PADE (Puppetry Arts Digital Evolution) project aimed to increase access to digital tools, resources and skills for puppeteers, multidisciplinary artists and arts organizations. Through this national initiative, we shared, learnt and planned how best to implement digital knowledge and tools into individual and joint digital discoverability, marketing, and strategic future plans.
All sessions were designed and facilitated by Inga Petri, Strategic Moves. These 11 workshops cover digital literacy and intelligence material that Inga developed for Making Tomorrow Better. These insights and more were shared with the Canadian arts presenting sector over 3 years from 2019 to 2021. This latest series is current as of March 2022.
The Fundamentals Series
Beyond the Fundamentals (From Search to Discoverability)
Understanding Digital Business Opportunities and Revenue Models
Workshop Series 1 – Fundamentals
Workshop 1.1: Building an Effective Online Presence Assessment (60 min)
9 years ago, in March 2013, I wrote a call to action for the performing arts presenting sector. It was an adjunct to the seminal Value of Presenting Study that I wrote to instigate sectoral action to secure the relevance of the sector in the mid- to long-term.
These Reflections and Recommendations were: 1. Strategy and organizational design to nurture capacity for change, strengthen relevance and resilience, come into the 21st century organizationally, in terms of marketing, programming and so forth 2. Building Meaningful Statistical Frameworks – Culture Satellite Account and Mapping the sector 3. Strengthen / Role in Communities – invest in competencies and professional development as a community leader, design for community impacts, ongoing awareness raising of value and benefits of the performing arts 4. Demography and Access – Know your community and your market; Access for seniors (technology-enabled), Partnering with Indigenous peoples, Partnering with recent Immigrants (EDI) 5. Digital Technologies – embrace online and mobile distribution of live arts, create a cross-functional working group to explore digital distribution in the live arts 6. Redefining Competition (focus on non-arts industries) – Define competitive value proposition (relative to non-arts competitors) 7. Experience Design – Brand-first relationship building (not merely transactional), secondary markets (digital impact)
Most of these feel as relevant as ever to me, showing how much more progress the live arts sector needs to make to join the contemporary world with all its complicated dynamics.
In light of COVID and the early stages of – and the vagaries of – COVID recovery in 2022, I have been talking about these 9 trends requiring urgent attention in the sector if it wants to rebuild better:
1.Mental health impacts
2.Financial precarity
3.Loss of expertise and talent – COVID
4.Digital transformation of society
5.Climate change and touring
6.Need new business models re: return to gatherings
7.Ways to support local artists
8.Digital Dissemination platforms
9.Justice, Equity, Diversity, Inclusion
In part it feels like the more things change the more they stay the same. It also feels like perhaps some of us have learned enough to really tackle the big issues. https://lnkd.in/gJRdUyVx
I’ve been speaking at two in-person conferences recently (Contact East 2021 in Moncton and Pacific Contact 2022 in Coquitlam) on the hot button topic of Rebuilding Better. I have been proposing this Radical Intent (aka vision) for the Performing Arts as the sector tries to emerge from the worst of the COVID restrictions. The presentation has been called inspiring and has been generating much hallway conversation. So here it is.
1. Stop doing more with less. Breathe. Go for a walk in the woods, on the beach, in the mountains. Educate your funders to help them see how your effectiveness as an arts worker matters more than pushing out sheer volume.
2. Do less with more! Good pay, reasonable hours, improve mental health, improve working conditions. Take care of each other, be there: we are in this together.
3. Embrace digital connection. It is real and it is rapidly growing, if you like it or not is immaterial! Go ahead and assess digital opportunities in your context, your community and your organization and build digital business lines if it makes sense. Think about what it looks like to meaningfully disseminate or present live arts digitally. Learn about and adopt industry backbone application (The Pitch, I want to showcase, block booking, PPN, Side door)
Act, don’t leave it at paying lip service; when its just words and intentions without action, folks see right through it – always.
5. Engage the public through the arts, not merely in the arts. Climate change, housing availability, precarious employment, living wages/guaranteed income, fear-based politics / elections, dis- and mis-information, online bully pulpits – so many topics that could be made better for the majority of people as well as systemically marginalized people through creative and artistic interventions
6. Make a big difference in your community. What are the conversations that need to be had locally? Hot button issues? Get involved and convene people in conversations, curate shows to reflect on the issues, host solution summits.
Thanks to host Kari Johnston who interviewed me as part of her Yukon Entrepreneurs Podcast series. Kari has been talking to Yukon business people about how they are deploying, leveraging, changing or transitioning their business models during the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the case or Strategic Moves, demand skyrocketed as a result of our reputation for digital expertise and having championed digital adoption in the live arts sector in Canada over a decade. COVID simply unleashed the urgent demand to make sense of the digital world, as well as advancing on key organizational pressures, from equity, diversity and inclusion to elevating strategic planning work to a far more actionable, meaningful level.
On November 20, 2020, 31 Yukoners gathered via Zoom to talk to each other about big ideas from the starting points of:
How can we build a true Yukon digital platform to put our collective foot forward to the vast online population?
What would Yukoners and Yukon businesses have to build together to achieve such an awesome, global online presence? What kinds of content would we need to have, what kinds of digital technologies would we use to create awesome digital experiences, and what kind of visionary web presence would we create to be a global online force?
Here is the full zoom recording with annotated chapter markers as well as a written summary report:
Several Yukon-led territorial and national projects were featured as part of the exchange of ideas and experiences:
https://yfnarts.ca/ – online store for Yukon Indigenous arts and products (Charlene Alexander, YFNCTA)
https://yukononlinemarket.ca/ – just launched online store for artisans and crafters (Jasmine Roush, Willow Gamberg, Yukon)
https://availablelight.watch/ – launched in October 2019, ALD makes Yukon films and shorts available to Yukoners and the world for viewing and renting (Braden Brickner, Yukon)
https://yukonorganics.ca/ – sharing food orders to get high quality foods into remote locations at good prices (Scott McKenzie, Yukon)
Creative Lab North (Melaina Sheldon & Jayden Soroka, Yukon) – in development
ThePitch.ca: Online Showcase for the Performing Arts (Debbie Peters, Yukon) – in development
Yukon Transportation Museum – developing digital products and services (Janna Swales, Yukon) – in development
Guest speakers also contributed greatly to the conversation by expanding on approaches to digital technologies and opportunities: Tammy Lee, Culture Creates (Montreal), Margaret Lam, Bemused Network (Waterloo, ON)
As part of Yukon Innovation Week, Kari Johnston interviewed Inga Petri about her work in arts & culture in the digital world. I discuss my mission to help artists and arts & culture organizations use digital technologies in profound and new ways and build successful digital business models. It’s not about merely building a website, but about leveraging the latest web technologies and ways in which web 3.0 works to secure viable spaces for artistic and cultural expression and experiences.
Friday, Nov 20, 2020 from 3 pm to 4:30 on Zoom. Register now.
Imagine: Yukon’s awesome, global digital presence
This session is designed as a bold conversation where current limitations are cast aside and we imagine a world of our own making.
Imagine
People around the world are flocking to the Yukon: for fun, entertainment, cultural experiences, our multi-facetted histories, outdoor experiences, guided tours, culinary extravaganzas, unique Northern products. And they are doing that online right now.
Let’s talk
How can we build a true Yukon digital platform to put our collective foot forward to the vast online population?
What would Yukoners and Yukon businesses have to build together to achieve such an awesome, global online presence? What kinds of content would we need to have? What kinds of digital technologies would we use to create awesome digital experiences? And what kind of visionary web presence would we create to be a global online force?
How do we develop a business model that returns the revenue generated to Yukoners and Yukon businesses, while maintaining the technology backbone of this made-in-Yukon solution?
This conversation is inspired by a readiness to embrace the persistent new digital age that might follow the life-altering effects of COVID-19. It also connects to several other conversations in recent years about creating a digital window or storefront for the Yukon.
Who this is for: YOU!
web developers, extended reality media makers, technology builders and innovators and so on
tourism businesses, wilderness guides, cultural centres, heritage and museums and so on
visual and performing artists, musicians, makers of wearable art and cultural expressions and so on
people from all four levels of government, anyone with access to innovation funding