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Creating with Social Media

Today, I’ll be speaking at Pratt on the topic of social media. Personally, I hate the phrase social media, but love the ethos of sharing, collaboration, and coordinated groups. For those who can’t make it (or for those tuning in after the discussion), take a look at the articles I’ll be mentioning : Malcolm Gladwell’s article “Small Change : The revolution will not be tweeted” in the New Yorker, as well as Beth Kanter’s reponse, Social Media for Good.

This workshop is partly based on the class I am currently teaching “Creating with Social Media“

you can register for the class here

The Real Life Social Network v2

View more documents from Paul Adams.

Go Take a Hike – with Elastic City

Elastic City Logo

This Summer, Elastic City (one of our recently launched projects), is giving walks throughout New York City. But these are not your typical tourist walks. These walks are led by artists. Todd Shalom, the founder of Elastic City, realized the idea while suffering from altitude sickness in Cusco, Peru.

The walks intend to make its audience active participants in an ongoing poetic exchange with the places we live in and visit. Artists are commissioned by Elastic City to create their own walks. These walks tend to focus less on providing factual information and more on heightening our awareness, exploring our senses and making new group rituals in dialogue with public space in the city.

The walks have been featured in TimeoutNY, WNYC, Wallstreet Journal, Gothamist, and other publications.

To listen Todd talk about the walks on WNYC, click here, or hit play on the player below

Browse the walks listing and rediscover New York.

Upcoming classes at 3rd Ward

This Spring and Summer, I’ll be leading a series of workshops and classes at 3rd Ward. Topics will focus on ecommerce, online marketing, social media, online communications, building an online audience, and finally – a 3-part wordpress workshop.

The classes were initially designed to be taken together, but are now flexible enough to be taken as individual components. Below is a description of all the courses.

Curious about past courses and workshops I’ve led? Want to peruse lots resources or just kill a Saturday nigt? Great. Check out my new archive of workshop resources.

Create Using Social Media

Facebook is now among the top 3 most visited sites in the world. This course will focus on how to leverage platforms like twitter, facebook, and flickr to create dialogue around your work, support your research, and build community. Many artists, non profits, and businesses are successfully using these online publishing platforms to share their mission, values, and process.
Section 1: Tuesday 7:00-10:00p, May 11

More info…

Email marketing is the most effective way to reach your customers, audiences, donors, and constituents. During the workshop, we’ll cover best practices for generating effective email campaigns. We’ll take time to actually consider what you can do to grab your reader, and move them to action.

Section 1: Monday 7-10p, May 24

More info…

Learn the basic mechanisms of e-commerce: who’s involved in transacting online? What are the roles of different parties? What happened when users click the “Submit Order” button? We’ll cover the necessary steps to set up and run your own online store: Get an Internet merchant bank account. Find a reliable host. Learn how to utilize your ecommerce technology.
Section 1: Tuesday 7-10p, May 25

More info…

Setting Up an Ecommerce Site

This winter, I’ll be teaching a series of classes at 3rd Ward. The first part of the series will be a workshop focused on setting up an ecommerce store. We will look at live sites and multiple ecommerce platforms. This will be a great class and flexible enough to meet your needs. Read below for more

REGISTER HERE

COURSE DESCRIPTION

Running an online store enables you to sell your works and products without the constraints of time and space. This seminar serves as a crash course in running your own online business. Two main topics will be covered:

The basic mechanism of e-commerce: who’s involved in transacting online? What are the roles of different parties? What happened when users click the “Submit Order” button?

Steps to set up and run your own online store. Get an Internet merchant bank account. Find a reliable host. Learn how to go about your ecommerce technology. Consider buying an off-the-shelf solution, renting technology from a 3rd party provider, or using open-source or free shopping cart software packages. Learn about payment processing with PayPal, 3rd-party hosting and doing it yourself. Get familiar with shipping methods, managing inventory and your products, securing online transactions, designing your store appearance, and basic search engine optimization (SEO).

Instructor
Jaki Levy founded Arrow Root Media, a New Media Production and Consulting company. Jaki has worked with multiple non-profits, including: Issue Project Room, The Field, Dance/USA, Rockaway Waterfront Alliance, Queens Council on the Arts, DanceBrazil, and Soundstreams.  His online initiatives and work with Misnomer Dance Theater helped the company secure over $1.25 million in grants from the Doris Duke Foundation and the Rockefeller Foundation to help develop new initiatives for the arts online. He was also the recipient of Cisco’s $25,000 Digital Incubator grant. In 2010, he will be officially launching elastic-city.com, a full ecommerce site devoted to artistic walking tours in NYC.

Location
573 Metropolitan (btw Lorimer & Union), Brooklyn

REGISTER HERE

Organizing 2.0: How to Plan for Your Website Redesign

“Failing to plan is planning to fail”
– someone who planned

Whether you’ve got an existing site, or need a new one, you need to plan either way. While a web designer or programmer can help you build a site, it’s up to you to figure out “What do I need?”

Organizing 2.0: How to Plan for Your Website Redesign

(via Julie Blitzer @ Advomatic)

New Site: Hudson Valley BarnHouse

So what’s been happening down at the barn?

Well, glad you asked…

We just recently launched a new site: Hudson Valley BarnHouse

The site was built for a rental property in Warwick, NY offering rentals to vacationers and people who simply want to get away. The site features a full lightbox gallery, fully customizable font colors, and is completely mobile friendly (so people on the go can navigate to the property).

I’ve included a few pictures below, but go ahead and see the site for yourself. Heck – who knows – you just might find a great new deal for your next winter vacation!

Contact
Home Page
Gallery

(thanks to the Elegant Themes community for great support and great themes)

Watch the video below for a glimpse on how the web is touching people everyday.
(via Gawker)

(thanks for the video Mitch!)

Ecommerce Solutions

Note: This post was written for participants in an ecommerce seminar. Please feel free to leave questions + comments below

To sell items online, you need:
a payment gateway (like paypal) to process payments
a good shopping cart solution
an SSL seal (if you’re processing credit cards on your website)

If you’re starting from scratch, don’t have the support of a developer, or just want an online store, consider Shopify. They have beautiful templates, and can help your online store get up and running quickly. Review pricing and take a tour of what
Shopify offers. They’re great!

Below is a “short” list of payment gateways and shopping cart solutions.

PAYMENT GATEWAYS

A payment gateway processes the payment for you. Paypal is by far the most popular payment gateways. Here is a list of other payment gateways.

Paypal
The current leader in processing sales online. They have a great list of resources for shopping carts here.

Google Checkout
Take a look at their merchant center – it’s chock full of resources

ejunkie
A fantastic solution, starts at $5/month. Take a look at their pricing)

Authorize.net
If you want to process credit cards with your own bank, authorize.net is the way to go. Fees usually start at $20/month. You will need to purchase an SSL seal to use Authorize.net.

ONLINE INVOICING

Use Freshbooks. Get a free account on Freshbooks.

SHOPPING CARTS

NOTE: If you’re running your website with WordPress, use WP-ecommerce. If you’re running your website with Drupal, use Ubercart. Otherwise, there are these other solid solutions.

Read more

Facebook Groups are more like Facebook Pages


Facebook Groups have long been a part of the Facebook experience as a way for people to organize and discuss particular issues of interest. However, until now, Group activities have been isolated to the group page and it was often difficult to find out what currently was going on within a group. We have received feedback from many of you saying that you want to know more about what is going on within your Facebook Groups, in the same way you know what is happening with your friends and other connections on the site — on your home page.

Starting today, we’re transforming Groups to make it easier for you to communicate with other members and create a smoother experience as you browse through Facebook. If you don’t see the new design just yet, you will soon. We’re currently testing it with a small percentage of people on the site and will roll it out to everyone in the coming days.

First, we revamped the design for Groups so that they look similar to other parts of the site such as profiles and Pages. This means that groups will now have a Wall that summarizes all the recent activities of people within the group and a Publisher that enables members to share their content.

Second, group activities, which previously only appeared in the group, will now be delivered to your News Feed. To ensure that you get the most interesting and relevant content from groups you’ve joined, you only will see stories when one of your friends posts within a group rather than when all members post. For example, you now will see a story when your friend uploads photos from a recent party at your high school alumni group or when one of your friends posts a message on the Wall of your pick-up soccer group saying that there is a special game this week.

Interacting with Groups will become easier since you can follow the links to the content directly from the News Feed stories or make comments on these stories directly from your home page. You can choose to see only group-related stories on your home page by sorting by Groups from the filters on the left-hand side.

Keep in mind that while Groups and Pages now look the same, they still serve different purposes. Groups are for fostering member-to-member collaboration, while Pages remain the best way to broadcast messages to your fans if you are a business, organization, public figure or other entity.

You can form a Facebook Group around any community you’re connected to in your real life: book clubs, sports teams, churches, whatever you want. To date, there are over 45 million groups on the site. If you aren’t a member of a group yet, search for one to join or start your own.

Social Media Gurus

In February, I did a presentation called, “How to Ruin Your Online Reputation”
One of the sure-fire ways to ruin your reputation is to call yourself a social media guru (or allow others to call you that).

This video sums up the pitfalls of working with a self-proclaimed social media guru

This. Is. Hysterical.
There’s cursing in here, so you may not want to play it at work.

Upcoming: PR Workshop at The Field

Please join me and Fran Kirmser at The Field for a hands-on workshop:
PR for the 21st Century

During this workshop, we will help you plan an effective PR campaign. We will also list best practices, and review tips for reaching traditional press, bloggers, and fans.

Here’s the official word:

In a culture saturated with information, how can an artist continue to stand out from the pack? What are some new (and old) methods to help your work get noticed? Join us at The FAR Space to explore the intersection of traditional marketing streams with newer web-based media platforms. Hear examples of creative and effective marketing campaigns and best-practices for how to get the word out in the 21st century.

6:30 pm – 9pm

Sign up here

The FAR Space
521 West 26th Street, 2nd Floor
Between 10th and 11th Avenues

Upcoming Workshop: Strategies for Internet Outreach

Beginning this Tuesday, I will be leading a 3 week workshop at The Field. The workshop is focused on building a solid and meaningful internet presence, and is geared towards practicing Artists and Arts Organizations, looking to build new audiences and connect with their current base.

The workshop ranges from the very practical nuts + bolts to a broad strategy. In the past, I have given overviews and tutorials of various online platforms including Facebook, Email Marketing Software, Content Management Systems, and WordPress.

I know there are some readers + subscribers who’ve taken the workshop before – I’d love to hear from you!
If you’re reading and have any comments about the past workshops, please feel free to add them here.


CURRENT PARTICIPANTS SHOULD

  1. Join the facebook group for this workshop [click here]. If you don’t have a facebook account, you will need to set one up.
  2. Setup a Tumblr account
  3. Setup a Twitter account, if you don’t already have one
  4. Setup a WordPress Blog on your host (Read this post for help installing a wordpress blog on your host)
  5. Once you have a blog setup, please leave a comment below with a link to your blog

Finally – make sure you subscribe to this blog (sign up on the right hand side) for updates + tutorials

Dance Videos made for the web

Why is “dance made for the web” an important topic?

Elizabeth Zimmer wrote in December 2008, “The past 20 years have seen the proliferation of cheap video equipment, and rare is the downtown stage not shared between dancers and video projections…some of these artists are as savvy as they are gifted, and they will figure out a way to cross over and enter the consciousness of a critical mass of viewers.”

As audiences for dance grow through the web and stage, so does the opportunity to create and share work.
Some it is completely choreographed, others are more improvisational.

I’ve compiled a few videos that give us a peek into the present + future (or death) of dance, art, technology, and the surrounding community dialogue on the web. Please feel free to add links to videos you’ve seen in the comments section.

Also – for a nice overview of videos focused on Ballet, take a look at Doug Fox’s post.


http://dancetech.ning.com/profiles/blogs/dance-tech-episode-1
I will be showing + starting at 12:13


Maybe we all dream to be………? from T.A.G.San Francisco on Vimeo
Dancers: Drew Jacoby and Rubi Pronk
Choreography/art direction: Brian Gibbs
Shot and edited: Mattew Taylor
The piece was shot on a rooftop in Williamsburg Brooklyn

There are many more videos available “below the fold” –
See the full post

Click the MORE link to see the rest of the videos…

Read more

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.