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Author: Jaki Levy

Upcoming Talks | Ignite NYC and Arts, Culture, & Tech Meetup

This week, I’ll be speaking at two very exciting events. Details follow below:

MONDAY

Ignite NYC III

Rocketboom will kickoff the night with “Know Your Meme: The Game Show! Pwn, Win, or Fail!” Hosted by the cast of Know Your Meme: Jamiedubs, Elspethjane, and Yatta. Contestants: Rex Sorgatz (Fimoculous), Gavin Purcell (Attack of the Show / Jimmy Fallon Show), Peter Rojas (Engadget / RCRD LBL), Nate Westheimer (Innonate), and Kelly Reeves (URLesque) vs Michelle DeForest (Next New Networks), Bre Pettis (NYC Resistor), Caroline McCarthy (CNET), Irene Polnyi (Internetfamo.us), and Tim Shey (Next New Networks). The game show that tests your knowledge of all things Internet in just twenty questions and a lightning round.
Speakers for the Ignite Talks include:
Jen Bekman– “Overcrowded”
Alex Bisceglie– “DataVisualization: Muppet Fur Coats”
Dennis Crowley– “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Family Feud in Under 5 Minutes”
Cory Forsyth– “How to Piss Off the FCC”
Michael Galpert– “Images On the Internets Seem Realer Than They Are”
Andrew Hoppin
Jonathan Kahan– “Cutting Edge Technology: The Samurai Sword”
Jaki Levy– “How to Screw up Your Reputation Or the Reputation of Your Company Online”
Jooyoung Oh– “Unemployment 101″
David Overholt– “Fail Often”
Ed Purver– “A Show of Hands”
Scott Rafer– “An Overnight Success in Just 15 Years”
Britta Riley– “R&D-I-Y”
Karen Sandler– “Unchain My Heart”
Naveen Selvadurai– “In Case of FIre, Break Glass”
Rob Seward– “The Collective Unconscious of 1980s Florida”
Noah B. Zark– “Near Future Augmented Reality Systems”

Here’s how the night will run:
6:30PM- Doors
6:30-7:30PM- Happy Hour: $2 Buds and $5 mixed drink
7:30-8PM- Know Your Meme: The Game Show! Pwn, Win, or Fail! with Rocketboom
8:30-Ignite Talks begin
10pm- Ignite talks end
12am- Event ends

You can start following the event on @ignitenyc on Twitter and subscribing to the RSS feed on http://ignite.oreilly.com/new-york-city/

On Tuesday, I will speaking at Ars Nova

http://www.meetup.com/Arts-Culture-and-Technology/

Christina Ray of Glowlab Gallery
Manish Vora of Artlog
Barry Hoggard of ArtCal, ArtCat and Culture Pundits
Victor Samra of MoMA
Amanda McCormick of The Film Society of Lincoln Center
Jaki Levy of Arrow Root Media
Luke Crawford of Muxtape
David Garrison of Indaba Music
Michael Sabat of Mobile Commons

(speaker bios and links can be found here: www.juliaxgulia.com)

Presentations will begin promptly at 7:15pm, lasting 5 min each, and will be followed by an opportunity to mix and mingle.

Call for Proposals | Twitterate

New modes of communication create new meanings, and new narratives. With the rise of the twitterverse, new vocabulary has given way to new modes of dialogue.

a canary torsi is currently commissioning the creation of a new work using Twitter + Twitter’s API. Participants will be asked to take 2 existing twitter feeds of 2 fictional characters and develop a new art work in the form of:

1. an installation
2. website, micro-site, or web app
3. data visualization
4. or any other suitable medium

The (fictional) Twitter feeds (@Doghebitedme and @Darkbloom8) are connected to a live dance performance that takes place in public bathrooms. They are the two characters in the piece. The dance is set to premiere in New York at the Gershwin Hotel in June 2009. If selected, your piece will be shown in conjunction with the June performance and will be promoted with the staged show.

We want to see projects addressing these questions + themes:
How are asynchronous conversations taking place online?
What is public and private information?

The winning proposal will receive $1000 to create their work.

How to Submit:
1. Download the applications here: http://arrowrootmedia.com/twitterate.doc
2. Email your completed proposals to [email protected]

Proposals are due by March 16, 2009.
Notifications will go out April 1, 2009.
The project will be expected to launch by May 30, 2009.

Links:
http://twitter.com/doghebitedme
http://twitter.com/darkbloom8
http://www.yaniracastrocompany.org/flash/index.html

About the Author: The twitter feeds are written by Rozalia Jovanovic, a writer in Columbia University’s MFA program who was a recent fellow at The MacDowell Colony. Her writing has appeared in Guernica, Elimae and Esquire.com, and is forthcoming in The Believer.

About a canary torsi:
a canary torsi is a new structure under which Yanira Castro makes work alone and with others. It is a repository, a card catalogue, a way of inciting others, housing the things we make and making them available to you. It is a way of presenting.

Yanira Castro is a director/choreographer living in Brooklyn. She has made dance installations for theaters, warehouses, bathrooms, a cellar, a former bathhouse. She is interested in constructing scenarios for people that engage different ways of experiencing live performance: you are separated from your companions upon arrival; you are given your own headphones to overhear a surgery; you watch a live performance from a TV in your hotel room; you are shut inside a bathroom with two people having an emotional exchange. She forces a personal encounter with the work. Yanira is the instigator of a canary torsi and is currently engaged in the creation of interactive cyber-environments that act as stand-alone works and are connected to a live performance.

Social Media Week NYC | Arts + Technology

Join us this Monday, 12-2pm, for a panel about Art and Social Media during Social Media Week.

Location:
Brand Experience Lab
Address:
520 Broadway, 5th Floor
New York, NY 10012 (map)

If you can’t make it on Monday, you can follow along on twitter.

Social Media week aims to create an open and inclusive environment offering a series of free events, including workshops and panel discussions, and a platform for individuals, group and companies to organize their own activities. The week’s activities have been designed to bring together the NYC community and draw attention to the incredible talent, innovation and entrepreneurial spirit that continues to grow in this city.
Social Media Week aims to:

  1. Be open and inclusive
  2. Drive growth and innovation
  3. Be Entertaining and inspiring
  4. Focus on those who ‘do’ rather than those who say they ‘do’
  5. Be a platform for real world connections

RSVP for the panel on Monday here: http://event.pingg.com/ArtSocialMedia

About Monday’s Panel | Art & Social Media: Beautiful/Critical Comings-Together

Description: Artists, art administrators and social media pros gather to hash out some of the key opportunities and challenges of mixing art, art institutions, and social media. The panel with present projects that use social media tools and concepts to make and distribute art; to critique and engage the market; and to shift how art is presented to and consumed by the public. We will facilitate a participant driven debate about the possibilities, partnerships, and tensions that exists between art and social media.
www.socialmediaweekny.com

Panelists:

Will Cary – Will is the Membership Manager at the Brooklyn Museum. In addition to making sure all Brooklyn Museum Members get the most out of their Membership, he also developed the new 1stfans Membership program in order to grow the Museum’s community of supporters. Before joining the Brooklyn Museum in January 2008, Will worked at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Whitney Museum of American Art, and the Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute. Will graduated from Williams College with a degree in Art History and Economics.
www.brooklynmuseum.org/community/blogosphere/bloggers/author/caryd/

Jeff Crouse – Jeff is an artist and current fellow at Eyebeam. Jeff creates software and installations that are equal parts humor, absurdity and technology. Jeff’s previous work includes YouThreebe, a YouTube triptych creator; Invisible Threads, a virtual jeans factory in Second Life; and James Chimpton, a robotic monkey that interviewed the artists of the 2008 Whitney Biennial. He is currently developing BoozBot, a bar tending robot/puppet; and DeleteCity, a WordPress plug-in that finds and republishes content that has been taken down from sites such as Flickr and YouTube. His work has been shown at the Sundance Film Festival, the Futuresonic festival in Manchester, UK, the DC FilmFest, and the Come Out and Play Festival in Amsterdam.
www.jeffcrouse.info

Jaki Levy – Jaki is the Founder of Arrow Root Media. He has worked with multiple non-profits, including: The Field, Martha Graham Dance, Dance/USA, Rockaway Waterfront Alliance, Queens Council on the Arts, and Soundstreams. Jaki’s initiatives and work with Misnomer Dance Theater helped the company secure over $1.5 million in grants from the Doris Duke Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation to help develop new initiatives for the developing online audiences. He was also the recipient of Cisco’s $25,000 Digital Incubator grant.
www.arrowrootmedia.com

Erik Fabian (moderator) – Erik provides consulting services for two constituencies: 1) he helps creative, mission-based ventures create a sustainable business foundation for their visions, and 2) he helps brands and marketing companies apply contemporary creative processes to design remarkable experiences for their consumers. Erik is starting a new venture that will bring creative and conscious capitalists together to create new businesses and IP. Erik is also an artist working in performance, installation and conceptual art. His ongoing project, the Silver Ticket Project, explores the value of art during inflationary economic periods. Erik graduated with a Masters of Fine
Art degree from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
www.ErikAndTheAnimals.com

Online Invoicing and Document Resources for Running your Business

After seeing @juliaxgulia’s question on twitter about creating online invoicing, I started looking for sites that help businesses run. I’ve put together short list of resources and tools that help businesses, freelancers, and other folks collaborate and run organizations.

INVOICING

For creating and sending invoices, Freshbooks.com is definitely the standard.

There are also a few alternatives:
http://www.fluttervoice.co.za/
http://www.blinksale.com/home
http://www.invoiceplace.com/invoice/
http://www.invoicesmadeeasy.com/
http://www.simplyinvoices.com/

For project management…
Currently, I use Basecamp to manage projects, but found Collabtive, a free alternative that can run on your own server. Installation is required, and is not as slick as Basecamp, but then again, it’s free and works great. I think both services are great for sharing files, and managing any kind of project. In addition to freelancers, I’ve seen marketing firms and ad agenices use these services too.

For other alternatives to Basecamp, read WhyBaseCampSux

BUSINESS TEMPLATES + DOCUMENTS

Finally, take a look at Docstoc. They have a full collection of templates for contracts, invoices, and other business documents.

Scribd is another popular site for sharing documents. From their site: “Scribd is the place where you publish, discover and discuss original writings and documents. More than 50 million people each month are finding or sharing fun, functional or fantastical writings and documents on Scribd.com and tens of thousands of other websites that have embedded Scribd’s document reader.”

For an interesting look at how people are using Scribd, take a look at Obama’s Scribd account.

What online tools do you use to run your business?

New Site Launch | Issue Project Room

Very exciting news – today we launched a new site for Issue Project Room, a non-profit based in Brooklyn.

http://issueprojectroom.org
http://issueprojectroom.org

From the site: ISSUE Project Room provides an open and versatile environment in which established and emerging artists conduct, exhibit and perform new and site-specific work. Through an evolving collaboration with curators, artists and educators, ISSUE Project Room foments widely ranging artistic projects that challenge and expand artistic practice.

Issue Project Room rounds out a full year of web development, and new media production from my side.

It’s been great working with creative+thoughtful individuals & organizations across the spectrum. Here’s to a wonderful ’09!

And stay tuned for a full project overview!

iPhone Apps for the holidays

This is the first article I’m writing from an iPhone. This holiday season my sister graced me with this device. Unfortunately I had to spend several hours unlocking it because I have tmobile. Tmobile however does support iPhones and was able to help me get setup.

I’ve also spent some time downloading apps for the iPhone. I’ve listed a few good free ones to look out for

1. WordPress app – allows you to blog from your phone

2. Shozu – connect your camera phone to your flickr Facebook or YouTube account

3. Mint app – get your financial information directly on your iPhone. You must setup an account on mint.com to use this app. Very worthwhile. Also, I would recommend setting a lock code on your phone so if your phone is lost your info is safe.

4. FreshBooks app – for freelancers and professionals. Track your time and invoice your clients from your phone.

5. GooSync app – sync your contacts, google calendar, iCal, and other info between your phone, computer, and google accounts

6. Twitterific app – one of the better twitted reader and writer for your iPhone

What iPhone apps are you using?

Geek-a-zine Show | LIVE 12-15-08 – With Peter Radizeski and Jaki Levy

Peter Radizeski and I were recently guests on Jeffrey Powers’ show, Geek-a-zine, on UStream.tv.

We spoke about cell phones, the data on them (McCain’s and Obamas Blackberry issues), elections in Estonia, Yahoo email and their new social rollout, the Palm Nova, and a whole lot more.

Check out the show below, and catch his show every Monday, at 7pm on Geekazine’s UStream channel.

Part I – Introductions

Part II – Yahoo’s new design, Estonia’s SMS voting, Blackberry issues on Capitol Hill, and the new Palm OS

A few related links on what we spoke about
Yahoo Goes Social – TechCrunch
Estonia to vote via SMS
A reporter finds private campaign info on McCain’s BlackBerry purchased at a garage sale
Obama will hire a Chief Technology Officer
Wall Street Journal, Google, and Net Neutrality
Google violates Net Neutrality – not
Jan Chipchase, Nokia, and the Use of Cell Phones around the World – a fascinating look at cell phone culture around the world
I read this article when it was pulished, but re-found it via Designing for Humans

WordPress Tutorials, Video Mode

I found a GREAT repository for video tutorials on wordpress – I’ve listed a few below, but make sure to visit SpeckyBoy for theFULL LIST of TUTORIALS.

WordPress 2.6 Video Collection 

via ithemes.com
Wordpress Video Collection· WordPress Overview › (Basic).
· How to edit Posts/Pages › (Basic).
· How widgets work › (Basic).
· How to Upgrade WordPress Using the Automatic Plugin › (Basic).
· How to Add new Users › (Basic).
· How to Change/Activate Themes › (Basic).
· WordPress Settings Overview › (Basic).
· How to login to WP Dashboard › (Basic).

WordPress Video Collection from siteground.com

Wordpress Video Collection· How to install WordPress › (Basic).
· Getting started with WordPress › (Basic).
· Arrange your blog posts in categories › (Basic).
· Manage comments in WordPress › (Basic).
· How to change the theme › (Basic).
· How to install WordPress plugins › (Basic).
· Create a backup of WordPress › (Advanced).
· How to upgrade the WordPress version (Basic).

WordPress Video Collection from killersites.com

Wordpress Video Collection· Installing WordPress › (Basic).
· Configuring WordPress Part 1-8 (Advanced).
· Customizing the WordPress Text Editor › (Basic).
· Introduction to building WordPress themes ›. (Advanced).
· Building a WordPress Template Part 1 of 3 ›. (Advanced).
· Building a WordPress Template Part 2 of 3 themes ›. (Advanced).
· Building a WordPress Template Part 3 of 3 ›. (Advanced).

Social Media, Web2.0, and other buzzwords explained

I found this great New Media primer [via Theater North Carolina].

Read this excerpt, then read the full article (link listed below)

Deciding if social networking is going to be an asset or liability is dependent on how your company chooses to approach it.

Companies who look first to their communications objectives and selectively choose which aspects of social networking can accentuate their messaging are the most successful.

Those that choose to look on social networking as a means to blanketing the connected world with their messaging fail.

Whether social networking is going to be an asset or liability depends on your decisions of how to use it.

Starting With Web 2.0

The idea of the Internet being more responsive and participatory is one of the aspects of Web 2.0, a concept defined by Tim O’Reilly and Dale Dougherty of O’Reilly Media.

One of the best books written about the adoption of Web 2.0 and the rapid growth and popularity of social networking sites is Groundswell by Charlene Li and Josh Bernoff, from Forrester Research.

Josh Bernoff writes the Groundswell blog as well.

Subscribing to it gives an excellent education on how social networking is changing how companies are adopting these technologies.

[Make sure you read the full article for a great explanation of all the buzz words of our web2.0 culture]

YouTube Symphony Orchestra : Building a symphony online

YouTube + Google have launched the YouTube Symphony, a place where anyone can audition for Carnegie Hall.

A few other places (including the New York Times) are talking about it:

I initially read it on Andrew Taylor’s blog, The Artful Manager, but there are many other blogs talking about this great contest.
So what is it? According to Jaime Weinman
musicians make videos of themselves playing a particular part in a short piece by the composer Tan Dun. They also make a more standard audition video of themselves playing their usual repertoire. They submit their videos by January 28, and the judges pick the winners. Then YouTube creates a mashup where they combine the winning parts into an “online orchestra,” and then the winners are flown to New York to do a live performance at Carnegie Hall in April under veteran conductor Michael Tilson Thomas.
How did this idea happen? Greg Sandow wrote an interesting article on this and gives us a quick summary:
Two guys at Google came up with the idea (Google owns YouTube), and pitched it to the rest of the company. The rest of the company liked it, so Google went ahead, and found classical music partners to join in the fun.Â
This Washington Post article also gives a nice overview of the contest.
Is this a good idea? Will this water down classical music while bringing it to larger audience? Or will it be a great success?

Setting up Facebook Ads: Part 1

This past month, I setup a facebook ad campaign for a company. There are many who say that facebook ads do not work. For the purpose of this article, I will disagree with them. The goal for the campaign was to generate awareness about the company on facebook, and it worked.  I was able to target my ad according to age, demographics, interest, price, and schedule. I was also able to track the results of the ad in real time.  

For this test campaign, I budgeted $20/day. As I stated above, my main goals were simply to build awareness of the company, and drive traffic to their facebook page and promote their event on facebook. In a matter of days, the ad appeared on facebook over 300,000 times. 107 people clicked on the ad. In terms of clicks, this is wildly disproportionate to other ad networks like Google. Nonetheless, there was a small, but extremely relevant increase in participation.  Here’s a breakdown of stats

 

Impressions: 328,307 Clicks: 107 Click through rate: 0.03%     total spent: $64.01

I knew the benefit of setting up a campaign on facebook would be the targeting that facebook provides. For example, if I wanted to reach people who are interested in Aerosmith, The Who, and/or The Daily Show, I had the option of doing so. And my ad also appeared ALOT.

If you’re looking for impressions (awareness), facebook is a good platform. If you’re looking for direct conversions (leading to purchases), I would still consider it. However, I would strongly consider running a google adwords campaign at the same time to compare results.

For those interested in running a campaign, I’ve attached some visuals.

Below are a few screenshots of what the ad setup process looks like on facebook. 

\fb_ad1afb_ad_1bfb_ad1

If you’ve run a facebook ad, or are thinking of doing it, let me know. I would love to hear your thoughts, comments, and questions. What are you looking to advertise? What are your expectations for setting up the ad? What do you want your audience to do?  What kind of results do you expect?

We’ve launched Daniel Gwirtzman’s site!

I’m happy to say we’ve officially launched Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company’s new site!

Actually, I’m quite impressed with the final product we put together for the Daniel Gwirtzman Dance Company. With the help of great media all around, we were able to piece together a photo gallery, a video gallery, a new subscription system, and even an SMS delivery system for his audiences.

It’s really been great working with Daniel and his company. They really did a phenomenal job in gathering their assets, organizing their content, and creating compelling videos. Congratulations, Daniel! It’s exciting to know I’ll be able to continue to help you communicate your wonderful work!

If you like this, take a look at my other work.

[screenshots follow]

http://gwirtzmandance.org/

About Page | Features: Large Image on each page, drop-down navigation, links to video gallery, customizable sidebar navigation

http://gwirtzmandance.org/

Home Page | Features: Slide show, customizable footer area, drop-down navigation bar

While launching the site, I found this guide to be particularly useful:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Giving_WordPress_Its_Own_Directory

I initially setup this wordpress site in a subdirectory ( /wordpress ) so that I could develop things without affecting their active site. After the wordpress site was all setup, I needed to make the switch. The article above did the trick for me.

I’d love to hear your thoughts – share your ideas and leave a comment!

Great WordPress Plugins for Flickr

[via speckyboy]

Flickr and wordpress have really changed the web-0-sphere. They simply make sharing multimedia, photos, and ideas simpler. During my endless search for more great wordpress plugins, I began searching for easy ways to integrate flickr with wordpress, and saw this great article.

If you’re looking to integrate photos into your wordpress site, install these plugins and get crackin’ !

[Most of the content here is a repost. Click for the full article.]

Flickr Photo Album for WordPress

Wordpress Flickr PluginDescription: This Flickr plugin for WordPress will allow you to pull in your Flickr photosets and display them as albums on your WordPress site. There is a pretty simple template provided, but you can customize the templates 100% to match the look and feel of your own site. And if you want, you could also hook it up with Lightbox or any other number of display libraries.

On the backend, this plugin will also add a new Flickr icon to your WordPress edit screen which will allow you to easily insert your Flickr photos into your blog posts with just a couple clicks. You can either have your inserted photos link back to your WordPress Flickr photo album or directly to your Flickr.com photo page.
URL: http://tantannoodles.com/toolkit/photo-album/.

Flickr Manager for WordPress

Wordpress Flickr PluginDescription: WordPress Flickr Manager is an easy to use plugin that seamlessly integrates your Flickr account with your WordPress backend. It replaces the browse panel from previous versions, but legacy mode can be enabled through the options menu. You also have the choice between Highslide and Lightbox.
URL: http://tgardner.net/wordpress-flickr-manager/.

Flickr Tag Plugin for WordPress

Wordpress Flickr PluginDescription: This plugin downloads all of your Flickr images onto your own server and allows them to appear on your own gallery. Nice and simple.
URL: http://www.webopticon.com/archives/148.

SimpleFlickr for WordPress

Wordpress Flickr PluginDescription: This is a plugin for WordPress that allows you to embed a flickr integrated simpleviewer into your WordPress site. In addition, you are able to specify a path to a standard SimpleViewer XML configuration file to display images from a local gallery.
URL: http://wordpress.org/simpleflickr/.

Slickr Gallery for WordPress

Description: Slickr Gallery is a very fast, bandwidth-friendly photo gallery plugin for WordPress. It allows you to pull your Flickr-hosted photos into a gallery section of your blog, as well as easily add Flickr-hosted images to your posts and pages. It is especially useful for people with many Flickr albums/photos.
Slickr Gallery needs a Lightbox plugin to work properly.
URL: http://stimuli.ca/slickr/.

FlickrRSS for WordPress

Description: This plugin for WordPress allows you to display Flickr photos on your weblog. It supports user, set, favorite, group and community photostreams, and is relatively easy to setup and configure via a settings panel. The plugin also has cache support, allowing you to save thumbnails on your own server.
URL: http://eightface.com/wordpress/flickrrss/.

Flickr Thumbnail Photo stream for WordPress

Description: The Flickr Thumbnail Photostream WordPress plugin makes including and linking to photos on a Flickr account simple and flexible. The links come in the form of thumbnail images that link to their larger, normal formats within the Flickr website. The advantage of this plugin is that it does not use RSS feeds and uses the Flickr API instead.
URL: Flickr Thumbnail Photostream.

Flickr Gallery for WordPress

Description: Using the “shortcodes” system in WordPress 2.5 and up, this plugin will allow you to quickly and easily incorporate your Flickr photos into your WordPress pages and posts.
URL: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/flickr-gallery/.

Thanks to speckyboy for a great article!

Make sure to visit his site for more great wordpress tips.

National Arts Marketing Project Conference

This week is the National Arts Marketing Project Conference.

For those interested in how the new ways of the web are affecting the arts and beyond read on!

The Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City published these two very interesting reports – well worth a read. These publications are being discussed at the National Arts Marketing Project Conference.

KC Collaborative Audience Development Exec Summary
June 20, 2008
This executive summary provides a brief overview of a three-phased audience development research project initiated by the Arts Council of Metropolitan Kansas City and conducted by Surale Phillips between 2003 to 2008. The job of connecting with arts audiences is getting tougher in an increasingly competitive world. Adding to this challenge is the fact that arts organizations often work in isolation, unaware of research and replicable innovations from across town or from across the nation. This report offers guidance for finding new audiences and connecting with all audiences in meaningful ways.

KC Collaborative Audience Development Phase III
June 20, 2008
This report focuses on the many lessons learned by arts organizations in the Kansas City metropolitan area in a multi-year collaborative audience development project. As noted by Jerry Yoshitomi, the findings of Phase III of the project align with recent research in social psychology and marketing, as well as the Web 2.0, social marketing, self-curated world that is emerging. The recommendations and tools included in the full report take into consideration the changes in cultural communication methods and make use of new, more efficient ways of using technology to keep marketing costs down while increasing patron connection and response.

AYN Brand has also published this great web2.0 primer. Take a look through the presentation below:

AYN Brand : T3 Workshop – Social Media & Web 2.0 Primer

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: media social)