Acknowledging Privilege for Classical Arts

This year I gave my fifth annual talk at the Fresh Inc. Festival for young musicians. I love helping artists. As usual, I spoke about the role of crowdfunding in the life of a young musician. But I tried to take classical music’s privilege a bit more seriously this year, and to address the differences …

2016 Fresh Inc talk on crowdfunding

This week I gave my fourth annual half-hour talk on crowdfunding to the Fresh Inc Festival, run by Melissa Snoza and the Fifth House Ensemble in Chicago. After all these years Melissa and I have still never been in the same place; one day we’ll have to fix that. I like to post something about …

Kickstarter’s 5% Pledge

This week, Kickstarter announced their reincorporation as a benefit corporation. They’re not a non-profit, but this is still a significant move for the company. A key part of their new charter is a pledge to contribute 5% of their profits to charity. There’s a certain symmetry to that: Kickstarter users pay 5% of their revenue …

How Non-Profits Can Learn From Tech Startups

There’s a lot non-profits can learn from the tech industry. Of course, when I say that, sometimes people think I mean that non-profits should emulate startups and their culture, complete with the venture capital, the ping pong, and the gender equity issues. Unsurprisingly, that’s not what I mean. For more on the tech sector’s issues …

YouTube launches Crowdfunding as a feature

It was only a matter of time. It used to be that social networking was a specialized feature that was only done by specialized websites. Then social became a must-have feature for everyone. That’s what’s happening now to crowdfunding. YouTube is adding a tip feature to its channel, announced in this blog post: Fan Funding: …

Stock Tips

Rachel Fershleiser once said “If I die, tell the New York Times I liked soup.” Then she made this soup zine with her friend Ami Greko. I think the Times will be able to figure it out on their own. Most of the zine (which you should buy at Housingworks) is made up of recipes, …

Fresh Inc. Talk on Crowdfunding

In a lot of ways this is the fourth post in my oft-referred-to Kickstarter planning series from back in the day, and from over in the sidebar. This is the as-prepared text of my talk for The Fresh Inc Festival, which is happening right now in and around Chicago and Milwaukee. The talk is specifically …

Laser-etched Victory Stele

My brother, Dennis, was about to turn thirty. My partner, Victoria, and I, wanted to give him something monumental… like a monument. So we decided to list all his accomplishments on a victory stele. I love this thing so much. Now, this is an old-fashioned thing to do. Very old-fashioned. Bronze Age Near East kind …

NAMPC post-game

The National Arts Marketing Project conference was a blast. There were lots of smart people, the conference was very well organized, and I was upside down (photo credit: @lynnekingsley). It rocked. I spoke with Sara Eileen Hames and Casey Middaugh about how arts organizations can use Kickstarter to rapidly prototype programming ideas while engaging communities. …

Ruckus NYC Totally Rocked

We’re coming up on two weeks since Ruckus NYC. After recovering from a computer failure, we can begin work on the conference videos and concert footage. Also in that time we’ve been paying artists and speakers $50 each. With almost three dozen people involved, we’re very proud to be able to pay even this amount. …

Why Ruckus NYC?

I’ve been saying it a lot recently: Ruckus NYC is a one-day conference and concert about art and the internet, happening on September 29th at Cooper Union. It’s going to be awesome. But something else has been bubbling up in my head, about why we’re doing this, and why it’s important. Neil Gaiman was right …

RUCKUS NYC is live on Kickstarter!

Which means that yes, I am asking you for money. It’s been about a year and a half, but finally, instead of writing about Kickstarter I am once again using Kickstarter. RUCKUS NYC means a lot to me, and I hope you’ll want to be a part of it. It’s the next step in work …