Speaker Bio – New Media and The Arts Forum
October 10, 2008
www.CWAEN.com

Jim Hirsch, ChicagoClassicalMusic.org

Jim Hirsch has served as Executive Director of Chicago Sinfonietta since August of 2004. During his tenure at the Sinfonietta the organization’s budget has increased by 65% and ticket sales by 63%. In addition, Hirsch implemented a number of new initiatives including Project Inclusion, a minority fellowship program that seeks to address the dearth of minority musicians playing in U.S. orchestras, and a chamber music series that has been presented in partnership with the Adler Planetarium, Shedd Aquarium and National Museum of Mexican Art.

Prior to his work at Chicago Sinfonietta, Hirsch served as Vice President and Executive Director of the Chicago Association for the Performing Arts, managers and programmers of the Chicago Theatre, and as the Executive Director of the Old Town School of Folk Music. During his tenure at Old Town from 1982 until 2000, the organization became the largest institution of its kind in the country. The organization’s budget grew from $300,000 in 1986 to $7 million in 2000. In 1999, Hirsch completed work on a $10.2 million capital campaign that funded the organization’s expansion to the new Chicago Folk Center, a 43,000 square-foot building that the City of Chicago donated to the School, and established a $1 million endowment fund.

Hirsch has served as a grants panelist for the Illinois and Oregon Arts Councils and as a member of NARAS (Grammy) Awards and Nominations committee. He produced a nationally syndicated radio program for NPR and has released three albums. Hirsch has served as a consultant for a number of arts and social service agencies. He was chosen by Crains Chicago Business for their annual 40 Under 40 article that honors Chicago’s up-and-coming business executives under 40 years of age and was named Chicago Arts Entrepreneur of the Year in 1996. In 1998, he was chosen as one of Chicago Magazine’s Chicagoans of the Year. In 2006 he founded chicagoclassicalmusic.org, a website dedicated to audience engagement currently owned and operated by over twenty Chicago-area classical music organizations.

See:
The New Media Tastemakers Summit

New Media Tastemakers Summit Panelist – Yelp: New York Times Reviews Their Impact on Small Local Businesses

The New York Times talks about the impact of user review sites like Yelp on businesses. As we know, they’re huge, since every restaurant in town is now scared that they may offend too many customers with poor service or mediocre food. But if this is a consumer driven society, then in many ways firms like Yelp are turning every individual into a powerful new media tastemaker:

THE Rooz Cafe, a restaurant and coffee shop in Oakland, Calif., signals its distaste for patrons who post reviews on Yelp.com with a small sign: No Yelpers.

The sign is routinely ignored by devotees of Yelp, a San Francisco Internet company that enables average folks to write reviews of everything from restaurants to plumbers to parks.

“If you want good coffee and a comfy place to work, I’d recommend this place,” wrote Stephanie S., who gave Rooz four stars. “And the No Yelpers sticker made me laugh.”

Rooz’s owner, Steve Ranjbin, said he put the sticker up as a joke, but added that he had a complaint about Yelp.

“Yelp does not respect us as business owners,” Mr. Ranjbin said. “They don’t listen to business owners unless you’re an advertiser paying Yelp.”

Mr. Ranjbin, who said that amateur reviews can hurt his business, said some had misquoted him or called his employees names, but that Yelp had refused to take these comments down. Yelp rarely removes reviews, even when advertisers complain, preferring to let the crowd have its say.

The proliferating reviews of Mr. Ranjbin’s establishment offer a good illustration of people’s newfound love of comparing notes via reviews online.

According to Nielsen/NetRatings, 2.5 percent of all Internet users in March went to Yelp.com, and traffic there quadrupled over the last year. Yelp tracks its users through Google Analytics, and the company, which is almost four years old, said it had 9.5 million unique visitors in April, nearly double the 5 million it reported last October. There are more than 2.6 million reviews on the site.

“This site is having an impact on business,” said Greg Sterling, founding principal of Sterling Market Intelligence, a consulting firm that focuses on the Internet’s effect on local consumer and advertiser behavior. Mr. Sterling said that Yelp had become an early leader in that field, which also includes Judy’s Book and Insider Pages.

But don’t forget, when stores and restaurants get good reviews, they are more than happy to put the YELP sticker on their windows.