Our work | Audience and market development
Communities of Practice network
How can busy arts marketers get together to share ideas, take risks, and explore new ways to engage and build audiences for their organisations' work?
As part of its focus in this area, Creative New Zealand's Audience and Market Development team commissioned leading international arts marketing expert Jerry Yoshitomi to work with professional arts organisations in New Zealand.
Based in the United States, he visited New Zealand in June 2006. He spoke at executive breakfast briefings and led workshops in Kerikeri, Auckland and Wellington, focussing on peer-to-peer marketing strategies to engage and build new audiences.
Participants were inspired by his visit and he continued working with them via a Communities of Practice (CoP) network. An international concept, CoP is a network where organisations and/or individuals with a common goal collaborate over an extended period to try trial experiments and share best practice.
"A fantastic tool"
Once a month, an average of 12 to 15 participants logged into teleconferences with Jerry and Helen Bartle, Arts Adviser, Audience and Market Development, Creative New Zealand. Each call linked back to material covered in Jerry's workshops and provided a supportive context where participants could share notes on marketing experiments, discuss what worked and what didn't, and try to find solutions.
Other New Zealand and international arts marketing experts were invited to log in and share their expertise and experiments. These included marketing consultant Alan S. Brown and author of Peer-to-Peer Marketing: a Strategic Approach to Social Network Marketing, and Vicki Allpress, Marketing Manager, The NBR New Zealand Opera.
"Our Communities of Practice network is ongoing," Helen said. "It's a fantastic tool, allowing arts marketers to share best practice, take risks and ultimately reward those who do so. The size of our country - four million - makes it even more possible to develop innovations (and innovators), and disseminate new methods and practices."
A case study about the initiative was written for fuel4arts.co.nz. To read the case study, you need to be a member of fuel4arts.co.nz but membership is free. Fuel4arts.co.nz is a global online community of arts professionals, providing free access to arts marketing tools and ideas to take your art further.
Links and contact
Communities of Practice case study
For more information, contact Helen Bartle (T: 09-377 8750).
