Culture Track Report Says The Same People Won’t Be Returning

You may have seen the news today that the results of the Culture Track Covid-19 report were publicly released today. While some of the data about audience willingness to return to arts and culture organizations is a little dated due to the survey being conducted at the end of April through May 19, the majority … Read more

Info You Can Use: CultureTrack Survey Results

Welcome SoundNotion fans. Come in, take a look around while you are here. I just got around to reviewing the results of the recent Culture Track Survey. As always with surveys, there were a couple interest tidbits to be gleaned. I looked at the Cultural Track report and then the longer research report. Both are … Read more

“…Black people, are just living works of art, in our culture and being.”

For years now I have been following and writing on the Culture Track survey.   At one time the survey was being conducted every three years or so in order to measure changing trends and attitudes about arts and culture. When Covid hit, the folks at Culture Track decided it was important to closely monitor the … Read more

Does Cultural Track Data Challenge Assumptions About Your Community?

As I promised in my last post, I took a deeper look at the Culture Track reporting over the weekend.  More specifically, I took at a look at both the Top Line deck and Supporting Data documents which are available for download. I didn’t review the raw data. The Supporting Data document is presented with … Read more

Always A Good Sign When Survey Respondents Crash Your Website

Some encouraging news for all you data hungry folks. The special Covid-19 version of the Culture Track survey I mentioned last week launched today…but only for some communities. Apparently there was such a large last minute surge of interest in participating (thank to my blog post, I am sure) that they realized their servers could … Read more

Get Legit Data About Covid-19’s Influence On Your Audience

N.B. I just noticed the deadline to apply to participate in end of day, Thursday, April 23 so if you have an interest, send an email to Matthew Jenetopulos listed at the bottom of the Culture Track page. Long time readers of the blog know that I am a big fan of the results of … Read more

A Place That Is Green

You may recall that two years ago the number one cultural activity people indicated they engaged in, according to the 2017 Culture Track survey, was going to the park. Last week the Washington Post discussed a survey conducted by the University of Vermont which suggested that going to the park, and even the anticipation of … Read more

Pop Up Box Office Are As Much About Listening As Selling

Hat tip to Artsjournal.com linking to an Arts Professional article all performing arts professionals should read. Hull Truck Theatre in Hull, England started regular pop-up box office hours in local retail chain locations to help address barriers to participation people had. (By the way, the barriers were exactly those identified in the US studies like … Read more

Museum Hackers Target The “Not For Someone Like Me”

In the last week I have seen mention of Museum Hack, in both Bloomberg (h/t Artsjournal.com) and Washington Post (h/t Nina Simon). The company does customized tours of museums from a particular frame of reference. For example, their Badass Bitches Tour, …shares stories of female artists, muses and subjects. (Versions of the tour are also … Read more

Artists Are The Only Asset Found In Every Community

The video of ArtPlace America’s CEO Jamie Bennett’s keynote at an Invest Health convening came across my feed recently.  What I found valuable in his speech was that he laid out an argument for the value of the arts that didn’t pivot to economic statistics. Around the 6:50 mark he starts to talk about the … Read more

Has Cost Suddenly Become Less A Barrier To Participation?

Back in October I wrote a couple posts about the newest iteration of the Culture Track report.  The operative word there is iteration. The study is conducted every three years in an attempt to track the shifting trends in perception and participation in cultural activities by the general population. In my excitement to talk about … Read more

Talk About How Your Cancelled NEA Grant Impacts Your Community

This weekend Margy Waller posted a guide for arts and cultural organizations to use to talk about the termination of your National Endowment for the Arts grant. The guide is based on research the Topos Partnership did about how to talk about arts with your community. Waller says not to just focus on the dollar … Read more

The Loud Part Of DEI May Be Passing, But The Goals Remain

An article on Hyperallergic by Lise Ragbir observed that DEI hiring initiatives have started to wane in both the commercial and non-profit sector. There were a number of high profile, highly touted hires, a fair number of which were short lived due to lack of supportive infrastructure and culture. I suspect and hope that while … Read more

Need To Create Promotional Content Competes With Need To Create Creative Content

A few years ago I wrote a post about how actors were discovering that how many followers you had on social media was being taken into account during casting decisions. Vox recently had an article talking about how the same dynamic exists for authors and musicians.  Your book or music might be great, but the … Read more

Will Irish Artists Sleep Better With A Guaranteed Basic Income

I have written before about Ireland’s plan to provide a guaranteed basic income for artists. A couple weeks ago, NBC News posted a story about the program on their website. In all, 2000 artists, including architects and circus professionals, were chosen from 8000 applicants to receive €325 ($326) a week unconditionally for three years. There … Read more

Does This Franken-Ad Have More Emotional Resonance With Audiences Than The Highly Produced One You Are Using?

Last month, Trevor O’Donnell directed his readers to a post by Ruth Hartt discussing how to market the arts in a way that focuses on solving the “problems” people have rather than focusing on selling a performance. ” Because no matter the industry, customers don’t want products, or services, or concert tickets. Their purchases are … Read more

Going Corporate

Drew McManus came out with a really strong entry in his Shop Talk podcast today. He talks about transitioning from a non-profit arts career to a commercial career with guests Marc van Bree and Ceci Dadisman, who shifted from orchestra/opera to companies which handle e-commerce shipping and real estate, respectively. Some of what they say … Read more

How Long Before You Can Only Participate If You Bring A Phone?

I was scanning an article on Arts Professional website and might have quickly moved on except the phrase “not for someone like me” caught my eye. That was a phrase that appeared in the last CultureTrack survey as a barrier to participation for people who didn’t normally attend arts events. In the case of the … Read more

Data You Need To Believe Over Your Gut

I so frequently tell my readers that Collen Dilenschneider has made an awesome post on her blog that it makes it difficult to convey the increased urgency to read one of her pieces when she has made an even awesomer post. Despite this impediment, believe me when I say she recently made a post that … Read more

You Don’t Know Entertaining

There has been a fair bit of evidence that people are not generally aware whether the place they are having their entertainment experience is a non-profit or for-profit business. An experience appeals to them and they participate. All those efforts invested in curating a balanced season of offerings may receive less recognition and appreciation than … Read more

NOTICE: The Response I Give May Only Reflect My Current Preferences

You may have already heard that the CultureTrack report was released yesterday. Compiled and released every three years by LaPlaca Cohen, the report helps track the ways in which attitudes toward culture are shifting. I haven’t read the full report yet. Just looking at the summary on the animated and interactive site they set up … Read more

Stuff To Think About: The Profitability Equals Value Assumption

You haven’t been working in the non-profit arts and culture sector long enough or you haven’t been paying close enough attention if you haven’t heard/read someone say that an arts organization shouldn’t exist if it can’t be self supporting. If you have found yourself at a lack of response to this argument, you might read … Read more

Is Anyone Playing With Classics Anymore?

Does anyone know of a show, comic book, cartoon series, etc that is injecting classic literature/music/art, etc in a similar manner that Bugs Bunny cartoons had classical music soundtracks? Every so often someone mentions how Carl Stalling injected classical music under the Warner Brothers cartoons. Or as in the case of classics like the Rabbit … Read more

Toward De-gamification of Job Interviews

This week Barry Hessenius wrote about the process of interviewing someone for a job.  One of his points was not to use other people’s interview questions/generic questions you pull off the Internet. Just like borrowing another organization’s bylaws to create your own, those questions don’t suit the specific needs of your organization. The other point … Read more

It’s Just Something I Was Trying

A few weeks ago I posted about an orchestra in Bremen, Germany which is based out of an elementary school. The situation has been something both the students and musicians have found to be constructive and enjoyable. In addition, the partnership has helped improve the reputation of that part of town. In reaction to this … Read more

Basic Intro To Finance Options

When I was at the Ohio Arts Council conference yesterday, I attended a session on finance for arts and culture. This is unknown territory for me because I am familiar with grants and fundraising, but don’t really have any significant experience with finance. One of the things I learned were the differences between Community Development Finance … Read more

Guest Post: The Overhead Solution

Back in June 2013, I wrote about the release of a letter by GuideStar, Charity Navigator, and BBB Wise Giving Alliance urging funders to discontinue the use of overhead ratios to measure the viability of non-profit organizations. They felt the number was an inaccurate assessment of  an organization’s effectiveness. Since then, the subject of overhead ratio … Read more

We Need CRM Software To Manage Our Relationship With Our Own Creativity

Dallas Museum of Art Deputy Director, Robert Stein recently made an argument about the value of museums, and by extension, the arts, as a counter to philosopher Peter Singer’s suggestion that philanthropic giving to the arts means that many more people are fated to remain disabled. I was actually surprised to learn that Singer is … Read more

If Everyone Is Gathered In The Middle of The Road, You’re A Freak On The Sidewalk

I was catching up on some of the TED Talks I had marked on the old Google reader today when I came across a fun, short talk dissecting what makes a TED talk work vs. what elements people don’t respond as positively. The speaker, Sebastian Wernicke, even created a web site with a TED talk … Read more

Competitive Bidding For All!

With all the other services offered online, I have often wondered why no one is offering a procurement bidding system. Perhaps there are such an assortment of laws from state to state it is too expensive. But if Google can navigate China’s laws and politics to give away its service for free, there has to … Read more

Letter to President Obama

The President The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, There are many calling for you to create a cabinet level position for arts and culture. There are certainly many factors involved in such a decision. There is a necessity to exhibit how the country values arts and culture by providing … Read more

Built to Fail?

Some real interesting reading over at Artful Manager these days. I am especially interested in the feedback he is getting regarding his statement that the arts are overbuilt. Today’s entry has comments from one of his readers about how community arts organizations might be feeling pressure to professionalize their operations. “More generally, it seems to … Read more

Useless Meetings Part 2

Yesterday I addressed a monograph on the value of conferences in the pursuit of developing cultural policy. The authors noted that generally, with the exception of really disorganized groups, meetings of this sort were not terribly valueable. My last entry looked at the barriers to success, today I want to review the solutions the authors … Read more