Last week, as part of the Master of Arts Management Speaker series, students had the unbelievable opportunity to listen to a talk on leadership by Terre Jones, president and CEO of Wolf Trap Foundation for the Performing Arts. Terre sat down with me afterwords to discuss the importance of technology in the work done by Wolf Trap. We discuss the importance of utilizing technology to enhance art, not dictate how it behaves, along with using technology to reach specific audiences (read: young people!). Terre also talked to me about how Wolf Trap has used technology in their programs, including their Face of America series and the Wolf Trap Opera. Perhaps the most interesting part of the conversation revolves around the Wolf Trap STEAM educational program - combining STEM learning with art.

Kate Langsdorf, Ford’s Theatre’s Education Programs Manager, was gracious enough to schedule time for a phone interview discussing her role in the creation and implementation of Ford’s Theatre’s distance learning programs. Currently Ford's programs include Virtual Field Trips and a short play entitled Investigating the Lincoln Assassination with Detective McDevitt, and they hope to further expand their offerings in the future.

Ceci Dadisman, Palm Beach Opera's Director of PR and Marketing, sat down with AMTLab to talk about her work and how she utilizes a variety of digital platforms to market more effectively and increase audience engagement. She also offered numerous tips about how arts organizations can get started in the world of new media. 

I sat down with Deeksha Gaur, Woolly's Director of PR and Marketing, to learn more about Woolly's success and the lessons she has learned as an arts marketer in the digital age. The main takeaway? Audiences crave this type of direct interaction and any company can do it. Although Woolly has "technologized" the lobby, coupling a more analog experience with social media elements can inspire a broad conversation around your organization’s art. 

This week, I spoke with Selena Juneau-Vogel, Artful.ly’s Program Director, who has been with the project almost since the beginning. Our wide-ranging conversation covered everything from past names of the project, such as ATHENA (don’t ask her what it stands for, nobody could remember), to the future of CRM, which Selena feels will involve “social CRM”—the integration of social media into patron records.

AMT Lab recently had the pleasure of sitting down to talk with Trudi McCanna, Head of Executive Development at Google. A graduate of the MAM program who has taken her skills from the world of the arts into the world of technology, she had some interesting perspectives on the challenges and opportunities facing arts organizations. Due to her experience training leaders throughout Google, she’s also no stranger to helping people solve difficult problems. 

Teaching Arts Through Tech is a 3-part podcast series of interviews with individuals making contributions to the field of integrated arts and tech.  These interviews will also inform my semester-long research project, culminating in a White Paper about using technology to facilitate integrated arts learning.

My first interviewee was Jane Alexander, Chief Information Officer at The Cleveland Museum of Art.