AEPlatform

Events:

Cristina Skinner presents: Project #1

October 26, 7:30 PM

Lincoln, NE

Project #1 is a devised theater piece currently being created by a group of 7 artists/students at the University of Nebraska, Lincoln.  ”Humans utilize fear as a tool to help control the lives of others.  Fear is an essential element in everyday life, it is a factor in every decision made.  The group creating this piece of theater is embracing the idea of fear to show how it is used, and how fear can be overcome.”

Ping Chong & Company present: Angles of Swedenborg

October 27, 7:30 PM

NYC

“The production combines dance, theatre, music and multi-media projections and features eight angels, two spirits and, of course, Swedenborg himself, cavorting in a heavenly corral of swirling white feathers.”

Featured Bookables:

Christopher Williams Dances – Solo Commission

Need a solo dance?  Commission critically acclaimed choreographer Christopher Williams to work with you to create a new work.  A combination of your strengths and Williams’ rigorous movement vocabulary.

Kinesis Project – Step into Rehearsal

Ever want to enjoy a rehearsal without a crowded room?  Now you can!  Kinesis Project is creating a new show and they are opening up the process to include YOU.  Check out how you can get into the mix.

Oct. 25, 2011, Filed under category Announcements, Cool Happenings, featured, Featured Events

Events this week on AEP

Interested in new plays?  CTC’s new series “Web Reading” launches tonight with a free online event!  Check out Web Reading: ”Suicide on Pennsylvania Avenue”- a beautiful and thought-provoking story about one woman’s attempt to free her family from debt.

Live from the Arizona State Fair at the famous Veteran’s Memorial Coliseum, An Afternoon with The Wallace & Ladmo Show.  Wallace and Pat McMahon discuss, as only they can, 36 years of doing the greatest kids’ show ever made.

Featured Bookable Offerings

Ever want to connect with an artist one-on-one?  Perhaps you have questions about a piece or about the artistic process.  Now you can!  Book “Your Own Private Q&A” with Kinesis Project.

Sometimes a dance is the perfect addition to a special event: a wedding reception, anniversary party, a celebration of you!  Now you can have a custom dance made for you to perform at your special event.  This is also a great gift for a couple.  Check out POP n’ wedLOCK’s “Couples Dance Lesson”.

Oct. 19, 2011, Filed under category Announcements, Featured Events

Hi guys! My name is Kate – I just wanted to introduce myself – and I am proud to be one of Misnomer and AEP’s newest interns. I’m coming to these spaces via an alternate direction than dance: my interest is piqued by thoughts of public space – the use of it and how we can make it better. I also love design and art.

With my interests rather seemingly unrelated to the live arts, you may ask “why AEP?” Easy. I was initially attracted to AEP because of their commitment to becoming a venue for “the sharing and spreading of the thrill of the live arts.” I am a firm believer in working for the common good and so one may be able to see why I would want to be a part of AEP: their mission to sustain (and hopefully better) the arts through helping artists design and tailor events specifically for their audience will ultimately serve the whole. For example, this kind of innovation could possibly add to the improvement of public spaces.

After a couple months of working with AEP I’ve had time to play with tying together some of my own interests – public space and design – with some of AEP’s – innovation in audience engagement. In this blog I’ll be asking questions about how to use public space better to cultivate more opportunities for audience engagement and I would love to hear what you think about these subjects as well. Feel free to email me at kate@misnomer.org.

I’d love to start a discussion.

• What’s your favorite public space in NYC/the U.S./the world?
• Have you seen an art event in a public space which seemed to influence the audience?
• What kind of live arts make you feel most connected to your favorite artist?

I’d love to know! I look forward to engaging with you guys and I hope to uncover many more questions of my own this way.

Hasta luego!

Kate

Sep. 21, 2011, Filed under category Announcements, team

A big thanks to all of the artists who participated in our feedback sessions on our new design, updated features, and streamlined functionality.  All of the results were very positive and we’ll be moving forward with making these designs a reality!

The process:

We asked both current AEP artists as well as artists who are not currently using the platform to respond to 8 different pages.  We collected feedback on each page as well as a more in-depth survey following the full presentation.  We’ve gone through all of the feedback and have averaged results to share with you.

Here’s what we learned:

• 96.25% LOVED the new designs of the pages
• 96.12% LOVED the new layout of the pages
• 94% LOVED how easy the new pages are to navigate

PS- the artists who didn’t LOVE the new pages LIKED them- we didn’t get one negative review!  

We introduced a plethora of new & updated features that will help fans and artists “GoSeeDo” more art events.  Here are the top features that artists are excited about:

1. Our new Metrics & Statistics feature that lets artists see how their fans are using GoSeeDo to interact with their favorite artists
2. Our new “Create” and “Promote” buttons for artists to manage their activities on the platform
3. Our updated “Share” feature that lets fans spread the word about events to their networks and social media pages with a simple click of a button
4. Our updated media options which lets artists add even more photos and videos to their profile as well as individual event pages

Stay tuned for more updates as AEP prepares to launch our new look and new name: GoSeeDo!

- Jeremy Williams, Community Manager

Sep. 15, 2011, Filed under category Announcements

Hi AEP-ers,

I’m Courtney, an intern who’s going to be posting periodically on this blog. But before I start filling the blogosphere with my thoughts on different art forms and cool happenings, I thought I’d tell you a few things about myself. I graduated from Goucher College in May and three weeks later I moved from Ohio to NYC.

I’m a dancer, choreographer and photographer. I’ve always been charmed with bygone eras. I guess that accounts for how much I loved my Tuscan study abroad experience; plus, imagining myself in a different time was easier when I was surrounded by ancient buildings. It also explains why I’m fascinated with the digitization of nearly every aspect of our lives but find comfort in choosing analog. At times, I prefer the physicality that accompanies certain experiences. For example, I could spend an hour browsing Amazon to buy a new book for my Kindle. But, I’d prefer to spend that hour in an actual bookstore: handling various books, smelling their particular smell, hearing the pages rustle. I think the physical response that this, among many other experiences, elicits is what keeps us engaged in an increasingly digital world.

In fact, part of the reason I accepted this internship is due to the focus on audience engagement at AEP and Misnomer Dance Theater. Early into college, I was able to see how engaging an audience creates a positive impact. The dance department hosts open rehearsals at the end of every guest artist’s 10 day residency. During them, the audience gets the opportunity to preview the work as well as ask questions to the artist and dancers. These events provided me with opportunities to see more than just the work- I was drawn into the story behind it. We also were encouraged to ask more personal questions to the artists. Learning more about the artist provided insight into the work that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.

What about you? What experiences make you react strongly? Are you interested in the preservation of pre-digital forms? Is there a way for both to coexist or are certain things headed for obscurity? Can you think of a time when you felt particularly engaged with an artist or art form? I would love to hear from you!

You can post a comment or email me here: Courtney

Looking forward to hearing from you, Courtney

Sep. 14, 2011, Filed under category Announcements, team

We did it!

We finally arrived at our site name for AEP!  The site name is…. GoSeeDo!

I never though of naming as a difficult task. I have named kids. Pets. Dance moves. It has never been a problem. But coming up with a name for the public facing brand of AEP… that was a challenge.

We had been looking for a  name that would be easy for the public to remember and inspire a sense of action and involvement among people coming to have new experiences with the arts. There are two ways that the public interested with the platform, either through a direct relationship with a particular artists, or to the central site’s public discovery interface where people can find new ways to engage with artists. The name needed to work for both.

I don’t know exactly how many hours were spent on domain search sites or how many names we discussed, evaluated, and dismissed. Some were too adventurous. Others too meek. Some were too forward. Others too elusive.  Needless to say, when we finally emerged with a name that most everyone on the team and of the 20+ people we surveyed liked, I was thrilled.

We’re now phasing in the branding to reflect the name. This starts working on the visual identity, and the first step is deciding on a logo. I had expected the logo process to be harder than the naming process. But so far it is an incredibly fun and fluid experience.

I’d like to share the initial set of logo designs that we looked at. Take a look. See what you think. And let us know which one you would pick or any feedback you have.

Oh yeah – let us know what you think of the name as well

Mahalos,

Rob

Sep. 1, 2011, Filed under category Announcements, blog

Welcome

…to our very first first wireframe preview!  In a few moments, I’m going to dive in and start taking you through some of the improvements that we’ve been working on for the past few months. But before I do that, I want to take a second to let you know that sharing these wireframes is only the first step in a big push to open our process to the community at large.

The whole point of this project is to increase artist and audience engagement. That said, it’s kind of funny that we have been criticized – somewhat fairly – for not doing enough to let people know what we are working on. Starting with this post, that’s all changed. Our new process moving forward will be:

1. More open. We will let you know what we want to do so you can let us know what you think.
2. More collaborative. Your feedback will help to guide and shape the development of the platform.
3. More effective.  By working together, we will create the tools you need for your art to succeed.

Okay… let’s go!

Home Page

Home Page – Before

The current home page is going to get a nice revamp. Right now, it features a lot of marketing and help material. But if you want to see actual artist offerings, you need to click on the “Explore” tab at the top.

Figure 1: Click the explore tab to see artist events

Home Page – After

We want to change the home page  to put the artist offerings up front and center. Instead of having to click on explore, you start out by seeing all the amazing experiences on the site.

We have dedicated a lot more real estate to featuring offerings, which should drive more traffic to your offering and artist pages. And, we have incorporated a layout that should translate nicely to mobile and tablet based devices when we start to target those down the road.

 Figure 2: Home Page Wireframe

You may notice a couple things on this page. First off, at the top, it says “Name”… that’s because we have officially selected the  brand for our platform. Some of you may already know what it is, but for the rest, stay tuned! We will be making an announcement this week, and we will be showing you all the cool logo treatments that we have been looking at!

Dash Board

Let’s start off the dashboard discussion by looking at a letter we got on GetSatisfaction:

Hi All -
the design of the "organization dashboard" needs some work.

The current design means I get to the page and see numbers in a big font, and what 
I have done in tiny letters... with the only clickable that has a name being the last
thing I worked on.I'm often going in to see something else - not the last thing - even
just wondering "ok, what have I done?" 

Currently it takes around 3-4 clicks to get to a draft or list of what I've
completed/am working on - seems like a lot.

Figure 3: Numbers in big font, What I have done in tiny letters

We agreed with everything this letter said, so we changed the organizational dashboard to make it a lot more streamlined.

Org Dashboard Main Page

Below is a draft of the main organizational dash page. Keep in mind this is no work of art yet, but all the functional components are there and you will be able to see our thinking.

Tabs

The first thing we did was to separate things into tabs. The main tabs that are available are:

• Home - This takes you back to your main personal dashboard
• Following – Shows you all of the artists, experiences and collections you are following on the site
• Learn – One stop access to our learning center, where you can get help, ask questions, and learn how things work
• Add Account – This tab lets you add organizations to your account. When you first join, you have an individual account. But in order to create experiences, you need to add organizational account. This is where you do that
• Organizational Tabs - Every organization you have will get its own tab, where we store all the information related to that organization. More below.

Organizational Tabs

We created these so that if you have more than one organization that you are managing, everything related to that organization will be in one place. When you click on an organizational tab, you get the following options:

• Create - Your one stop shop to create new experiences to offer to your audience
• Promote – Go here to promote your existing offerings using email, social networking, and offline methods.
• Measure – Get statistics on your visitors, fans, offerings and more
• Portfolio – Addressing the letter we quoted above, this is where you will be able to see everything you have done
• Profile - View and manage your organizations profile on the site
• Settings - This is where you can adjust the individual options on the site

Create Button

Another complaint on the site was how to create events. There is a giant “Create” button at the top of the current site, but if you click it, it takes you to your dashboard. A lot of peole asked about this, and we agree that the way we have it set up right now is confusing.

We have changed that so that the big create button is still there, but when you click it, it takes you to a page where you actually can create the offering. More on that below.

Promote Button

In addition to creating events, we have made the ability to promote your events much more prominent. The goal here is to make it easy for you to promote your wonderful offerings to your audiences so that you can get more fans, more buzz and more success.

The Latest

This is where you will get all of your notifications related to a single organization. It’s all placed right in the middle, so that as soon as you visit your organization, you can see what is going on. We also have handy stats available in the “At a Glance” section.

Org Dashboard – Create

When you click on the “Create” button, you will come to the create page. The first thing you will see is a list of possible offerings.

 You can either create an offering from scratch, or you can select existing offerings and copy them. To help get you started, we will make a bunch of cool templates that you can copy.

But a great feature here is that you can also copy offerings from other artists, or create and share your own with the community. This lets you leverage successful offerings of other artists, and lets you help your fellow artists learn from your success as well.

If you are not sure about what kind of offering you should make, we let you see what other people are doing, and we let you know which offerings are popular at the moment. We also have an extensive learning center that you can use if you need to learn about an offering. We will preview that in another post.

Create Form

Once you select the type of experience you want to create, you will be taken to this form where you can edit and customize it. We have designed this form so that, visually, it looks like what your visitors will see when they come to the site. That means it should be more intuitive and easier for you to use.

Lots of stuff on this page, so Ill just go over some of the features:

• Easily upload images and embed media into the page
• Edit all of the page elements in place, so you know where it will go and how it will look when you publish it
• Add a sponsor to your offering
• One-click ability to add and remove options from the page
• Fully integrated help system makes sure that you can easily create experiences and get help if you need it

More to come…

These are a few of the changes that we are considering based on your feedback and input. Please let us know what you think of them. You can reach us by:

Contacting us on Facebook
Talking to us on Twitter
Giving feedback at GetSatisfaction

 Or, if you want to talk to me directly, my email address is rob [-at] aeplatform [-dot] org.

Stay tuned… in the coming days we will:

• Announce Our New Name!!!
• Show you some AWESOME logo treatments
• And release more wireframes

 Mahalos,

Rob

Product Manager, AEP

Aug. 24, 2011, Filed under category Announcements

Melissa Riker, Artistic Director of Kinesis Project, is presenting “Phase 1: Mapping Home InStudio”- a look into the creative process of their new work in it’s early stages of development.  You can get into the action, but seating is limited so reserve your spot today!  You could also win tickets to a Yankee’s game so don’t forget your raffle ticket.

The event will be held at Gibney Dance Center in one of their newly acquired studios.  Guess what, YOU can also use these studios for rehearsals, classes, and private events!  Check out the beautiful studios in the heart of Manhattan and book your event today!

Jun. 3, 2011, Filed under category Announcements, featured, Program info

We’re excited to share our plans for a new feature that will be a core service for our Beta launch in January. Its purpose is to help you (the artist) create new types of bookable performances and experiences, benefiting both you and your audiences. 

These events aim to offer a unique, up-close, personalized experience for audiences and provide them direct interaction with artists. For you, these experiences offer a more broad range of interactions to offer your audiences between productions. We intend to focus on experiences that give you more chances to perform and share with your audiences, while creating new income opportunities through your art.

Think about it… there are often long down-times between performances. During this time there are limited opportunities for audiences who were inspired by your show to interact further. Producing a full show is expensive, but there are many experiences you could offer to audiences that would be low-cost to you, yet rich and fulfilling for your fans.

Right now… how much is on your website’s event calendar that your audiences can actually attend? What if you could instantly multiply the array of live and virtual events that you, and the artists that work with you, could offer to your audiences, adding experiences that were really cool to them and they didn’t know you could provide?

But how do you 1) package and describe these experiences, 2) make your audiences aware of them and 3) manage their execution?

That’s the problem we will address – to get artists performing and interacting with audiences more frequently, in ways that build earned revenue and cultivate audiences, and that aim to create unique, fun, and inspiring experiences for audiences and artists alike.

Some examples of types of experiences we are exploring include:

• attending rehearsal showings (often involving introductory remarks, Q&A, and after-rehearsal socializing);
• “show-hearsals”: similar to a paid-attendance rehearsal, but including a short, more formal performance section;
• “Through Their Eyes”: a group of fans paying company X, to go see another company’s performance with one of the dancers from company X, and then discussing the show over drinks/dinner afterwards (this allows audience members to get to see art through an artist’s eyes);
• Impromptu group romps around town;
• master classes;
• collaborative creation events;
• virtual Q&A: live Skype video chat with artist with a group (school, organization, etc.);
• private teaching/mentorship sessions (shadowing);
• private short-form, low-cost performances;
• custom choreography workshops, where a small work is created on you to give you a taste for the experience of the artist.
• and many more that we will come up with together…..

For many of these experience types, artists can:

• commit in advance to offering a particular experience on a specific date (such as a “Rehearsal Showing”), or have it packaged as an “on demand” service (available only if an individual or group requests and commits);
• sell tickets, or have it hosted (or sponsored) by an individual and made free to others (such as a person hosting an after-party, covering the costs for other attendees, or hosting a workshop for school children);
• have the event booked by a group, or by an individual (events can be 1-on-1, for small or large groups).

AEP will provide templates for these types of experiences so that they are 1) codified and recognizable to audiences as a familiar type of event over time, and 2) described/pitched in a way that is positioned to be most enticing to audiences. Each experience template will be flexible enough to allow for substantial customization and personalization by the artist, so you can really express your own tone and artistic point of view. AEP wants to co-design with you experience types that are low-work/low-cost for you, and repeatable (so that doing the 2nd and 3rd ones are easier than doing the 1st one).

AEP’s Learning Community will be a place to share tips about which types of experiences are most effective, and where artists and audiences can promote and suggest types of events they would like to see take place within the platform. We see a lot of ways to grow the learning community over time so that exploring different ways to engage audiences can be a social experiences for the artists preparing them.

Audiences are now demanding more unique, interactive experiences at unusual times, that add social, learning, and inspiring moments to their everyday. Our belief is that, as artists, a lot of us already conduct ocasional non-traditional event/experience formats, but have largely delayed actually holding them consistently as core offerings because:

1. we fear that getting the first few done will take lots of time/effort/learning;
2. we fear embarrassing ourselves by not doing a good job at holding events;
3. we fear we will lose money on the efforts.

By working together in this shared model, we think we can reduce those barriers.

Some key features/benefits of this feature will be:

• we will use automation (customizable structured forms, reminders) and information (documentation, support groups) to walk you through the process of creating and holding these experiences;
• we will integrate with a ticket-seller system to automatically create entries in their system;
• we will use automation and information to help you promote these offerings and build audiences, through:
  • your existing email list;
  • AEP emails to fans who start following you;
  • your social media accounts (which we will help you set up, if you aren’t using them already).
• we will structure/reinforce post-event social media: soliciting check-ins (e.g. FourSquare), testimonials, sharing of photos/videos uploaded elsewhere, etc. to capture/spread fan’s enthusiasm;
• we will track fan behavior in such a way that the most “rabid” fans (those who do the most attending, promoting, reviewing, etc.) are more visible to you, making it easier for you to thank/recognize them.
• We will link you in with a community of investive artists and audiences, so you can see and learn from what others are doing, and get ideas from your audiences.

Our hope is to give you a service to more easily create, position and execute more events and experiences for your audiences, so that they can subscribe to and be wow-ed by your unique, experience series between performances.

If this idea excites you, and you want to give more experiences with less work, please sign up – we’ll be picking beta community members over the next few weeks!

Nov. 18, 2010, Filed under category Announcements, blog

In a few days I will be flying out to California for the annual arts marketing conference for NAMP, the National Arts Marketing Program, of Americans for the Arts. I’ll be leading a session which you can read about below or watch this quick video about it. I’m looking forward to hearing about all the experiementation in the arts at the conference, and to having conversations with the attendees who are flying in from across the country (and abroad)! Here’s a link to the description of our session and the other exciting events at the conference. I’ll be sure to post more about the conference while I’m there. – Chris Elam

SHAPING THE ARTIST-AUDIENCE RELATIONSHIP. Sunday, Nov 14, 9am-10:15am PST. Do you struggle to build connections with your audience beyond your performance or exhibition schedule? Want to know about digital audience engagement innovations happening in the field right now? This session covers recent applications of technology being developed to invigorate audience engagement, including a new web-based service, the Audience Engagement Platform (AEP). See how digital relationship building works, how it can apply to your organization, and how it can improve measuring your marketing efforts.

Speakers: Caleb Custer, Strategist, Design Brooklyn; Chris Elam, Artistic Director & CEO, Misnomer Dance Theater; Ron Evans, Arts Marketing Consultant, Groupofminds.com; Amy Kweskin, Program Director, California State University East Bay

Nov. 9, 2010, Filed under category Announcements, Program info

We’ve been relatively quiet recently, so we wanted to share an update.

After completing an Alpha test of AEP we had some ideas which we felt would be good to explore incorporating into the first release. So we put development on hold for a while, reducing expenses while we figured this out. The result is that we now have a refined plan that we are excited to share with you, as well as a few new members who we are welcoming to our team.

The role of VP of AEP Development has been divided into two positions. We brought in two new employees to drive the completion and future development of AEP.

Bill Seitz is our new AEP Product Manager. He’s responsible for our strategic plans and coordinating the daily execution of those plans. He has built the technology/teams for 4 internet startups in the past 15 years (and he’s an ex band-geek.)

Rob Capili is our new AEP Marketing Manager. He’s responsible for the details of design and communications, and will be hiring a Community Manager to help artists get the best use out of AEP. He comes from a dance background and, among other things, was on the Dance/USA Board of Directors and served on the Dance/USA Technology sub-committee.

During this time we also made changes to our Board of Directors and added to our Advisory Board. You can read about both those groups on the “Boards” tab of Misnomer’s site.

We expect to go into Beta test mode in January, with our public release in March. We’ll have a separate announcement shortly about our new product plans.

You’ll be reading more frequent posts from all of us here, and we are excited to share the next steps of this process with you.

That’s the word from AEP.

Nov. 2, 2010, Filed under category Announcements, blog, featured, team

Hi everyone, just a quick post to let you know that Chris will be speaking at the Columbia Business School’s Social Enterprise Conference 2010 on  October 8, 2010.  Here is a description on the conference (looks cool!)

Conference Overview

Despite the economic downturn, social enterprise has continued to attract attention and investment around the world. Social enterprise is here to stay. Yet while we’ve seen dramatic growth in some areas — from the charter school movement to microfinance and insurance — where will the next phase of social innovation come from? How will social impact investors uncover new opportunities? And what new financing models will help to get new ventures off the ground, particularly given tough economic times?

And Chris’ session:

Developing Audiences: Consumption and Capital

This session investigates opportunities and challenges for the arts—dance, music, theater and the visual arts—in supporting intellectual capital and socioeconomic development as arts consumption evolves. The 2008 National Endowment for the Arts’ Survey of Public Participation cites worrying trends: “American audiences for the arts are getting older, and their numbers are declining.” What implications do these trends have for cultural institutions and their communities? What can be done to regenerate traditional arts audiences during recessionary times, how do we build new audiences and who are they? What new modes and technologies of consumption might be used? What for-profit marketing models can be adapted to the nonprofit arena?

Sounds like a great forum to discuss the recent advances on AEP! More info can be found via the conference website, which lists a bunch of interesting sessions they have planned on social issues. Check it out and if you’re in the area, join us for what looks like will be a great conference!

-Ron

Oct. 30, 2010, Filed under category Announcements