The Cello Wars

The piano guys have a different take on Star Wars. Intergalactic riffs, YouTube entrepreneurship, cello wars. 

Weebly.com

There has been some interest on how I created my website. The service is weebly.com and it is awesome. The site allows you to create a free site and has a large selection of formatting pallets. The general look of the site feels more like a professional website than services like blogspot. The greatest service is that weebly allows you to purchase your actually domain name for fairly cheap and continue to use their templates for managing the site. For example, chrisdorn.com is already taken, however I could purchase chrisdorn.net for 35 buck a year, and that domain would be legally mine. Pretty sweet. So check out weebly.com, it is a great service for displaying your art.

Pop-Up Gallery Presentation!

Tonight at 5pm in the Wriston seminar room our group will be giving a presentation to faculty and students. We're hoping to find others who are interested in our project to help us as we continue forward with it next year! Come and hear us and let us know what you think!

Entrepreneurial Spirit

So haven been inspired from our class I decided it was time to make a website to display my art. One of the better free services I've found is Weebly. Their templates are more 'artsy' and conducive to displaying picture. I have also found that managing the site is much easier than blogspot. You can reach the site at www.chrisdorn.weebly.com . I am still filling things in but I would really appreciate any feedback you might have. Thanks!

Apple, "The Biggest Start Up on the Planet?"

The nerdy side of me is a big fan and follower of Apple Inc. and tonight I was reading through the notes from an interview with Apple CEO, Steve Jobs, at the D Conference. The usually tightlipped and secretive Jobs actually opens up a little bit about his role in the company and gave a very interesting response to "What do you do all day?"

One of the keys to Apple is that Apple is an incredibly collaborative company. You know how many committees we have at Apple? Zero. We're organized like a startup. We're the biggest start up on the planet. We meet for 3 hours every morning and talk about all the business, about what's going on everywhere. We're great at figuring out how to divide things up into great teams, and we talk to each other. So what I do all day is meet with teams of people.

For a company that just passed Microsoft in market capitalization [an estimation of the value of a business that is obtained by multiplying the number of shares outstanding by the current price of a share] to be the second largest US company behind Exxon-Mobil (Apple now valued at $222 billion), this seems to be quite a statement. Keeping that startup mentality seems to be key to innovation and not getting caught up in the day to day operations that may hinder new product development when the size of a company grows. I suppose the takeaway is: fear not, big companies can be innovators too if they don't get bogged down in bureaucracy of their massive operations.

Starting Young

This eleven year-old created a mobile dance academy. She created a business plan and implemented it with her mother's help. So far she's taken in over $10,000 and has her own investment advisor. She's saving up to go to Harvard Medical School to become a (dancing) obstetrician.

Appleton's Own Pop-Up Gallery Now Has a Facebook Page!

Yay!!! Click here if you'd like to join our incredibly awesome group!

Pepsi Refresh

The Pepsi Refresh Project is designed to solicit creative ideas that will positively impact communities. Ideas are submitted in the categories of health, the arts/culture, food and shelter, environment, education, and neighborhoods. Ideas and votes are submitted online, with funding for top-rated projects generated from a fund of $1,300,00. With voting closing at the end of the month, ideas in the arts/culture category are widely varied- ranging from requests for instruments and music for low income schools, to “painting from memory” art projects for Alzheimers’ patients, and starting a company to provide free promotion to musical artists. This seems like an excellent manner in which to tap unlimited creative ideas for future projects. Even some of the projects for this course would be good candidates for submission…

review week

As we reviewed the notes from all the visitors this week, I found it very helpful to put them together. I have to say that all the visitors who came to our class were those who are quite successful in their field and they did not success because of luck. They all have passion of what they are doing and they know what they are doing. They are all very good at planning their career, it is not just about networking and being good at getting money, it is a lifestyle they chose, and they are all responsible of their decisions.

David Cutler's blog

I know it's been a week or two since David Cutler came to class, but this past week I took the time to check out his blog. It's a great blog because it's not only posts by him on subjects he wishes to explore, but there are blog posts from people and institutions all over. One that I found helpful for our groups project was Guerilla Chamber Music that was posted by Ohio State University. This specific post detailed how Ohio State wanted to have their School of Music make a bigger impression on the student body. They took a challenge put forth from Mr. Cutler to create ensembles of 4 people or less and then they put on a concert. Instead of having a traditional concert venue, they performed in their student union while students walked in and out.

Unreasonable People

For the other entrepreneurship course we were required to do a book or article review, and so I picked up The Power of Unreasonable People by John Elkington and Pamela Hartigan. This book outlines the power that social enterprises can harness to create social change and in doing so the book gives many examples of enterprises that are doing just that. One point the book illustrates is that just like a commercial business, social enterprises must be able to find funding sources if they are to create the change they aim for, and make this change sustainable. Some enterprises that are creating sustainable change actually run more like a business and less like a typical non-profit. One example is of a dairy farm that employs mentally ill people. Very few customers who buy the dairy product know who is behind the production. So even though the public is not aware of the change the company is driving, the target population is still being helped and the organization's aim is aided by the fact that is is able to earn profits.

the poor musician is in the Conservatory!

Here are a few pictures of our event this week! We had so many people who LOVED our idea! Also our fishbowl of information is filling up quickly. To keep up the great work we are going to table again next Thursday.

Copyrighting Fashion

A post today on the New York Times' Economix Blog raised an interesting question that we have touched on to some extent in our class. Copyrights and patents serve as barriers to entry and protect the innovations of entrepreneurs at least for a little while. This protection is not extended to fashion designs however. Economix posts a video from TED, previously mentioned on our blog, about how the industry has still thrived despite the lack of copyrights.

Read the full post here.

The Importance and Difficulty of Documenting Art

I came across a film called Umbrellas and after revisiting Deb Loewen's statement about the importance of documenting your work, this documentary seemed that much more impressive. Here is a description from IMDB:

The controversial story of the artist Christo's grand-scale environmental art project in Japan and California [Christo's Website] that ended in the tragic death of two of its spectators. At its world premiere in 1994 at the Berlin International Film Festival, Howard Feinstein of Variety praised the film as, "highly original and structurally flawless . . . an ambitious documentary about an ambitious project." Umbrellas won The Grand Prize at the Montreal International Film Festival. It was shown at The Museum of Modern Art, New York, The National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C. and The Louvre Museum, Paris and on the European network ARTE.

You may remember or even have seen first hand Christo's Gates installation in Central Park in New York City. Capturing this type of installation artwork is difficult and the scale is always so grand that when compressing that size in any way through still or moving pictures some of the intent is lost. However the film Umbrellas and The Gates are collaborative efforts between installation artist and film maker. The outcome is truly another work of art that would not be possible without the talents of either contributor.

Business Plan

I know I've pointed out this book before, but I wanted to mention it again as we discuss business plans in class. This book was a great tool for me in putting together the business plan for the baroque ensemble because it is specifically geared towards nonprofits, and planning is very mission-centric. While the format they suggest for the plan is slightly different than the Harvard Business Publishing packet, I still found it incredibly useful, and Wolf is able to pose questions in a clear and concise way that help you to really think out your plan and get it down on paper. I would highly recommend it to all of you the section on "Planning".

Angels

After the brief debate we had in class on Tuesday, I decided to see if I could find the origins of the term "angel investor." Unfortunately, all google told me was this:

The term "angel" comes from the practice in the early 1900's of wealthy businessmen investing in Broadway productions. Today "angels" typically offer expertise, experience and contacts in addition to money.

It doesn't quite seem to fit with what Gary and Adam were saying, and I was wondering if anyone else found better information than I did!

Here's a couple of the sites I visited:

Small Business Notes
Investopedia
New Mexico Angels

Seth Godin

I previously posted about one of Seth Godin's books and wanted to make everyone aware of his blog. He generally posts something new everyday (even weekends). While each of his books centers around a specific topic, the blog posts cover a variety of subjects and in no particular order. Many of his posts look toward the future of business and discuss not only the changes that are underway now, but those that businesses (and surrounding society) will face in the years to come.

Lawrence Baroque Presents....

Thursday June 3 - Esch Studio, Warch Campus Center

5:00-6:00 Dance instruction with Jill Beck & Meleé Dance Troupe

No dance experience necessary!

6:30-7:30 Chamber Concert & Dancing with live music

7:30-8:30 Reception & Refreshments in the Mead-Witter Room

Free & Open to the Public

" Selling Out "

The one concept which struck me most from David Cutler's talk was the idea of "selling out." On the one hand, I have always wanted to be a classical figure artist...on the other, I realize that in this modern age, such a profession is somewhat futile. It's not as if this is a new reality-check. Of course, as a figure artist, one must question who wants non-sexual nude portraits of strangers in their house. Granted, I've always thought I would make money off of large scale portraits commissioned by the sitee's doting parents or art enthusiasts, but Cutler's talk got me thinking.

What can a figure artist do if they're really, really talented that one might consider as 'selling out'? Some say graphic novels (which I definitely DO NOT consider to be selling out) because they employ the figure artist skill set without the certain prestige of classical art. But what would I consider to be selling out?
Two words: Romance Novels. What takes immense technical artistic skill, pays a lot of money, is a steady job, allows your work to be seen by people from all walks of life, and is something that most classically trained figure artists would never even consider? Well, it's something that I might consider after hearing Cutler talk. Perhaps doing the cover art for books such as these is akin to a classically trained pianist playing in a costume with his nose. If it pays the bills, it allows one to focus on what they love – and certainly, doing something you like to do to make money to do something you love is, in my eyes, better than doing something you hate in order to support doing what you love.

Note:: the painting on the left is by Bouguereau, one of the highly regarded figure artists of the 19th century, the painting on the left is the cover illustration of a romance novel.

Straight Purplin'

One of the most inspiring things that Mr. Cutler talked about last week was the story about the purple cow. I will most likely purchase that book to find out how I can also become purple, but his speech also made me realize how many artists around me have been successful by doing just that. Both my parents are musicians and both of them have somehow managed to distinguish themselves from all the other cows in the field. My mother has told me that there are always going to be limits to skill and talent, but there is endless opportunity for being different and original. This doesn't mean that anyone can do obscure things with no talent or practiced skill and enjoy huge success, although that may happen every once in a while (that one Asian guy on American Idol, I forget his name), but it emphasizes the point that being purple is what many talented musicians are lacking. My father has experienced more commercial success, but he too has become a very distinct musician from anything most people would typically hear. There are only a select few cows in the feild that are superior through speed, strength, intelligence, and beauty, but the occasional purple cow can stand out and enjoy just as much success, especially in the world of art.

If anybody's curious you can read about my father here.