Shift Happens

Lego Printer Uses World’s Cheapest Ink Cartridge

Mon, 07 Jun 2010 10:30:07 -0400

Lego Printer Uses World’s Cheapest Ink Cartridge:

A guy gets tired of expensive ink cartridges, and designs a “lego felt tip 110” printer (connected to an Apple Mac) that can print anything using cheap ink…

DK from MediaSnackers wants to hear from you...

Thu, 13 May 2010 12:52:00 -0400

DK from MediaSnackers wants to hear from you...:

Hey guys -

I’m honoured again to be opening the second day of this fantastic event.

Last year I did a contextualising presentation on social media and an overview of what’s changed in terms of the media landscape etc - this year I would love to hear from you guys in terms of what you would like to hear about (bearing in… mind social media is my bag so no asking about artistic direction in a non-traditional venue / space)… ;-)

The floor is yours…

DK (MediaSnackers)

To tell DK what you’d like him to talk about, follow the lin k above and join in the conversation on Facebook, or send him a tweet @mediasnackers using the hashtag #shifthappens

Theatre: Wake up to the Digital Age

Tue, 20 Apr 2010 12:14:24 -0400

This is a brilliant piece written by Lyn Gardener. Read the original article HERE

Theatre: wake up to the digital age!

Whether we’re talking about Twitter, Facebook or the blogosphere, it’s high time theatres used social media properly – and not just for free advertising.

Theatre: wake up to the digital age!

Whether we’re talking about Twitter, Facebook or the blogosphere, it’s high time theatres used social media properly – and not just for free advertising

Theatre for our time … James Barrett and Charlotte Wakefield take part in the online Twitter play Such Tweet Sorrow. Photograph: Ki Price/EPA

One of the interesting statistics to emerge from research by the Society of London Theatre (Solt) into the effect of internet and social media on theatregoing, recently reported by Arts Professional, is that Facebook, Twitter and blogs are increasingly the means by which ticket sales are driven, rather than reviews or traditional forms of advertising. Sixty-five percent of the people surveyed said it was social media that helped them decide whether to go to the theatre, and which show to choose. And they’re more likely than ever to book online. Yes, all those tweets really do make a difference.

Back in January, at the State of the Arts conference, Marcus Romer of Pilot Theatre pointed out that while radio took 38 years from its inception to reach 50 million users, and TV took 13 years, Facebook achieved the same coverage in just two. The Solt research shows that 41% of UK theatregoers are already Facebook users – a surprisingly high figure given that theatre audiences tend to be older. Facebook has more than 400 million users, which effectively makes it the third-largest country on Earth.

We already see theatre embracing pervasive media to make new works, with initiatives such as Theatre Sandbox (places for which have been enthusiastically taken up at the pre-application workshops) and the RSC’s current Such Tweet Sorrow project. Companies such as Coney and Pilot have long understood how social media can help the theatre experience begin before the show does, and continue after it has finished.

But, on the whole, theatre seems to be waking up rather slowly to the massive shifts going on. Anecdotal evidence, particularly from regional theatres, suggests that the practice of booking tickets weeks in advance is becoming outdated. In spite of this, large portions of marketing budgets are still spent on advertising in traditional outlets – a method that is nowhere near as effective as it once was, and expensive to boot.

At last year’s Shift Happens conference (the next one is in early July), I was struck by how many people – particularly those working in marketing – were asking what digital could do for them rather than what they could do with it. Beyond Live, Nesta’s research on the National Theatre Live experiment, suggests that those who saw a play streamed live in cinemas were more – not less – likely to want to go to the theatre.

The answer is clearly for theatres to embrace social media in all its forms, and use their natural creativity to do it well. That doesn’t simply mean a website on which theatregoers can see what’s playing and buy tickets, or maybe read a blog (which is often a thinly disguised bit of puffery written by some poor actor during rehearsals). Neither does it mean tweeting nice things about your own show. It means creating sites that are as lively, reciprocal and outward-looking as any other forms of social media, that draw people in and make them want to stay and poke about. And it means creating a relationship with audiences: allowing them to understand what you are trying to do, and being transparent enough for them to comment both favourably and unfavourably. In this way, theatres can genuinely share thinking, promote discussion and look beyond the boundaries of the individual organisation.

The recent Andrew Lloyd Webber outburst over bloggers and Facebook groups is a reminder that no producer or theatre company, however powerful, can control what is being said on Twitter or in the blogosphere. The answer is simple: if you can’t beat them, join them.

Adora Svitak: What adults can learn from Kids Child prodigy...

Wed, 14 Apr 2010 08:41:17 -0400

Adora Svitak: What adults can learn from Kids

Child prodigy Adora Svitak says the world needs “childish” thinking: bold ideas, wild creativity and especially optimism. Kids’ big dreams deserve high expectations, she says, starting with grownups’ willingness to learn from children as much as to teach.

Social Media for Audience Development & Community Building

Wed, 07 Apr 2010 11:58:11 -0400

This is an excellent post by Documentally to see more of his stuff, visit ourmaninside.com

(This post can also be found on the GetAmbITion Ning pages. Any geeky jargon you may come across will be explained at the end of the document.)

“The show begins at the moment you first hear about it” @untheatre at Shift Happens June 29^th 2009

“It’s critical that artists are engaged with the digital world, not just for marketing, but to ask difficult, big questions of it” @wethink at Shift Happens June 30^th 2009

Audience Development

Why Social Media?

If you’re using social media properly your audience is your community, social media is about communication, and community building.

Community Building is developing your audience.

The moment you have a community, you have participants, not observers. People. Not Bums on Seats.

In the modern world of millions of people vying for your attention, it’s not your presentation; it’s your connection to your community that’s important. This is where social media comes in. Social media offers invaluable tools in accessing the hearts as well as the minds of your participants. To people bombarded every day with ‘brand’, it’s the human touch of organisations that gets your interest and loyalty. Put more simply, social media tools aren’t about you; they’re about the people you want to speak with.

Need more convincing? Here’s how social media can help you;

Complete the picture: By providing people with access to the personal and day-to-day side of your organisation, think of it as a backstage tour of your organisation.

Break down the barriers: Help to break down the perceived inaccessibility of the arts. Showing the process as well as the finished piece, means that your communities can get/feel involved in the whole artistic process. Social media allows an immediate and personal view into your company and it’s projects.

Collaborate: Social media can help you make connections to people and groups you might never have otherwise encountered, it can garner immediate responses to questions, act as an instant audience-survey, it helps you see into other people’s worlds in the same way they can access yours. It connects you to people all across the country.. all across the world.

It can help get your art ‘out there’: Social media is an active pastime, the people who get the most out of it listen as much as they speak – they participate. The personal nature of social media means that these people are more likely to actively support you and your work.

Types of social media:

So where to begin? A lot of social media can seem out of reach, confusing, or difficult at first glance. I will be offering you a basic toolkit here, of both physical kit, and social media tools, but much more important is to knock a couple of common misconceptions on the head:

There Are No Experts

There’s just us. All of us. Learning as we go. These tools are all so new, and there’s always something else on the horizon, because of this the only way to learn how to use them is to use them yourself, become your own expert, and connect to people who know what’s coming next. Know that everyone makes mistakes, just as everyone sometimes stumbles over their words. If you are not making mistakes you are not pushing hard enough.

This is Not a New Way of Communicating

This is just communication, through a different medium. It’s just talking. As you’d talk, laugh, and converse in real life, you do so online. Don’t try and view it as a different language, engage with it using your own. Be yourself.

There are three main types of content that you’re going to be producing in the online world:

Front Facing
Real-time
Audio/video/images

Of course all of them will cross pollinate.

Front facing: Your website and your blog. Posterous, Wordpress, Blogger.

Your front-facing media is the main landing page when someone searches for you – this is where you will collate the best of your social media activities, and where you will publish the more traditional marketing, event and company information. It is essential that you keep this space active, and interactive, that’s where a blog comes in.

Wordpress and Blogger are popular and easy to edit blog hosts, allowing you to add widgets, post updates, allow people to subscribe to your RSS Feed and more.

Posterous is a super-simple blogging platform which allows you to post almost anything via email, meaning that they deal with all the media and other content that you want to attach.

Real-timeTwitter, Facebook statuses, Twitvid, Twitpic, 12 seconds

Currently, almost all mainstream social media is geared to link up with twitter – the simple, short and easy way of sharing your real-time exploits online.

Twitter is your main tool with regards to immediacy, and behind the scenes access to your community. For an in depth guide to why you should be using twitter, along with a guide to the jargon, programs and different tones you can cultivate, have a look at Hannah Nicklin’s guide to Twitter for Arts Organisations, on the Get AmbITion website.

What can be a little more challenging as an organisation new to Twitter is cultivating your presence and community, before you have people to talk to you will be tweeting into what feels like the dark, and you need to make sure you don’t fall into the bad habit of only pushing front facing style communication. Keep talking to people, asking questions, and sharing other people’s information as much as possible.

Facebook statuses can be used in a similar way to twitter, although try not to replicate information, you want people to feel as though they’re discovering more about you as they explore your digital footprint, not digging up all of the same information.

TwitPic and Twitvid are very simple ways of uploading images and video and sharing them via twitter – you can access them online, or via mobile devices and twitter clients. Bringing a visual face to your real-time action is really important in how accessible you appear. It doesn’t always have to be about the art however, you can take pictures of the mountains of envelopes you have to seal, or a wonderful prop or piece of scenery that has showed up. Again, it’s all about the taste of your content, and the behind the scenes feel, to which these two tools can contribute (NB there are other platforms, but these are the most widely used)

12 Seconds will also auto-tweet, and in ways is a video version of Twitter, allowing you to send 12 second videos out to the world. This is great for snap shots into a working day or general process. You can post by email, online, or mobile applications.

Audio/video/images Flickr, Youtube, Audioboo.

Flickr and Youtube allow you to share images and videos; it lets you ‘tag’ media, meaning that it will be easily found in google searches, and offers the ability to embed elsewhere online.

Audioboo is an instant podcasting solution currently available to iPhones, iPod Touches and android devices. It will soon be browser based too. Posting to Audioboo you are able to add a location tag, picture, and immediately host a piece of audio. The audio will be auto-tweeted, and can be downloaded/subscribed to via iTunes from the Audioboo site. Audioboo is a brilliant way to keep people updates when you are short on time, and a less intrusive tool for interviewing people.

Other:

Eventbriteallows you to create ‘events’ and share them online – you can charge for tickets (thought you don’t have to), provide links, information and maps, as well as enabling people to instantly download the information to their chosen calendar (outlook or ical usually) This is a great way of disseminating event information far and wide. Also check out the more succinct Tweetvite which works in much the same way for smaller non-ticketed events.

BASIC KIT RECOMMENDATIONS:

There is much more on the market which will help you interact with your online community, but these are the basic physical tools which will enable you to do all of the above.

An iPod Touch, (plus mic) –roughly £140 this will open the door to true real-time interaction, allowing you access to Twitter clients, audioboo, mobile browsing, email-blog posting and more

A Canon Ixus 120 IS - roughly £180 this will do great HD video, and high quality images. The camera is compact, robust and easy to use.

A MiFi free on some contracts a personal wireless hotspot, utilising 3G networks, this allows you to turn the iPod Touch into an almost replicate of the iPhone, meaning you will be able to tweet, Audioboo, browse and email blog entries almost anywhere.

Case Study

This is a case study for a small company, with actions for an Artistic Director, and a General Manager/Administrator. The more people who are feeding content into your streams the better (though if more than 2 people tweet from an account, consider personal ones that are re-tweeted by a main one, or signing tweets with your initials)

SOCIAL MEDIA TOOLS – how and when to use

Most of these tools link to and auto-update a twitter account, if they don’t, always, always tweet about it. That is the feed that people are most likely to stumble upon and should be the backbone for your media.

Everyday use

Tools: Twitter, Wordpress, Twitpic, Flickr, Facebook, 12seconds, Audioboo

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

TWITTER:3 x 15 mins interaction, a few tweets a week – general observations an RTs to start, replying to any @ replies, listening and building up.

WORDPRESS:one blog entry a month, a short Artistic Director update

12 SECONDS – Download the app to your iPhone for free – record any video and it will take the first 12 seconds and tweet it to your chosen twitter account. Quick snapshots of scenery, theatres, comment, sets, offices, weather, anything.

AUDIOBOO – try audioboo reviews of shows you see. Very simple program.

GENERAL MANAGER

TWITTER:cultivate personal account, and tweet at least once a day from the 7 categories, try one before lunch break, and then reply to any responses when you’re back, simple and allows for conversation.

WORDPRESS: two blog entries a month – and/or co-ordinating at least two guest blogs

FACEBOOK: when you put out an opportunities, also put the link on the Facebook page, and link people to it via twitter.

FLICKR: use for high quality, front-facing images.

When an event is upcoming

Tools: Posterous, Eventbrite, Facebook, Wordpress, Twitter, Youtube

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR

WORDPRESS: More formal blog RE the artistic outlook of the event.

GENERAL MANAGER

POSTEROUS – Use for more immediate things in lead up, collections of photos, video, audio trails, push it to the Wordpress.

WORDPRESS: Get artists involved to guest blog about the process

YOUTUBE: Cut together a really simple video, just audio and photo stills if necc, post to Facebook, Posterous, Blog, Youtube. People are much more likely to watch something than read about it.

EVENTBRITE – Create an online event that you can link across all social media, tweet it.

TWITTER: Decide on a hashtag, the shorter the better. Offer discounts over Twitter. Link to every bit of buzz – this is your aggregator

FACEBOOK – Make an event, offer discounts, add videos and pictures.

When an event is happening

Tools: Twitpic, Twitvid, Audioboo, Twitter, Posterous, Flickr, 12Seconds, Wordpress

ARTISTIC DIRECTOR:

AUDIOBOO: Interview vox pops with participants and performers, record your own reactions, or take short clips of dialogue/monologue or sound/music.

TWITPIC/VID: Tweet pictures and videos of the event.

12SECONDS: 12 second snippets of the action, one word summing up of the event from people

GENERAL MANAGER:

POSTEROUS: Take all quick content and email it in as it comes- this is your substitute for twitpic/twitvid

FLICKR: Take as many photos as possible, the more you take the better the chance of some good ones. Be ruthless in the edit. Post the best.

TWITVID/YOUTUBE: Use a digital camera to take slightly longer interviews and post in the evening/day after. Keep it simple to avoid the need to edit.

WORDPRESS: Summing up blog with a choice picture and video/audio

TWITTER: Tweet everything!

And finally, a few last tips regarding social media:

Be polite – say hello to new participants, or people you’re interested in, thank people for links and recommendations.
Listen – Social media is all about being sociable. Listen to people, interact with them.
Inform – link to useful and interesting information, be it software, articles or news items you come across.
Credit, link and promote others - Never appropriate, always acknowledge people, it will make them more likely to disseminate your content too. Share the link-love.
Don’t spam – By all means promote your art, but don’t spam – make it genuine, exciting and relevant and try not to repeat yourself.
Be funny – Don’t try too hard but sometimes the best way to catch someone’s fleeting interest is to make them smile.
Be human – Not always obvious but very important, being a “real” person, rather than a representative is important. Balance it. People talk to people..
Have fun! It really is a wonderful world to be a part of, get involved.

Glossary:

Blog – originally known as a Web Log– it’s an online and public space for writing, thoughts and reflection, normally allowing comments from others.

Post / update – an entry on a blog, social media platform or website.

Micro-Blog/ging – micro-blogging describes the phenomenon of sites such as Twitter – blogging done on a micro, mobile scale. Originally based on the 160 characters allotted to a text message.

Twitter – a quick and easy way of sending ‘status updates’ – small pieces of text up to 140 characters long – about what you are thinking, doing, or a link to news and information.

Tweet – a single status update on twitter

HashTags (# + keyword ie #getambition) – are a community-driven method for adding metadata to tweets. When used, every hashtag (the hash symbol attached to the front of a keyword) becomes a click-able link enabling the user to create a real-time search of that keyword effectively creating groupings without changing the basic twitter service.

Re-Tweet/ed (RT) – when someone re-posts one of your tweets (linking to you in doing so) because they have appreciated what you’ve said enough to want to show their followers in their network.

Auto-Tweet – when an application or program automatically sends a tweet to your twitter account when you update said application or program. For example whenever you post to Posterous, you can set it to send a tweet with the title, and a link to the blog post.

RSS Feed – allow people to subscribe to the content posted on a social media platform or blog. (Really Simple Syndication (See Wikipedia))

Feed / Stream – colloquially (online) these both refer to a series of entries in an online space – i.e. a person’s twitter stream consists of their status updates, and a Flickr stream would consist of a person’s uploaded pictures.

Widget – a small add on to a web page or blog, most social media platforms provide you with widgets, showing your most recent updates.

Embed – to take a piece of media hosted elsewhere (youtube, flickr etc) and to share it on another web page or blog. Quite often a ‘share’ button will offer you embed code – this should be cut & pasted into the html edit section of a blog or website, or can be emailed directly in to Posterous.

Tag – Basic labels for your content (usually comma-separated)– you might shoot a video for youtube of a performance.. Tag it - ‘theatre, performance, YOUR THEATRE COMPANY, YOUR SHOW TITLE’

Podcast/ing – Subscribe-able audio broadcasts online.

I Want You To Want Me / by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar (via...

Fri, 02 Apr 2010 16:19:08 -0400

I Want You To Want Me / by Jonathan Harris and Sep Kamvar (via jjhnumber27)

Have you ever used online dating?

Jonathan Harris is speaking at Shift Happens in July

www.shift-happens.co.uk

Human Vs Computer interface? we found this via @annalisamorgan-...

Wed, 31 Mar 2010 07:37:07 -0400

Human Vs Computer interface? we found this via @annalisamorgan- thankyou!

www.shift-happens.co.uk

Watch Jonathan Harris speak at TED in 2007- We’re so...

Tue, 30 Mar 2010 10:11:55 -0400

Watch Jonathan Harris speak at TED in 2007- We’re so excited to have him with us at Shift in July (www.shift-happens.co.uk - for more info and to book a place)

So twitter doesn't work, eh?

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 11:33:58 -0400

Justin Bieber: an old person’s guide | Lost in Showbiz | Life and style | The Guardian

Justin Bieber on stage in New York earlier this month. Photograph: Bryan Bedder/Getty Images for Nickelodeon

You know how every time you say, “I don’t believe in fairies”, a fairy dies? Well, every time you say “Who is Justin Bieber?”, Justin Bieber only grows stronger.

I could begin by firing out some essential facts about this riot-causing teen singing sensation – this darling of the tween tweetoisie – who has just announced his first world tour. I could tell you how he is Usher’s protege, how his favourite colours are blue and purple, how his favourite sandwich is turkey, how he’s scared of spiders, and how he stands at 5ft 3½in at the time of going to press.

But let’s start with an experiment. Visit the front page of Twitter, right now, and I predict with absolute confidence that Justin Bieber will be trending. That’s a helluva presumption, you might say. How can she possibly predict what’s going to be trending at the precise moment I’m bored and desperate enough to read this so-called article? The trick, my ducks, is that I do it with mirrors. The fact of the matter is that Justin Bieber is always trending. He’s the canary in the coalmine of spring/summer 2010 social networking, and if you suddenly don’t see his name up there, I wish you best of luck with your Rapture arrangements.

My non-scientific research tells me that one half of Justin’s Twitter traffic is caused by excitable tween girls cyber-fainting, while the other half is caused by people asking, “Who is Justin Bieber?”. Like I say, ignorance only makes him stronger.

Nevertheless, it’s reasonable for you to wonder who this mop-topped popstrel is, why he is being beamed into your world with increasing frequency, and whether you can just ignore him like you do the Jonas Brothers and the second-tier Disney girls. Is he going to be the next Justin Timberlake, or a blast-from-the-past pick for the 2015 edition of Dancing With the Stars?

Put briefly, Justin’s story is this: he is Canadian, comes from good Christian stock, and he’s the first genuine YouTube sensation to cross over into mainstream pop stardom. (Unless you think Susan Boyle is a popstar, in which case, how old are you?) It all started with his mother posting his musical performances on the site, then they went viral. Next Usher beat out Justin Timberlake in the race to sign him, and now the 16-year-old Biebster has a platinum album, while a world tour is on the horizon. As is puberty, one assumes, though Justin’s ear-melting reliance on Autotune currently renders any early signs undetectable.

Now, there may yet be those among you still fighting surrender to Bieber’s dominance, which is expected to go full spectrum by June. If you fit that profile, chances are you’re a recovering stalker, who’s maybe got Hanson’s milk teeth in your box of special treasures, and who’s thinking, “I swore I’d never let myself get hurt like that again.” Also, you pay taxes, can drink legally, and no longer have to ask the permission of the bill payer if you wish to indulge in reality TV suffrage.

In which case, let me sell you on the legal history angle. This week, Justin’s manager, Scott Braun, surrendered to police for failing to warn the star’s fans about overcrowding at a shopping mall CD signing he staged in Willston Park, New York, last November, in which five people were hospitalised. State police say the minute it became clear the gig was overcrowding, they asked Braun to tweet fans telling them the gig was cancelled. But he refused, even changing Justin’s account password so “he could control the event”, and the abort mission instructions only appeared on the site two hours later. “By refusing to send out the cancellation Tweet and preventing others from doing so, he blatantly ignored police directives,” rages the DA – and Scott now faces up to a year in jail if convicted.

Do you see, oldies? Human civilisation has just notched up the first case of a man being arrested for failure to tweet. This is Justin’s world now – you’re just living in it.

A fabulous article from the Guardian’s Marina Hyde Posted on Friday 26 March 2010

The Future of Publishing - created by DK (UK) (via...

Fri, 26 Mar 2010 09:54:46 -0400

The Future of Publishing - created by DK (UK) (via PenguinGroupUSA)

Shift Happens Update: Speakers, Tickets and Bursaries

Wed, 24 Mar 2010 12:26:13 -0400

Good afternoon Tumblrs,

I just thought I should take a few moments to give you a short Shifty Update.

We’ve all been busy in the Pilot Theatre office working away to make sure our third annual Shift Happens Conference (on the 5th and 6th July 2010) is the best yet. We are particularly proud of our speaker list, which now boasts a range of fabulous names from the world of Arts, Learning and Digital Technology including Sir Ken Robinson, who is a world renowned expert in Creativity and the Arts (have a look at his site www.sirkenrobinson.com); David Sabel, Head of Digital at the National Theatre (www.nationaltheatre.org.uk); and Jonathan Harris (www.number27.org) who creates works which re-imagine how we use the internet, and will be flying over from the States especially to speak at Shift Happens- presenting a rare opportunity for the UK to hear from Jonathan and learn more about his work.

We’ve got lots of other speakers as well, and if you want to learn more about them, then have a look at our virtual programme on http://tinyurl.com/SH-onlinebrochure.

If you haven’t yet booked your tickets, then please visit http://www.shift-happens.co.uk. Places are filling up fast- and we would hate for you to miss out on everything this year. We are also offering three bursary places to Students/ Under 25s; you can find out more information about these by visiting http://tinyurl.com/SH-bursary.

If you have any questions about the conference, then please contact me in the Pilot Theatre office on the details below.

Katherine Jewkes
Projects and Development Coordinator
Katherine@pilot-theatre.com

http://twitter.com/shift_happens
www.shift-happens.co.uk

http://twitter.com/pilot_theatre
www.pilot-theatre.com

How Community Arts Organizations Are Using Social Media

Mon, 01 Mar 2010 07:15:00 -0500

How Community Arts Organizations Are Using Social Media

Emily Goligoski works with Federated Media’s strategic programs group and hosts a video interview series with female entrepreneurs for the Bay Area organization Women 2.0. She blogs about arts and culture in San Francisco, and you can follow her on Twitter.

As more diverse organizations dive into web marketing, for-profit organizations can learn well from their indie counterparts about experimentation and innovation online. A few notable community and arts groups have been inventive in their use of social media and truly collaborative in their outreach in ways that even the most seasoned corporate marketer can appreciate.

Among the arts and community organizations using social media thoughtfully and in big ways (which aren’t necessarily representative of their limited budgets) are independent artists and companies in photography, film, modern art, radio and craft. They’ve capitalized on the audiovisual nature of the Web to showcase the storytelling and community-building aspects of their work, and the results are worth a pass-along.

Photography

In part because of the costs associated with publishing glossy books and magazines, photography communities seem to have taken to online content sharing and promotion in greater volume than many performing arts and regionally-focused organizations. Not being limited by physical page size and printing timelines allows the creators of documentary photo sites to highlight contributor work in more timely and artistic ways, as both Vewd and Blueeyes Magazine demonstrate.

Compared to print collateral, gallery owners and crowdsourced photography publishers say they find that creating a cohesive public presence is simple when the images they present are complimentary across Flickr, their homepages, and the thumbnail versions of logos they use to identify themselves across communities. For users, being able to spend as much time as they like poring over work on sites like the still photography and multimedia showcase MediaStorm is a better professional and amateur photography viewing experience than having museum crowds push them along.

When it comes to fresh content being shared in myriad ways, contemporary online photo publisher Flak Photo has made a model of itself. Sure, it has a six day a week photo newsletter down pat, in addition to Twitter (@flakphoto) and Facebook integration, but the distinguishing factor of Andy Adams’ site is the number of opportunities it offers photographers to promote their work. Photography book reviews, sponsorships and ads, features that are co-promotional for the site and the photographers, and email submissions create a truly community-oriented site for curators, editors and photo fans.

Adams, who schedules, promotes, and publishes Flak Photo from his Wisconsin apartment, said the major benefit of forums and Facebook has been the international dialogue they inspire about the work he features. But they also make creating and distributing photography-related content more cost effective than ever before. “In trying to create something that is entirely in the form of the web, not tied to an event or a physical space, I’ve found that success has been influenced by larger monitor resolutions and high speed Internet connections as much an anything else,” Adams said.

Another photography-driven initiative, the non-profit Slideluck Potshow, has cast a similarly wide social net in their Ning network and offline event-based endeavors. In setting up community photography nights to encourage visual appreciation and arts education, they use blog content from organizers around the world, extensive photosharing, and myriad posts on local events sites to get the word out. The result is a global programming series that’s become the most well known group gathering since the Hungry for Obama dinners.

Film

One of the independent film initiatives that’s helped put crowdsourced content on the map, IndieGoGo has used myriad approaches to introduce their resources, including event-based word of mouth and a filmmaker-oriented Facebook app. In convincing producers and project coordinators to use the site as a catalyst for fundraising, the bi-coastal team of three founders created graphical navigation elements and an easily searchable film project index. The result is a set of customized tools that can be passed along across social networks to free directors and production teams up for filmmaking.

As for fine film lovers, those who expect their online hubs to be as carefully constructed as their favorite Kubrick do well by joining The Auteurs. The Palo Alto-based initiative encourages filmmakers and fans to wax poetic about their favorite techniques and themes, and the rotating web-based film festivals in the Cinematheque section serve as a great introduction to experimental work. The pay-per-view model has a broader selection base than many sites (including the internationally recognized Criterion Collection), but the portions that are most threatening from a time-suck perspective are the forums and critiques.

Beyond the startup set, The Museum of Modern Art’s film series’ diverse selections are accessible through trailers and interactive programming notes from curators on the MoMAMultimedia site. The Flash projects demonstrating printmaking and other artistic mediums are great, but the well-catalogued shorts and special exhibition videos are the most exemplary: their presentation in a clear, easy-to-use format has take-home value for e-retailers in particular.

Modern art

When Gray Area Foundation for the Arts opens its new gallery space for contemporary work in San Francisco’s Tenderloin (where it will be the first permanent space for art in the otherwise less-than-desirable neighborhood), it will already have gained awareness from hundreds of art lovers worldwide through its pre-launch messaging via Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, and partnerships with participating artists.

As part of what GAFFTA executive director Josette Melchor calls these “standard issue tactics” and virtual “cost of entry” for organizations looking to expand their visibility and networks, she will be using Vimeo and iTunes to syndicate video content that highlights exhibitions and participating artists. “As a new media arts organization, we’re excited about building collaborative and data-driven artworks that are directly informed and shaped by human data and activity,” she said. “By incorporating social media into our actual art projects, we will not only be telling a compelling real-time story, but we’re also working to make these projects pre-disposed to spread using the same platforms.”

Other upstart spaces can learn well from Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center, where the exhibits aren’t the only well-curated and organized offering available to the public. Visitors’ initial options upon visiting WalkerArt.org include “Connect,” “Join,” and “Blogs” (with content on design, education, new media initiatives, and visual and performing arts). They also publish art history and analysis podcasts on the museum’s iTunes U channel, and curators’ comments are available through the mobile system Art on Call.

While old and large organizations can be accused of not being the most innovative (you may be able to name a few), the Brooklyn Museum’s use of community-oriented tools is a great example for similarly large companies looking to provide a variety of multimedia options. Beyond engaging with photo and video content, users are encouraged to join the Brooklyn Museum Posse and explore the museum’s online collections. Comments read like college art theory class discussions, and aggregated blog posts about visits to the museum compliment podcasts and network options for friending and following the institution. The $20 annual “socially networked museum membership” 1stfans offers exclusive event invitations and access to artist-created content on the protected Twitter art feed (@1stfans). And the “Tag! You’re It!” introduction to applying keywords to images is a fun and useful introduction for first-time uploaders.

Radio

The culture show The Sound of Young America has gained traction and donations by finding low cost ways to promote “a radio show about things that are awesome” and secured a national syndication deal with Public Radio International in the process. What began with an interview show that Jesse Thorn produced in his college dorm room has grown into a set of MaximumFun.org forums, podcasts recorded at comedy festivals around the country, and a lighthearted blog. The burgeoning content network still maintains Thorn’s personality and authenticity (as evidenced by Tweets (@youngamerican) that were among the most introspective upon Michael Jackson’s death) in ways that many online self-promoters lose in building their brands.

Given the financial bind that public broadcasting currently finds itself in with corporate sponsorships drying up, Chicago Public Radio hosted a social networking challenge where 20 people completed five web-based tasks, including uploading photos of themselves in WBEZ gear and tagging them “Fivetofive” on Flickr and creating station-themed haikus for Twitter, ending in a $5,000 donation from an anonymous donor. One of the participatory challenges included having podcast and radio listeners download the same dance song and show up en masse for a dance-off in the Chicago loop. Not your traditional pledge drive, no doubt.

Craft

In addition to hosting the annual craft conference “Summit of Awesome,” the DIY network Hello Craft makes educational and promotional resources available to independent makers. It invites handmade aficionados to contribute stories about inspiration and first sewing machine purchases to its weekly podcast. When it isn’t broadcasting, Hello Craft tweets about notable work in the crafting community along with the likes of embroidery guru @SublimeStitchn and handmade hub @Etsy.

The current economic situation has brought little in the way of positive news for non-profit and arts organizations, but the resourcefulness that several groups and sites have shown in spite of increasingly smaller marketing budgets provides a great example of creative resiliency. Some artists and executive directors say using social tools to promote their efforts is “second nature,” but their willingness to sample and invest time in such a variety of tools is promising for application developers and companies who can learn from them alike.

(This is a brilliant article from Mashable- read it on their site)

For more information on how your company can benefit from Social media, come to the Shift Happens Conference where you can hear from inspiring speakers from all sectors of the Arts..!

Shift Happens: Arts Learning Technology (via pilottheatre)

Mon, 15 Feb 2010 09:33:55 -0500

Shift Happens: Arts Learning Technology (via pilottheatre)

BBC tells news staff to embrace social media

Fri, 12 Feb 2010 05:51:31 -0500

BBC tells news staff to embrace social media

BBC journalists must keep up with technological change - or leave, the director of BBC Global News Peter Horrocks says

Q&A: Peter Horrocks on the BBC and social media

Comments (40)

Peter Horrocks: backing Facebook and Twitter. Photograph: Martin Godwin

BBC news journalists have been told to use social media as a primary source of information by Peter Horrocks, the new director of BBC Global News who took over last week. He said it was important for editorial staff to make better use of social media and become more collaborative in producing stories.

“This isn’t just a kind of fad from someone who’s an enthusiast of technology. I’m afraid you’re not doing your job if you can’t do those things. It’s not discretionary”, he is quoted as saying in the BBC in-house weekly Ariel.

Horrocks said that technology was changing journalism, adding that it was important for the BBC to leave a programme-based mindset behind and adapt to new technologies.

Internationally, news organisations already have professionalised their approach towards user content and social media. For CNN the deep integration of social media marked an important step in improving their reporting and get closer to their sources – as seen recently with the coverage of the Haiti earthquake.

For BBC news editors, Twitter and RSS readers are to become essential tools, says Horrocks. Aggregating and curating content with attribution should become part of a BBC journalist’s assignment; and BBC’s journalists have to integrate and listen to feedback for a better understanding of how the audience is relating to the BBC brand.

Following the creation of a social media editor post in October, this marks another fundamental change in the Beep’s attitude towards social media.

Until now the broadcaster has been very cautious about social media. In the 160 pages of the BBC’s 2009 editorial guidelines, social media are mentioned only once: the editors are warned to “consider the impact of our re-use” of social media content. Although placed in the public domain already it will bring it to a wider audience, and there might be some copyright issues, the guidlines say.

Horrocks’s words mark a move in the opposite direction. As technology is changing the nature of journalism, the BBC is trying to keeping up with the pace. Horrocks, formerly head of the BBC’s multimedia newsroom, finds clear words for it: “If you don’t like it, if you think that level of change or that different way of working isn’t right for me, then go and do something else, because it’s going to happen. You’re not going to be able to stop it.”

Listen to our #ShiftHappens audioboo's

Tue, 02 Feb 2010 11:10:08 -0500

Listen to Audioboo’s recorded at last years conference, and the 2010 ALT Shift Launch Party held in January.

Pilot Podcast: Shifty Secrets

Thu, 21 Jan 2010 08:49:46 -0500

Pilot Podcast: Shifty Secrets

We drove and we drove and it snowed and it snowed and a three...

Wed, 06 Jan 2010 11:30:47 -0500

We drove and we drove and it snowed and it snowed and a three hour drive became five and a half, crawling and sliding through slippery roads and all of the time we kept going north.

It was the kind of day you turn up the heat if you have it, or stuff wood in the stove if you don’t, and sometimes the fire gets too hot and burns down your house, and men in orange close down the road and wave batons and tell the cars how to go another way, and other men in orange pull out survivors, and there is the sound of sirens in the soft snow, and maybe you are listening or maybe you are falling up into the whiteness against the snow and the smoke which is finally heating your house and maybe you, too.

But then you exit the scene and the tragedy becomes part of your drama and finally the cloud curtain rises on the final act which always has to have a sunset and which usually involves coming home in one way or another.

This is a recent photo from Jonathan Harris’ Number 27 project, where he has decided to take one photo a day, every day for a year after his 30th birthday.

Jonathan is joining us at Shift Happens: ALT Shift in July 2010, we’re all excited about having him with us. If you would like to know more about his work, visit http://www.number27.org/ -it’s definitely worth a look.

30 Great iPhone Apps

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 10:11:00 -0500

30 top apps from Shakespeare to South Park

Ajesh Patalay picks the best apps out there on the web for culture vultures

Ajesh Patalay
The Observer, Sunday 3 January 2010
Article history

His Girl Friday, a 1940 comedy starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell, one of the classic films that can be viewed on the Joost app Photograph: Allstar/Cinetext/Columbia

MUSIC

1 Spotify (free to download, £9.99 monthly subscription) With more than three million UK users, this music streaming service lets you chose from over 6.5m tracks and listen to other users’ playlists (including Aural Contraceptive, a playlist of Charlie Brooker’s favourite passion killers).

2 REM (free)

A band that has always embraced technology (in 2008 they debuted their latest album on Facebook), REM have released an app that includes all the usual band-specific features – song clips, band/tour info – plus the facility to stream videos from their entire career. (Nothing beats “Everybody Hurts” on landscape mode.)

3 Classical Music Master Collection (£1.19)

Packed with 800 complete tracks (100 hours of music) by the great composers including Chopin, Beethoven, Mozart, Tchaikovsky and Bach, this app, currently discounted from its original price of more than £600, is this year’s biggest bargain.

4 Shazam Encore (£1.79)

Play a seconds-long sample of any song (off a radio, for example) and this app – one of the App Store’s biggest hits – identifies it, before linking to iTunes and recommending other similar music.

5 Play Ligeti (free)

This interactive app from the ENO lets users explore (and compose their own discordant version of) the car horn prelude from György Ligeti’s 1970s avant garde opera Le Grand Macabre.

6 London Philharmonic Orchestra (free)

Combining select LPO recordings (recent additions include Dvorák’s Requiem and Brahms’s Hungarian Dances), with video performances, podcasts, concert info and links to iTunes, this app sets the bar for resident orchestras.

7 Lady Gaga iOKi (£2.99)

Typically pioneering, Lady Gaga lends her name and music to an exemplary karaoke app, through which you also have access to a complete karaoke library of tracks in every genre. Cue “Sweet Caroline”.

8 Bachtrack for iPhone (free)

Search for classical concerts, ballets and operas by composer, performer, orchestra and location anywhere in the world months in advance and book tickets too.

9 Simplify Music 2 (£4.99)

With this app you can listen to your entire digital music collection from your home computer streamed live to your iPhone, and access the music collections of up to 30 friends.

EBOOKS

10 Stanza (free)

Offers access to more than 50,000 free ebooks (from Arthur Conan Doyle to Paolo Coelho), with the option to download the latest bestsellers should The Lost Symbol not have made it into your stocking this year.

11 The Red Apple (£0.59)

From Winged Chariot, which also published one of the first children’s picture book for iPhone The Surprise, comes this beautifully illustrated tale by Feridun Oral of a rabbit foraging in the snow.

12 William Shakespeare Collection (£1.19)

Reason not the need to download this exemplary app, which delivers an enviable compendium of Shakespeare’s 40 plays, 154 sonnets and six narrative poems to your pocket.

13 Johnny Cash: I See a Darkness (Soundtrack Edition) (£2.99)

This graphic novel biography of Cash’s life, covering his 1956 sessions with Presley, 1968 concerts in Folsom Prison and 1990s comeback, boasts a feature to synchronise your reading with iTunes-purchased music.

14 A Book of Nonsense (£0.59)

This app of Edward Lear’s 1846 collection of limericks reproduces the original whimsical ink drawings by Lear with each of the 112 witty verses.

15 Comics (free)

Along with iVerse and Dark Horse Comics, this must-have app for comics fans gives access to more than 70 free titles (including the made-for-iPhone comic Box 13, about the escapades of mystery novelist Dan Holiday) plus over 700 paid-for comics.

16 McSweeney’s (£3.49) From Dave Eggers’s publishing house, this app delivers exclusive content (short stories, films, interviews) from the likes of Spike Jonze, Miranda July and James Franco.

17 Bunny Munro (£9.99)

This enhanced version of Nick Cave’s The Death of Bunny Munro about a middle-aged drug-addled sex maniac comes with a synchronized audiobook voiced by Cave, videos of Cave reading and a soundtrack for the totally immersive experience.

FILM/TV

18 Joost (free)

Like the Babelgum app (through which you can watch all of Sally Potter’s film Rage), this video app streams music clips, television episodes (such as Peep Show) and classic films (including Laurel & Hardy, Buster Keaton and His Girl Friday starring Cary Grant).

19 Empire Movie Guide (£2.99)

Like Movie Genie (the app for online site Internet Movie Database), this is a must-have for film buffs with over 9,000 Empire magazine reviews, browsable by title, actor and director.

20 Charlie Chaplin: Short Film Collection Vols 1-5 (£1.19 each)

Turn your iPhone into a cinema with these five apps, which contain more than 30 short films by Chaplin including Mabel’s Busy Day, The Masquerader and The Rounders, plus Chaplin trivia and film summaries.

21 Cartoon Classics (£0.59 each)

Starring Bugs Bunny, Popeye, Superman, Betty Boop and Felix the Cat, this series of five Cartoon Classics apps equips you with some of the best cartoons of the 40s and 50s for amusement on even the slowest bus journeys home.

22 South Park Avatar Creator (£0.59)

Embracing the anarchic spirit of the original series, this app lets you create your own South Park character – hair style, clothes, accessories – then save it to your contacts list as a friend or relative.

23 The Guardian iPhone app (£2.39)

We would say this, wouldn’t we. But self-promotion aside, our recently launched app, giving you access to the best writing, image galleries and podcasts from the Guardian and the Observer, is a smart, user-friendly way of staying up to date while on the move.

MUSEUMS/ART

24 Love Art: National Gallery (£1.79)

Scroll through masterpieces by Da Vinci, Renoir and Rembrandt on this app, which contains high resolution images of more than 250 works from the National Gallery’s collection as well as video and audio commentaries.

25 Yours Vincent: The Letters of Van Gogh (free)

From Amsterdam’s Van Gogh Museum, this app breathes new life into the artist by dramatising his letters. Listen to audio readings and through videos and picture galleries see how his painting style evolved.

26 London: British Museum Guide & Audio (£2.99)

In addition to comprehensive visitor info, this app contains 60 minutes worth of audio commentary on many of the museum’s key exhibits including the Parthenon sculptures, the Benin bronzes and the Rosetta Stone.

MISCELLANEOUS

27 iTheatre (free)

An essential resource for theatregoers with listings, reviews and secure booking for all West End shows. The comparable Edinburgh Festival app iFringe, containing maps that locate every venue, is nothing short of a godsend.

28 Google Earth (free)

With access to not only locations but also 3D models of buildings around the world (as well as photos via the Panoramio feature), this is still the best app for architectural enthusiasts.

29 TED (free)

This app streams inspirational talks from Technology, Entertainment and Design (TED) conferences round the world with recent speakers including Gordon Brown, Steve Jobs and Al Gore (though Malcolm Gladwell talking about spaghetti sauce still tops the bill).

30 Wikipanion (free)

Currently the best Wikipedia app available, this indispensable reference tool is as useful as the Oxford Dictionary of English app – which, at £17.99, is rather pricier – and will help you make mincemeat of any pub quiz.

What an interesting article from Ajesh Patalay at the Observer! I’d like to add a few apps though..

ReelDirector is an excellent application which allows users to edit movies which have been shot using the iphone. It costs £4.99, and enables users to multitrack sound recordings, mix videos, add text watermarks at the beginning and end of the videos and much much more. You can then share your video by email, or save to Camera Roll, where you can upload it to YouTube, Twitter, Vimeo.. etc. I think TwitVid, which is a free application is the best method of uploading and sharing iPhone videos online.

Tube Deluxe is an excellent application to help you navigate around the underground system in London.

Classics is a really nice book reader, which has a particularly intuitive page turner action.

And finally, I think that Tone Pad and Player Piano are brilliant applications for those who crave a five minute music break.

What are your must have applications for the new year?

Katherine

Shift Happens: community is crucial to theatre's future | Lyn Gardner | Stage | guardian.co.uk

Tue, 05 Jan 2010 07:02:05 -0500

Shift Happens: community is crucial to theatre's future | Lyn Gardner | Stage | guardian.co.uk:

With the 2010 conference Shift Happens: ALT Shift due to be launched on 22nd January, I thought that this would be a great opportunity to look back at last year.

We had some excellent press coverage for the event, and I particularly like this piece in the Guardian by Lyn Gardner.

Pilot Theatre’s Shift Happens conference has convinced me that the success of the stage isn’t just about new technologies but also people’s shared passion for theatre.

This year we are going to be widening the net of what the conference offers, looking to all artistic disciplines for how they are engaging with the technological revolution. That is what the ALT stands for… Arts, Learning, Technology.

Did you know you could follow us on twitter? http://twitter.com/shift_happens, you can also follow Pilot Theatre by searching for @pilot_theatre.

Speak later,

Katherine

Welcome to the Shift Happens tumblr page. This site will be a...

Mon, 04 Jan 2010 11:35:57 -0500

Welcome to the Shift Happens tumblr page.

This site will be a mash up of all the articles/ photos/ videos which we think are relevant to our Shift Happens Conference. You can read more information about that here.

Shift Happens:Alt Shift is run by Pilot Theatre. There are lots of the team who might be posting here, but it’ll usually be Katherine (our Projects and Development Coordinator) or Marcus (our Artistic Director) using this site.