Gene Carr's Patron Technology Blog

Do You Have an Open Relationship With Your Software?

From my perch as someone who is watching the development of software systems across the board, there are some trends in the industry that have been happening slowly but surely for the last few years. And these trends more or less define whether a software company is part of yesterday's world, or tomorrow's world. Microsoft has clearly been in yesterday's world, and Google has been on the other end of the spectrum.

So it was of some interest that Ray Ozzie, Microsoft's chief software architect, put out an announcement this week indicating a shift in his company's longer-term strategy. Apparently the big ship Microsoft is shifting direction. His prose is what you would expect from a software executive, and here it is:

"Application design patterns at both the front- and back-end are transitioning toward being compositions and in some cases loose federations of cooperating systems, where standards and interoperability are essential... At a higher level, myriad options exist for delivering applications to the user: The web browser, unique in its ubiquity; the PC, unique in how it brings together interactivity/experience, mobility and storage; the phone, unique in its extreme mobility. Developers will need to build applications that can be delivered seamlessly across a loosely coupled device mesh by utilizing a common set of tools, languages, runtimes and frameworks – a common toolset that spans from the service in the cloud to enterprise server, and from the PC to the browser to the phone."

What he's saying is that the age of the "walled garden" where you buy a closed software system is over. Systems that "talk" to each other and transfer data seamlessly are going to dominate, and will do so using the Web as the transfer medium.

In our case, PatronMail is built that way. We have what's known as an API and we're in the process of partnering with several companies to make the transfer of PatronMail e-mail information happen instantly and automatically. Sadly, in our industry there are still many software companies in the ticketing and fundraising arenas that have not caught this bug. They are still singing the "do it our way, or take the highway" song. And this is to the detriment of you - the arts executive that wants to have "best of breed" software, at the best price.

So if you're out shopping for new software, start thinking differently and asking different questions. Ask how open the systems are. Find out if you can add on other systems to integrate with what you are buying, or if that decision is left solely to the vendor. In my view, vendors should make it as easy as possible for you to get what you want -- that's both good for business and good for our industry.

NBC Universal Redefining What a Television Station Is

Last week I attended a big Internet conference and heard George Kliavkoff, Chief Digital Officer of NBC Universal, talking about what that company is doing online. I came away amazingly impressed by two things, both of which point to a redefinition of the role of television broadcasters.

Let’s start with Hulu.com. If you haven’t heard of it before, the site is a joint venture between Fox and NBC, which has provided a way for consumers to watch full-length episodes of essentially all of the TV series produced by these two mega-networks. The sheer magnitude of this effort in terms of content seems dwarfed in my view by the intelligence with which they approached the user experience. First, there are very few ads during any half-hour show. I’m not sure exactly how many, but I seem to recall it was something like two 30-second ad or four 15-second ads in an hour. That’s arguably a much better experience than watching on traditional television. Not only that, you can cut/paste sections of each show and e-mail your friends, or put them on your Web site or Facebook page. All of this suggests a big-media company that really “gets it.” And, so far, the reaction to Hulu.com has been nearly universally positive for good reason.

This is just one example of a trend I’ve been writing about for a while now. Television and the Internet are quickly becoming the same thing. And watching television on your computer is not even the most important part of the strategy. Kliavkoff suggested that the mobile phone was the company's real target. "We deliver content to screens, and that's the screen that's always with you."

The second thing of note was his discussion about the upcoming Olympics. Last time the Olympics took place, it seemed obvious to me that eventually we would be able to watch any part of the Olympics LIVE, when we wanted to. It always infuriated me that I had to watch what the networks decided I should watch, when they decided I should watch it.

Well, check out these stats. NBC will offer 2,200 hours of LIVE Olympic programming on “all digital platforms” including cell phones and mobile devices. In addition, it will archive and offer 3,600 hours of “on demand” (i.e., recorded) content. According to Kliavkoff this will be the “biggest digital online event in history.” Sure seems so to me, and I think it will forever change our view of what it is to watch and become engaged with the Olympics.

NBC seems to be leading the way in taking the best of broadcast television and transforming it for this new video Internet age we're living in. Impressive.

17% of Arts Patrons Surveyed Read E-mail on their Phones

Every year at about this time, we do a national study of arts patrons' use of the Internet and e-mail. Just like in the past, we worked with about 15 of our clients and sent out surveys to some 75,000 arts patrons across the country. We got back just about 8,000 responses, and we're now starting to sift through the results. I'll be reporting on some of these findings in coming posts, but today I wanted to highlight just one interesting tid-bit of data.

For the first time, I included a question about the degree to which people are reading their e-mail on their cell phones or PDA's, such as a Blackberry. The results show that we're just getting started, but that this is a trend we should all be paying a lot of attention to.

Our survey shows that 83% do not read any e-mail on their phones at all. About 2.5% say they read more than 50% of their e-mail that way, and about 12% say between 1% and 25%.

My guess is that this number is going to go up dramatically in the next year or two, and as it does, we're going to have to respond by altering the content, style and length of our e-mails messages.

Even on an iPhone, where the resolution is as good as you're going to get on a small device, getting the message across in a few words, an image, and a clearly worded subject line is even more important than ever before.

Brevity, clarity and relevance are already watchwords and for the 17% of your patrons that are reading some of their e-mail on their phones now, it's absolutely crucial. 

The Live Video Phone-ization of the World

I've been sitting for a few days with a link to this article from the LA Times, trying to decide if it is a good thing or not. The article talks about Qik.com, a startup I heard about at the NTEN Conference in New Orleans a few weeks ago. There are others doing the same thing, such as Flixwagon.com.

These services provide a way for anyone to stream live video to the Web from their cell phones. My guess is that this technology will soon be ubiquitous. 

If you've been to a rock concert recently, you've probably seen several dozen cameras poking above the heads of the crowd snapping digital pictures, or even recording entire songs or whole concerts which then get posted to Youtube within hours. Soon, those same cell phones will be in the air more or less permanently, recording and streaming the events live.

Aside from the obvious copyright issues (which everyone is dealing with), I've decided that this is ultimately going to be a good thing for non-profits. What may happen is that the burden of broadcasting events (whether they are live concerts, a pre-theatre talk, a lecture, rally, or board meeting) will shift from the organization to all the rest of us. Let's say I'm interested in hearing a pre-theatre talk with a director, but I can't make it to the event and the XYZ theatre staff is just too busy to organize a recording of it. No problem, the audience will be there to take care of it and post it online.

The net result will be that information of a more immediate nature, and of higher quality, will be more accessible more frequently. For any mission-based organization, that can only be a good thing.