Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Artists Using Technology

I am always looking for examples of how artists are making technology an integral part of their working lives. Not so much from a production standpoint, but rather from a sales, marketing and distribution standpoint. This requires a greater business sense and leverages opportunities to save time, make money and reach customers in ways the struggling artist has not been able to in the past.

One small example occurred today when I was invited to a showing of art jewelery. Unfortunately the WSA Industry Achievment awards are the same evening, and since I was a judge for the latter, I cannot attend the former. However, the event sounds great, the artist is wonderful and I received the invitation through Evite. There is a good chance that the electronic invitation was propagated through a predetermined email list. The invitation itself was nicely designed and there was an automated reminder sent as well.

I wonder how many artists are utilizing the likes of an Evite in order to draw a crowd to their shows?

2 comments:

Eprhyme said...

I can think of a dozen ways artists can leverage technology to further their careers. Former playboy model-turned-pop star Tila Tequila has built a platform for her singing career almost entirely on Myspace. Most music industry moguls will admit quietly that CDs will soon be a junk medium, and that digital outlets will likely be the foundation of music distribution efforts within the next 20 years. Arts foundations and funding agencies are slowly migrating grant applications and the like to digital formats. Independant organizations such as www.stretchtheskies.com put hundreds of resources at artists fingertips on-line. Because they do not have to deal with tons of overhead or first costs, they are able to offer these resources at a deep discount, and often for free.
Technology is a wonderful resource for artists, leveling the playing field for people who generally can't afford to go through traditional channels.
The National Business Incubation Association's arts incubation branch indicates that any arts incubation effort should emphasize technical competency along with other skills.
Now, if we could only do something about the 50 percent of the Puget Sound population that doesn't have regular Internet access....

Droid116 said...

So the question that is begged is, how many artists are purposefully leverage the online tool set, and how many have grown their successes accidentally or organically from it. I also would like to see and assembly of tools, like a mail manager, payment processor, ticket and venue management system and so on. They exist in multiple forms, so a best use and practices overview would be nice.

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