Editor-In-Chief

Drew McManus

Arts Consulting

“I hear that every time you show up to work with an orchestra, people get fired.”

Those were the first words out of an executive’s mouth after her board chair introduced us. That executive is now a dear colleague and friend but the day that consulting contract began with her orchestra, she was convinced I was a hatchet-man brought in by the board to clean house. I understand where the trepidation comes from as a great deal of my consulting and technology provider work for arts organizations involves due diligence, separating fact from fiction, interpreting spin, as well as performance review and oversight.

So yes, sometimes that work results in one or two individuals “aggressively embracing career change” but far more often than not, it reinforces and clarifies exactly what works and why. In short, it doesn’t matter if you know where all the bodies are buried if you can’t keep your own clients out of the ground, and I’m fortunate enough to say that for more than 15 years, I’ve done exactly that for groups of all budget size from Qatar to Kathmandu.

Technology

 but don’t let that title fool you into thinking he’s just a tech geek. He brings 20 years of global broad-based arts consulting experience to the table and helps clients break the cycle of choosing one-size-fits-none solutions and instead, deliver an option that allows 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, his mission is to deliver a sophisticated next generation technology designed especially for our business. The first step in that journey began in 2010 when he released The Venture Platform, a purpose-designed managed website development solution designed especially for arts organizations and artists.

His expertise spans across multiple sectors and regularly quoted as an industry expert in media outlets including New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Washington Post and The Chronicle of Philanthropy along with more than 100 additional newspapers, trade journals, and magazine outlets. Broadcast appearances include NPR’s All Things Considered, NPR’s Weekend Edition and MPR’s Morning Edition

As a sought-after speaker and panelist, he has worked with  Nonprofit Technology Enterprise Network, Opera America, Americans for the Arts, National Arts Marketing Project Conference, Southeastern Theatre Conference, National Performing Arts Conference, and Chamber Music America. He’s been a featured lecturer at University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Bolz Center for Arts Administration, Northwestern University School of Music, Eastman School of Music, and Arizona State University. In 2011, he was featured presenter for Chicago’s TEDx Michigan Ave conference.

For fun, he writes a daily blog about the orchestra business, provides a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, leads a team of intrepid arts pros to hack the arts, founded a free arts admin jobs board, and loves a good coffee drink.

Drew McManus Poise

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Don’t Let Sliders and Carousels Derail Your Conversions

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Chorus America Conference 2024 Review: A Tech Vendor’s Perspective

I found Eric Rubio’s review of the 2024 SphinxConnect conference remarkably helpful and it inspired me to do the same … Read more

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How To Deactivate Chrome’s New Annoying Discarded Tab Ring Treatment

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Level Up Your Accessible Text Over Images Design Skills

Regular readers know that web accessibility is a topic we’ve covered frequently, especially when it comes to color contrast. One … Read more

ALERT: Google Domains Shutting Down And Selling To Squarespace

On June 15, 2023 Google unexpectedly announced they sold Google Domains to Squarespace. Not only did this come as a … Read more

The Calendly Replacement You’ve Been Looking For

If you are like me, online meeting schedulers are one of those tools you can’t imagine what life was like … Read more

Finally, A Free QR Code Generator That Doesn’t Require Registration And Exports SVG Format

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

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

JCA Arts Marketing recently released a study measuring subscription sales at arts and culture organizations. While prefaced with a friendly … Read more

Take Some Time To Explore AI Copy Generators

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An Excel Trick To Quickly Increment Dates For Each Row

You’ve probably found yourself in a position at some point or another where you needed to create a bunch or … Read more

How To Share Specific Bookmarks And Bookmark Folders Between Users

Every browser provides a straightforward solution to exporting and importing bookmarks but what if you only want to share some … Read more

We’ve Suspended ArtsHacker’s Twitter Account. Here Are The Reasons.

Considering the decision by Twitter’s new CEO to reduce the company’s product, engineering, legal, and trust and safety departments to … Read more

A Smarter Way To Crumble Browser Cookies

Clearing browser cookies is just one of those things you need to do every now and then but clearing them … Read more

Using The Fitts’s Law To Become A Better Manager

This series is designed to help those working in the arts and culture sector apply user experience (UX) best practices to daily … Read more

Stop Using Carousels And Sliders (The Wrong Way)

Here at ArtsHacker, we’ve been warning arts admins against the practice of using sliders and carousels as a strategy to … Read more

The Cost Of Doing Business Online Is Going Up And It Has Nothing To Do With Inflation

While it may not seem like a big price increase, .com domain registrations and renewals are going to go up … Read more

Find Out Who’s Tuned In To Arts Organizations Today

The folks at Capacity Interactive (CI) recently published the latest installment of their Performing Arts Ticket Buyer Media Usage Study. … Read more

Using The Zeigarnik Effect To Become A Better Manager

This series is designed to help those working in the arts and culture sector apply user experience (UX) best practices to daily content management tasks. Using Jon Yablonski’s collection at LawsOfUX.com that gathers best practices designers consider when building user interfaces, today’s installment will focus on the Zeigarnik Effect: when people remember uncompleted or interrupted tasks better than completed tasks.
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