WASHINGTON, D.C. — Americans for the Arts, America’s leading nonprofit organization for advancing the arts, today announced that it will hold its annual National Arts Marketing Project (NAMP) Conference in San Jose, CA, November 12–15, 2010. More than 600 arts professionals will be in attendance.

Capitalizing on the tech-savvy expertise for which San Jose is known, this year’s conference—New Tech. New Tools. New Times.—is designed to help arts marketers and fundraisers build for their future by harnessing the power of new and emerging technologies.

“Because the availability and use of technological tools and services have increased exponentially among the general public during the past few years, arts organizations now have an unprecedented opportunity to reach and cultivate audiences,” explains Robert L. Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts. “And arts marketers that fully understand how to properly use these tools have a much better chance of sustaining their current audience while simultaneously attracting new patrons.”

NAMP Conference sessions will cover a wide-range of marketing topics, including technology, revenue generation, and audience engagement. In addition, two preconference sessions will be offered to those attendees who are new to arts marketing or want to take their organization’s marketing efforts to the next level. Featured speakers at the conference include:

• Chip Conley, Author of Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow; Founder and CEO, Joie de Vivre
• Chip Heath, Co-Author of Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard and Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die
• Susan Medak, Managing Director, Berkeley Repertory Theatre

Chip Conley is the Founder and CEO of Joie de Vivre, California’s largest boutique hotel company consisting of more than 40 award-winning hotels, spas, and restaurants. In addition, he is the best-selling author of Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow. Chip and his company’s time-tested techniques and transformational leadership practices have been featured in Fast Company, Fortune, and Wall Street Journal.

Chip Heath is a Thrive Foundation of Youth Professor of Organizational Behavior in the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University and a columnist for Fast Company. In addition, he has spoken and consulted on the topic of "making ideas stick" with organizations such as Nike, the Nature Conservancy, Microsoft, and Ideo. Chip's book, Switch: How to Change Things When Change Is Hard, written with his brother Dan, was released in February 2010 and quickly became a New York Times and Wall Street Journal best seller.

In addition to her duties as Managing Director of the Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Susan Medak serves as president of the League of Resident Theatres (LORT), the management association that represents 75 of the nation’s largest nonprofit theatres. She has served on program panels for the National Endowment for the Arts and chaired two panels for the Massachusetts Arts Council. She has also served two terms on the board of Theatre Communications Group, including three years as the organization’s treasurer.

The National Arts Marketing Project conference is cosponsored by the City of San Jose, Artsopolis.com (A Program of Arts Council Silicon Valley), Arts Learning Xchange, the David and Lucile Packard Foundation, Adobe, Applied Materials Foundation, the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, Grants for the Arts, the San Francisco Foundation, the Wallace Foundation, Team San Jose, and The Fairmont San Jose. Americans for the Arts is the leading nonprofit organization for advancing the arts in America. With offices in Washington, D.C. and New York City, it has a record of 50 years of service.

Americans for the Arts is dedicated to representing and serving local communities and creating opportunities for every American to participate in and appreciate all forms of the arts. Additional information is available at www.AmericansForTheArts.org.

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