Tuesday

Today everyone presented her final project and there were a lot of feedback. Everyone put in effort on the final project and the feedback from my professor and my peers were extremely beneficial.

The feedbacks I receive were as following: 1. This art is created by the other two artists, they are the inventors, how am I going to convince them to do business with/for me. 2. Customers need to send several photos for editing, I do not know whether and how much they are willing to pay for the service. 3. I have not done a survey or research about whether there is market for my product/service yet. 4. Perhaps I could think out another way of doing business, such as a software of the cinemagraphs. In this way, I only need to gather the two artists one time, customers do not need to send their photos over but can edit themselves whenever and wherever once they buy the software. The fees will also be lowered. I am going to do a survey on this product first. Perhaps I will ask 60 people on the street, ask whether they are willing to buy this product and how much they are willing to pay. Or I should just survey people online, this way I could ask more people all over NYC and save much time.

Saturday

Today I read “Blogs Make Money”, which was sent by my classmate, Sally A Downs. It was very helpful and gave me the confidence that actually an entrepreneurship in the business of art could make a lot of money. They taught me how to succeed. “What the successful have in common is a passion for their subject and a near-compulsion to share what they know. Advertising, merchandising, offline events, book deals, donations and sometimes sheer luck also play a part.”

For my project, I am considering using a website to sell my service. In this way, customers worldwide can buy our service. They can send their original photos for free, then the artists will edit them to make them “moving photos”. We will charge for example 8 dollars for every photo. I am also considering using Google’s AdSense service to make more money.

Friday

After consulting the professor individually, I realized that the 3D street art entrepreneurship was not a good idea since other people have already taken that idea. Hence I started researching about the other idea Jamie Beck’s Animated GIF Photography http://www.amusingplanet.com/2011/04/jamie-becks-animated-gif-photography.html

Photos have officially entered the 21st Century with the invention of the "cinemagraph."—it is "something more than a photo but less than a video." It is a photo with a slight hint of movement.

According to a report in the Daily Mail, photographer Jamie Beck and graphic artist Kevin Burg use GIFs, which is a similar picture format to the popular JPEG. By painstakingly adding motion graphics, the pictures then gain movement. "There's movement in everything and by capturing that plus the great things about a still photograph you get to experience what a video has to offer without the time commitment a video requires."

This is pretty new, and I am sure that few people have started a business idea on this type of art yet since it is created in 2011. I am thinking perhaps I can get in touch with these two artists and start an online service so that customers can send their normal photos and the artists will edit them to moving photos or something else.

Thursday

Today Sara Schiller gave us a presentation of “Wooster Collective”, which she talked about her entrepreneurship about Graffiti and Street Art. Her presentation was inspirational and motivating. I understood that “You make your own luck”. To succeed in an endeavor, one must have consistency, passion, dedication, self-confidence and is open to feedback.

There were a lot of pictures during her presentation and on their website. Those pictures were very engaging, and gave us a good idea of what her art work was about. During my presentation, I will use a lot of pictures too.

By surfing the Internet, I came up with two ideas for the final project. One was another type of street art—3D,

http://www.google.com/search?q=street+art&hl=zh-CN&prmd=ivnslb&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ei=L27hTb816cHQAb_L6bUH&ved=0CCcQsAQ&biw=1280&bih=633

the other was Jamie Beck’s Animated GIF Photography. http://www.amusingplanet.com/2011/04/jamie-becks-animated-gif-photography.html

I am going to ask the professor whether my idea is doable tomorrow.

Similarity

Wed

Today, every group presented what their museum focused on, its mission statement, the background information and its business models etc. There were some similarities between the Marten Arts Gallery case study and today’s discussion.

                                 

The first similarity is the galary marketing - online presence. Every museum has a comprehensive website that provides information about it. In the case of our presentation, the Museum of Arts and Design (MAD), their website has all the information we need. It is well structured, engaging, with a lot of pictures and easy to search. Similarly, Pal, from the Marten Arts Gallery case study, took advantage of online services to create as much publication and awareness for his gallery.

The other similarity is that they need money for galaries to function and survive. For MAD, it has membership fees, donations from individuals, sponsorship and rental service. Pal also found ways to save his gallery, such as selling his works on the internet, expanding to a Stratford location etc.

Focus on the customer

Tuesday 

During today’s presentation, Julien Brinas said that for publication and marketing of ideas or products, one should focus on the customer. I agreed with this. No matter how great and creative one’s idea is, if very few people know it, it will fail. That is why companies spending so much money on advertisements these days. I should have business intelligence and gather as much data as I could from the beginning.

Therefore, for my own project, I will pay a lot of money to make my idea or project appear in the first few lines or at least the first page of the Google Search. For consumers, they usually feel that the first few choices on the Google Search are the best, and they have very few chances to turn to the second web page if there are already plenty similar options on the first web page. Then I will use marketing tools such as surveys from random people and investigations of the financial statements of existing similar businesses to get a rough idea of who the target customers are and the approximated profit of my plan.

First class

Monday

This was our first class. As a business student, balance sheets, equities, marketing and entrepreneurship are my everyday studies. However, I have never touched the field of art. Nearly everyone except me in my class is an art student. The professor is really elegant and nice. To be honest, my classmates were quite different from my economics class students. I could feel that they are art people, not quantitative people. By communicating with the professor and my classmates, I had a better idea of what this class was about. Initially, I just thought that this was an art history class, but now I understood that we were going to write a business plan from art. Interesting! I have written a few business plans and have done numerous presentations before, but never in the field of art. It was a challenge to me! From today, I should start learning more about art and discover one type of art to start my business. Currently I am a piece of blank paper, I need more content!

Why do I deserve an A for this course

Now it is June 10^th, the last day of this summer class. By learning this course, I have developed an interest in working within the visual arts industry, I deserve an A not only because of my full attendance, active class participation and well-done assignments, but also because I learned to generate new ideas and help shape them into feasible projects.

For Module One (DEPARTURE), I completed all the readings and participated actively during class discussions. I successfully discussed the readings that set the intellectual framework and examine the history of established institutions within the industry. I tried my best and met up with my partners for the case studies. I collaborated well with other members and have thoroughly studied the main characteristics of each institution, scholarly journal, or commercial paper before visits in the second week.

Module Two (JOURNEY): When visiting galleries, auction houses, and other commercial establishments, I communicated with workers there and asked a lot of questions. It helped me understand many business models, it also gave me ample examples for the later discussion of the various types of businesses within the field of art. I also collaborated well with my partner Isabella for the business project “Museum of art and design” and presented in front of class.

For Module Three (RETURN) In the end, I incorporated what I learned from the visits and told the class how I was thinking of bridging the intellectual questions my projects is trying to answer to the practical aspects of setting up a business. My final project was especially well done, since I spent most of my time on it. Since I have plenty public speaking and interview experiences, I guarantee my presentation will be to the point and engaging.

Since this is the only summer course I am taking and all my friends left New York City during this period of time, I am very committed to this class. I declared that I have tried my best to do all the assignments, case studies, projects etc. Since I am always a hardworking student, the quality of my school work is always guaranteed. Based on all the above, I think I deserve an A for this course.