“Corporate Blogging” – North Shore Music Theatre Blog

In our current Web 2.0 world, it is more important than ever that we embrace our new social media tools.  Blogging is one of them.  Chris Anderson says in his book, The Long Tail, “…collectively blogs are proving more than an equal to mainstream media.”  Journalism is literally changing as we know it, and we have no choice but to adapt to these changes.

I thought it would be interesting to search around and find various performing arts organization blogs.  One of the best ones that I came across was the North Shore Music Theatre (NSMT) blog.  North Shore Music Theatre is one of the largest non-profits professional theaters in New England that creates “some of the most vibrant classic, contemporary and new musical theater in the country” according to its website. Through the use of photos, video, informative text, and a human voice, they truly provide a behind the scenes look into their productions.  This blog is fairly new, but if they keep it up, it will be a huge success.  Additionally, they are extremely open to audience suggestions and questions.  In their first blog posting of their newly revamped site, NSMT says:

North Shore Music Theatre is happy to announce the return of THE NSMT BLOG. Our new exciting format will be an informative and exciting editorial magazine style that will mix interviews with video and photo essays. However what we are most excited about is that we want your input on the content. Let us know what you want to read or see and we will update the blog regularly with answers to your questions as well as many other fun facts and insider information.

As a patron of the arts (and NSMT) this blog makes me very excited to see its upcoming production of Bye Bye Birdie –  which I will actually have the opportunity of seeing next weekend!  Here is the video of Bye Bye Birdie they provide on their blog that gives viewers an insider look to their rehearsal process:

Additionally, NSMT uses similar social media tools for its children’s productions.  Another video podcast was created for their recent performance of Frog and Toad.  Here is the video clip for that one:

I’ve always enjoyed productions at NSMT; I even used to be a yearly subscriber to their musical season when I lived in the Boston area.  If I could, I still would be!  Just a bit difficult being an 8 hour drive away…

I’d just like to thank NSMT for embracing these new social media tools.  It is a such a joy to read their blog and watch their videos.  See you next weekend!

Here Comes Everybody!

Clay Shirky’s book, Here Comes Everybody:  The Power of Organizing Without Organizations,  eloquently describes how the Internet revolution’s social tools have given us the ability to form groups with ease we’ve never experienced before, causing major changes in social interactions, politics, and the economy. He compares this change with the invention of the printing press – scribes were put out of business, but the  society as a whole was able to benefit greatly (the increase in supply of books, increased literacy and knowledge, and therefore, increased employment).  With social tools available to us today, many-to-many communications are made easy and allow for a “shared awareness” to spread among people and groups.  Having a shared awareness among people in a group is key for action to take place.

Having lived in Boston during the devastating and shocking news of the abuse scandal in the Catholic Church, it was eye opening to read in Mr. Shirky’s book that it was the formation of the group VOTF (Voice of the Faithful) which led to Bernard Law’s resignation.  VOTF grew from just 30 people to 25,000 in half a year including international members, says Shirky.  VOTF used the Internet to get the word around.  Shirky writes:

What we are witnessing today is a difference in the degree of sharing so large it becomes a difference in kind…What technology did do was alter the spread, force, and especially duration of the reaction, by removing two old obstacles — locality of information and barriers to group reaction…No significant challenge to the hierarchy has ever come directly from the laity — until now.

Additionally, Shirky describes how the power law distribution also applies to social interactions.  I found this particularly interesting because a few weeks ago we read Chris Anderson’s The Long Tail in which he uses the same pattern to describe how online stores like Amazon, Netflix, and iTunes sell a large amount of popular items while the unique and less popular items are sold in small quantities individually, but as a whole, prove to be a large percentage of revenue.  Anderson’s power law distribution looks like this.  When looking at the power law for blogs, Shirky shows us that it looks like this.

Interesting stuff.