Releasing Your Organizations Inner Blogger

Still in Houston at the NAMP conference. Facilitated two roundtable sessions yesterday on the topic of Releasing Your Organizations Inner Blogger. Excellent turnout at both roundtables which tells me this is a hot topic. The first session were mostly folks thinking about setting up a blog for their arts organization.



The biggest challenge was getting started and then who will keep it going. There was lots of concern about letting people post bad reviews of arts performances. We're so enabling in the arts.



Getting staff, board, artists and volunteers to blog was like climbing a mountain. Came up with some great solutions.



- give people a tape recorder, have them speak their post and then transcribe. Even better post it as an audio podcast. Better yet, get them on video and post it.

- give people a digital camera and have them take photos and post those. How about backstage shots during the performance and posting them in real time. Imagine the buzz you'd build.

- have people complete questionnaires about there arts/involvement and post the responses.

- ask everyone to post a minimum of three words or a maximum of three sentences about how their work/involvement in the organization relates to the current production/exhibition.



The second session had many folks who post personal blogs. They had good advice about how a blog communicates your values and the same could be true for your arts organization's blog. This is done through the various topics, links and which blogs you recommend reading. One woman said that when they post bad reviews about a member theater company they actually get the most comments and sell more tickets because people want to see the show and witness just how bad it is...or is not.

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Back in the Bayou

I am back in Houston for the National Arts Marketing conference www.artsmarketing.org and it feels fantastic to be here. The past couple of days I was getting worried about my visit. Didn't know how it would feel to be back here, especially considering al my stuff is in storahe in some mystery Houston location. I have the opportunity to go visit it but what's the point really? I'm doing fine with my few posessions in Alameda.

Driving out of Houston's Hobby airport in my snazzy rental car a few hours ago the first thing I noticed is that this city smells like BBQ. A lovely welcoming fragerance. My friend Sara is hosting me this week andher cozy little garage apartment is about six blocks from my former Houston home. Driving around is like re-drawing latent map ib my mind - the same experience I had upon returning to San Francisco four months ago.

I had some Tex Mex for dinner at Chuye's which I actually only dined at once in the ten months I lived here in 2005-06.Would you believe I even bought one of the restaurant's t-shirts? It has martinis on the front and says "group therapy". I think I needed a Houston full-on experience to get in the Sothern groove. Let's just hope I don't meet any Palmetto bugs.

This blog was actually launched when I moved to Houston! Am I retracing my steps?