrows financial models from the world of venture capital, develops long-term relationships with their grantees, and has turned to the Internet as an important marketing and communications tool.

Other speakers that I didn't see included:

- Bill Reichblum, president, KadmusArts

- Ben Roe, director of music, National Public Radio

- Tamara Turner, senior music editor/reviewer, CD Baby

THOUGHTS ABOUT FUTURE TECHNOLOGY EDUCATION AT APAP

After attending this session and related educational programs that addressed technology at APAP, what strikes me is that attendees for the most part do not have a practical framework for thinking about online collaboration and marketing tools, and using these software applications to build and engage larger audiences.

For example, many attendees have never created a blog, uploaded a video to YouTube or designed a MySpace page.

So my recommendation is that for next year's APAP technology track there is one session that is dedicated to live demonstrations of the most popular online software programs and related technologies that are relevant to presenters, performers and other conference delegates.

So one possible scenario is that software and technology in each of the following categories is demonstrated:

- Website and content management applications
- Blogs and syndication
- Social networking
- Media sharing sites (video, pictures, audio)
- Mobile devices with focus on marketing and video distribution
- Event calendar applications with social networking component, and
- Important categories of software and technology that emerge in 2007

By starting with this type of introductory session that gives attendees a clear visual understanding of what these applications and technologies are all about, follow-up sessions that are devoted to Internet strategies, case studies and related panel discussions will make a lot more sense, be more practical and encourage more interaction.

An alternative approach - one that would take a good amount of work - would be to create a series of screen capture videos that delegates could watch before the conference. For instance, we could create a short Flash video that showed how you go about uploading, describing and tagging a video on YouTube. Simply by watching this series of how-to videos, delegates would come to the conference with a solid framework for learning about and discussing different Internet strategies.

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