Dig into New England's Free Directory
of Creative Enterprises and Artists
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Creative Community in the Time of COVID-19
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Dear CreativeGround Community,
We appreciate all the sacrifices that you, our New England creative community, are making in order to keep our friends and family, our neighbors, and our most at-risk peers safe so that our healthcare system stands a chance at fighting this deadly virus. As creatives and cultural organizations, we may not be able to connect and share our artistry and creative collaboration in person, and we may need to actively devote time to self-care and finding new means of support. CreativeGround encourages you to take care of yourselves and each other – whatever that might look like.
During this time, however, CreativeGround is noting increased traffic to virtual spaces to learn, connect, and to be inspired. This transition to an online audience is not always the most familiar to arts practitioners that passionately value the shared space of a live performance, or the intimate experience of seeing the brush strokes on a canvas up close, but we might be able to see it as an opportunity (as creatives tend to do). To this end, CreativeGround encourages you to "have a date with your data" (see tips below) and we will do our part by expanding how we feature you and your work on the site, on
Facebook
and
Twitter
, and in CreativeGround communications. This is the time to ignite conversations that build community and lend resources to each other - tangible and intangible.
- To make yourself more visible online (and to get into the queue to be featured by us), update your CreativeGround profile and then let us know. Not only is this a positive action step you can take during this very challenging time, but it will better position you to come up in more relevant search results, improve your ability to connect with each other, and better enable us to support you by being counted in your local, regional, and national communities now and in future research on the impact of COVID-19.
- If you don't have access to reliable internet and/or would like individual help updating your profile, sign up for phone time with a CreativeGround team member here.
- Psst... CreativeGround staff are working remotely AND we're hiring. If our work is exciting to you, apply to join our team.
- If you would like to share additional thoughts with us (and not on your public profile) about what you are working on - in your creative practice, in your professional development, in your whole self - during this time, please do so through this contact form.
Thank you for all you do. Thank you for responding to this invitation to show up online, if you are able. Thank you for sharing with us, and being with us so that we can advocate and be there for you.
Stay strong,
The CreativeGround Team
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The Give and Take of the Data We Share
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In this eblast:
- Data Do-Overs: profile quick fixes to make you more visible on CreativeGround
- Data Sharing: your data impacts your community - what informs your decision to share or not to share?
- Data Loving: we're adding a data lover to our team!
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Did you know that CreativeGround is a public promotional cultural directory AND a research database? This means...
- Anyone in the world can learn about and connect with New England's creative people and places directly through your public profiles (it's the only regional creative directory in the U.S.)
- NEFA uses the information you put in your public profile to assign research codes like NAICS and NTEE so that CreativeGround can also be the raw database of entities that is analyzed when we commission studies that quantify the impact of the regional creative economy for those who fund and advocate for it.
- The more it's used and updated, the better CreativeGround tracks the vital creative work occurring in New England communities and informs state and regional decisions about how to support and strengthen those doing that work.
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Completely unsure where to begin? Not even sure if you or your organization has CreativeGround profile?
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People are digging into CreativeGround to find artists, venues, services, etc. These diggers are more likely to
Search and
Explore if the results they find are relevant and useful; this means that you and your networks have filled out your profiles to show up in the appropriate results - a win for the diggers and a win for you, gems.
The more accurate you make your profile, the better CreativeGround will know who you are and what you do in order to connect you with resources.
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What can you do?
- Review your own profile to make sure that all your selected fields are referring to one entity consistently. Not sure where you might be going wrong? Check out our "CreativeGround Presents a Date with Data" blogpost.
- If you are a practicing artist and on the staff for an organization, make two profiles!
- As you dig into CreativeGround, flag profiles that have mismatched fields by selecting "Flag this profile" at the bottom of the profile page.
We also don't want to put you into a box. Please let us know if a recommendation doesn't fit with how you categorize yourself and why. We are learning from you!
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Living La Vida Local (Data)
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We receive myriad requests for local data; in the digital age, the most difficult comprehensive data to find is often local. There are potential benefits to sharing CreativeGround data directly with local partners - it could result in more inclusive invitations to join networks, more accurate asset mapping by planners and community advocates, and easier discovery of unknown entities by potential funders. The use of CreativeGround infrastructure for local websites could allow local leaders to use a consistent and sustainable tool to highlight their local assets while keeping them visible to the larger region. We understand why the "locals" want to dig into CreativeGround.
We are currently in a discovery phase for what local data sharing can look like for CreativeGround.
We want to be mindful of your privacy and make sure that any data shared yields the greatest benefit back to you. Please
email Dee Schneidman if you think you/your organization is a good fit for our focus group about local data sharing options.
PLEASE NOTE: The data currently archived by CreativeGround are made available for non-commercial purposes only.
Please review our
Terms and Conditions of Use
for detailed information regarding NEFA's policies on data use. We will notify you before we make any changes to our existing data sharing policy.
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2020 is a Census year. Read our blogpost, "CreativeGround presents a Date with Data" to learn more about what the Census is, its impact is on the creative sector, and what some common concerns are about participating. THEN, take the poll below to let us know what your concerns are when it comes to sharing your data.
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What are your concerns about sharing your data? (Regional or National)
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I don't trust my data to stay protected
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I don't want unsolicited contact
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I'm sharing details about my concerns by emailing CreativeGround@nefa.org
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Sharing my data can compromise my personal safety
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Does this email excite you? Do you love data? Do you enjoy creating operational management systems? Are you experienced in web-based platform administration? We're hiring a
Program Officer for Creative Economy to join the CreativeGround team at NEFA.
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CONTACT
Morganna Becker
(she/her/hers)
Program Associate, CreativeGround
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A project of the New England Foundation for the Arts (NEFA), CreativeGround is brought to you through ongoing partnerships with the National Endowment for the Arts, the Connecticut Office of the Arts, the Maine Arts Commission, the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts, and the Vermont Arts Council.
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You're receiving this email because you have a user account on CreativeGround and have opted in to receive CreativeGround communications.
To unsubscribe from CreativeGround's emails, uncheck 'I would like to receive email updates about CreativeGround' at the bottom of your '
My Account
' page
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