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
In addition to my consulting business, I’m also the CEO of UpStage Technologies but don’t let that title fool you into thinking I’m just a tech geek. I bring 25 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. In 2022, that expanded into UpStage CRM, a fully integrated ticketing CRM designed expressly for arts and culture organizations.
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, founded an arts business incubator, and love a good coffee drink.
Connect With Drew
Article Archive
Get Into The Pronoun Groove With Zoom
As a member of Gen X, I’ll be the first to admit that incorporating pronoun use into my daily routine takes a conscious effort. Having said that, pronoun use is a positive step toward improved inclusion and one contemporary point of contact you might be overlooking is your Zoom display name. Fortunately, Zoom makes it super simple to add your preferred pronouns to your display name. Go to My Account, it should…
Get Up And Running With Google Search Console
While Google Search Console (GSC) has always been a power tool every organization should use, it still manages to be one of those things that gets overlooked. Fortunately, it’s increasingly easy to get an account up and running. Google Site Kit, for WordPress, completely automates what used to be a multi-step process. We’ll review how to set up an account manually in a subsequent article. But even if you have an account…
You Probably Have More Broken Links Than You Realize
Among the numerous pandemic driven content management tasks that are likely on your plate, checking your site for broken links should be high priority item. If you’re like most groups, you probably ripped up, deleted, and otherwise moved all kinds of site content (think of your events alone). As a result, you probably have a higher ratio of bad links than normal. Free Tools One Chrome extension everyone should have on hand…
A Pandemic Driven Update To Business Holiday Cards
In 2018, I published an article that provided an option for creating a creative business card. Based on your feedback, it entirely helpful for many readers so I wanted to share an update that is more suitable for the COVID era. The original idea focused on pulling statistics from your client/organization’s Google Analytics account, such as the number of annual users. All things being equal, it’s a great option but in the…
Why You May Want To Wait Before Upgrading To Google Analytics 4
You may have heard about the big Google Analytics 4 (G4) rollout a few weeks ago. No doubt about it, G4 ushers in a remarkable new world of tools that add AI-driven insights, even better cross device tracking, and deeper data controls. Having said all of that, there are a few strong reasons why you may want to wait before upgrading. G4 won’t connect to most open source publishing platforms, like WordPress,…
Looking For A Decentralized Office Phone Solution?
Now that many organizations are vested in a remote workforce model, one of the logistical questions to consider is how to handle phone extensions. If your organization is a G Suite user, then you have a remarkably easy to implement solution ready to go in the form of Google Voice. Google Voice is a VoIP (voice over Internet protocol) service that started back in 2009 but took nearly a decade to really…
Are You Getting Google Search Console’s Monthly Performance Reports?
We haven’t talking about Google Search Console in a while, but it is still one of the best secret weapons most arts orgs aren’t using but should. Search Console works in tandem with Analytics and provides enhanced tools to measure search traffic and performance, find and fix issues, and maximize your rank in search results. Toward the beginning of 2020, Search Console started sending out monthly performance reports that include a genuinely…
Please Don’t Ignore Me! Rethinking How We Design For Attention
In an age where arts organizations are learning how to re-engage patrons with remote activity, it never hurts to reexamine what we take for granted. To that end, there’s a fantastic article by Victor Yocco at SmashingMagazine.com that provides exactly the sort of perspective our field can benefit from when engaging digital initiatives. Out of the gate, Yocco does a good job at framing the discussion by reviewing two sub-types of attention…
It’s Time For An Admin User Audit
Even in non-pandemic times, scheduling regular admin user audits is a good idea. What we’re talking about is going through all the online platforms your organization maintains and making sure the existing admin user accounts are for active employees. Any others should be removed. When we talk about online platforms, these include, but are not limited to: Website CRM/ticketing platform Email marketing platform Social media accounts Transactional email providers Institutional email accounts…
An Easy Way To Limit URLs Allowed To Embed A Video
One of the more popular questions coming in from my Venture Platform users right now is how to embed a video so it can only playback on a password protected page. The goal is straightforward: performing arts organizations are looking for ways to offer protected video content. Unfortunately, most of the popular video hosting services are designed to give away your content free of charge. Fortunately, Vimeo provides a solution that won’t…
Free Photoshop Template For Converting Images from Portrait Aspect Ratio To Landscape
We’ve all been there: you need images in landscape aspect ratio for digital content but all of your source files are in portrait. Frustrating, right? For the most part, trying to convert a portrait image to landscape involves some serious photo editing skills and you can simply forget it if the image includes too much background detail or the subject bleeds to either edge. Fortunately, there is one option that can make…
Cross Pollinating Ideas About Moving Into The Realm Of Digital Experiences
There’s an excellent article in the 6/23/2020 edition of SmashingMagazine.com by Suzanne Scacca that examines the ways COVID-19 is forcing the restaurant sector to radically rethink the way they approach websites. Restaurants are notorious for having some of the worst websites. To a large degree, it’s the byproduct of having services like Yelp and OpenTable become the source for revenue generating traffic. As a result, a lousy web design with outdated info…
Get The Right Microphone To Fit Your Needs
There’s a great article from Adam Molina on soundguys.com that walks you through all of the considerations for selecting a microphone to use when creating online content. It’s clearly written in response to the uptick in organizations and individuals joining the ranks of online content creators. As a result, it’s an excellent mix of ground floor understanding and technical considerations to help you match a microphone with your usage and budget. Plenty…
If You’re Looking For An Easy To Use App For Scheduling Online Meetings, Check Out Vyte.in
For the longest time, I’ve used Doodle to schedule online meetings. It’s still a great tool but since Covid-19 shutdowns began, I’ve discovered that Vyte.in is just as effective and tends to be much easier to use for online scheduling newbies. While the basic approach is the same between both apps, Vyte provides a much cleaner user interface (UI) and requires fewer steps to set up invites. One of Doodle’s ongoing pain…
Applying A Little Math And Science To Social Distancing Ticket Revenue
There’s a fascinating article (h/t Rainer Glaap) at ActivityStream.com that examines very positive results from efforts to science our way through maximizing revenue during live events if halls reopen with social distancing regulations in effect. It’s a positive step in the direction we examined from 5/6/2020 in that Activity Stream’s work includes maximum effort analysis to begin calculating optimum seating configurations for sales of single and group adjacent seating. They take things to the next level by…
Arts Admin State Of Employment Poll, Update 2
It’s been one month since we started asking readers to complete a short, two question survey designed to measure how the employment status of arts administrators and independent contractors is being impacted by coronavirus related shutdowns. As of today, just over half of respondents indicate they are still working and being paid at my regular full time or part time status, and that’s great news. A quarter of respondents indicated they are…
Check Your Tone
Given that we’re all using written communication more than usual, it’s a good idea to take a step back and consider tone. Unless you’re all-in on injecting emojis into everyday business communication, you should consider spot checking using a tone analyzer. To that end, visit IBM’s tone analyzer demo. Since the onset of COVID-19 shutdowns, I’ve been testing a cross-section of my email messages through the analyzer to make sure I’m not…
Arts Admin State Of Employment Poll, Update 1
On April 12, we asked readers to complete a short, two question poll designed to measure how the employment status of arts administrators and independent contractors is being impacted by coronavirus related shutdowns. Originally, we designed the poll to happen on a rolling weekly basis but it’s looking like a better option is to maintain the same poll from week to week and allow visitors to submit an updated status at least…
Arts Admin State Of Employment Poll April 13 – 19
Last week, I launched a poll at my orchestra management blog asking readers share their employment status in the wake of coronavirus related shutdowns. The responses were so strong, I decided to turn it into a weekly poll to track changes throughout the shutdown. That poll only focuses on the orchestra sector and I am curious to see how shutdowns are impacting broader nonprofit arts and culture workers. To that end, I…
Don’t Forget To Filter Out Your Remote Work IP Addresses From Google Analytics
Thanks to fellow ArtsHacker Ceci Dadisman for putting a bug in my ear about reminding everyone who manages a Google Analytics (GA) account to add all of the remote and work from home IP addresses to your GA filters. Regular readers know how important it is to filter out your own visits from GA’s data (details), but the onset of remote working means you have a bunch of new IP Addresses to…