Drew McManus

In addition to my consulting business, I'm also the Principal of Venture Industries Online but don’t let that title fool you into thinking I'm just a tech geek. I bring 20+ years of global broad-based arts consulting experience to the table to help clients break the cycle of choosing one-size-fits-none solutions and instead, deliver options allowing them to get ahead of the tech curve instead of trying to catch up by going slower. With the vision of legacy support strategy and the delights of creative insights, my mission is to deliver a sophisticated next generation technology designed especially for the field of performing arts. The first step in that journey began in 2010 when The Venture Platform was released, a purpose-designed managed website development solution designed especially for arts organizations and artists. For fun, I write a daily blog about the orchestra business, provide a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, lead a team of intrepid arts pros to hack the arts, lead an arts business incubator, and love a good coffee drink.

Microsoft PowerToys: The Hack You Didn’t Know You Wanted

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If you’re a PC user, there’s a fabulous app that’s been around since the days of Windows 95 but you can easily download from the Microsoft Store for Windows 10 and 11. Unfortunately, Microsoft describes the app using some weapon’s grade jargon: “Microsoft PowerToys is a set of utilities for power users to tune and streamline their Windows experience for greater productivity.” On the surface, it sounds like it has a minimum understanding threshold in order to use but that couldn’t be further from the truth. The reality is they are super … Read more

If You Aren’t Selling Flex Subscriptions, You’re Missing Out

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JCA Arts Marketing recently released a study measuring subscription sales at arts and culture organizations. While prefaced with a friendly “don’t panic” notification (Douglas Adams fans will enjoy that reference), they don’t sugarcoat their findings. While the data in this study may not be immediately encouraging, we want to emphasize that we should view subscription decline as an opportunity. There are many advantages to the subscription model, but there are also many disadvantages. Let’s take the data as inspiration to move forward and innovate in this new world. What jumps out at … Read more

Take Some Time To Explore AI Copy Generators

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If you aren’t already aware, AI copy generators are becoming all the rage. While I won’t blame anyone for responding to that with a healthy 🙄, I can also say my recent experience with one of them has been entirely positive. I spent several days using copy.ai and compared to the others I tried, it’s the most intuitive and produced the most useful content. In a nutshell, their software uses machine learning and artificial intelligence to generate compelling copy for a host of applications, such as website copy, social media posts, product … Read more