Barry Hessenius Reports on Tuesday at the GIA 2015 Conference
Submitted by Steve on October 21, 2015
The latest post from Barry Hessenius covers his notes from the second day of the Los Angeles Conference.
The major afternoon sessions were three hour offsite. I choose to attend the Digital Media for Arts Grantmakers session, focusing on the need for grantmakers to learn to deploy digital media to reach and engage audiences and to become fluent in digital capabilities and tools. Takeaways:
- Have an articulated game plan, informed by the organization’s overall vision strategy
- Build capabilities, don’t just do projects. Technology is not a project but a process
- Shake up the organization chart with an integration of digital competency positions, including training
- Put audiences first and be prepared for constant change.
- This is, of course, a big, complex area where many arts leaders feel lost and / or incompetent and there are numerous obstacles to embracing full digital knowledge. But as the generational shifts become more urgent, so too is the necessity of overcoming reticence and fears to understand the basics of IT and appreciate the rapidity of change as a constant.