Canadian Opera Company busts stereotypes and goes digital – ITBusiness.ca Case Study

It’s always nice when your work gets recognized and Brian Jackson from IT World Canada did a great job producing this video to showcase the strategic approach to helping the Canadian Opera Company create a digital customer experience that reflects the creative quality and alignment with the COC.   And even more kudos have to go to our client Jeremy Elbourne, Director of Marketing for the COC, who has not only endured our preaching about the digital customer experience for the past three years but has clearly “drank the koolaid” on the importance of the Digital Experience to the opera audience as a whole - well done.

Check out the interview here

An Opportunity for Change

If you live in Toronto, it is hard not to hear about what has been going on with the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC) front line workers and commuters of the TTC.  For those that may have not, it started a couple of weeks back when a TTC rider took a picture  of  TTC ticket operator sleeping behind the ticket window and posted it on the Internet.  This was followed by another rider taking a video of a TTC bus driver taking an extended break and posting that video as well.  The media have loved this type of issue with story after story.

This led to the TTC Chief General Manager Gary Webster issuing a letter to the TTC employees saying that their customers deserve better.  Brilliant.  This led to TTC staff creating a facebook site called “Toronto Transit Operators Against Public Harassment” and they are threatening a Work-to-Rule Campaign. Once again…brilliant!!

What is really happening is that social media, mobile cameras and devices, and the fact that people have incredible power today has led to people fighting back.  And management and unions alike are struggling with how to deal with this.  And just check out the firestorm of comments on the various media sites around this topic.

A work to rule campaign against the very customers who ride the TTC?  Aren’t work to rule campaigns supposed to be used against management as a negotiating chip?  But the unions are trying to use the same tactic on an issue that TTC Management has absolutely NO CONTROL over.  And all that the head of the TTC said was, “Serve our customers better”. The TTC Operators are trying to fall back on collective bargaining agreements that are between management but not the customers themselves. 

Well the winds of change are among us, and it is time for TTC Management and the Unions to realize that the public has a voice and they have are now entering a period where their traditional collective bargaining agreements have very little control over that voice.  The TTC is not alone.  This is occurring everywhere that people are using a service that a union-management relationship exist, including such established union environments as the Peforming Arts.

I don’t have the answers of what will be the solution for this issue, but I do know that it is time to change the way both unions and management look at how they work together to deliver products and services to customers.  It is time for unions and management realize that this new digital age is upon us and it is only going to grow.  For the TTC workers, what do you think will happen if they actually implement a work to rule campaign and disrupt service for TTC riders, all because they don’t want to be videotaped or pictures taken when they do something wrong.

What they don’t realize is that they can turn the tables, and people will do the same thing for something good.  Imagine the great feeling TTC employees will have when people videotape a TTC Bus Driver helping someone in distress.  They will be hero and the TTC will look great.

It doesn’t have to all be bad.  It is just different.  I hope that both the TTC Management and the union representing TTC workers can sit down and realize that this is not going away, and that they need to change they way they will address the public outcry in the digital medium.  Applying their traditional methods of controlling the situation will no longer work in this digital age.   They need a new perspective and that starts with embracing the fact that digital technologies have given people incredible power and control, and they are speaking up. 

This change won’t be easy, but it will happen. This is only the beginning…

Canadian Opera Company shines at Opera America’s Electronic Media Forum

I had the opportunity to give a presentation this past Thursday at the Opera America Electronic Media Forum in New York City. This conference was established to stimulate dialogue and ideas among Opera Companies across North America.

The Canadian Opera Company (COC) asked me to join them to the conference and deliver a presentation on the work we have been doing with the COC. I was joined by Jeremy Elbourne the COC’s head of Marketing, as well as, Claudine Domingue their head of PR.

The conference began and there were attendees from right across the US. We were the only Canadians attending.

The original intent of our presentation was to discuss the 7 Radio Broadcasts being aired on the CBC’s Saturday Afternoon at the Opera. However, we decided that not only would we discuss the Radio Broadcasts, but we would discuss the live event we created on coc.ca where we integrated a live chat around the streaming of the CBC broadcast for Madama Butterfly and the Nightingale. I even decided to take it one step further by describing the digital strategy we have helped to develop at the COC.

We knew things were going well when Jeremy Elbourne informed the audience that the COC was the 3rd largest Opera in North America in numbers of performances. This surprised some of the attendees, not expecting Canada to have such a successful Opera Company. By the time I finished taking the audience through the strategy we have developed for the COC, their new website and the results we have achieved, the audience was beyond impressed.

It is always great to see what we do in Canada as innovative and forward thinking, but I couldn’t have asked for more when I observed the pride that Jeremy and Claudine felt when they really saw that recognition and respect the COC received amongst their peers from the US.

Other attendees were definitely sharing some innovative approaches to the use of digital technologies, which resulted in some great discussion.

Here is my presentation from the Conference