Final day of observations on last weekend’s Society for Arts Entrepreneurship in Education (SAEE) conference. The Terms We Use Matter Some of the best observations about teaching students entrepreneurship were made by Jeffrey Nytch from the University of Colorado-Boulder. There is a lot of conversation going on about how students need to be taught to … Read more
This weekend I attended the annual conference of the Society for Arts Entrepreneurship in Education (SAEE) at Ohio State University. Even though my university doesn’t have arts entrepreneurship or management classes, I wanted to attend because there has been a lot of conversation recently on the topic of training artists to have a more entrepreneurial … Read more
I was reading an interview on Inc.com with Jim Collins, author of Built to Last in which he says being an entrepreneur is less risky, though much more ambiguous, than working for someone else. Not risk. Ambiguity. People confuse the two. My students used to come to me at Stanford and say, “I’d really like … Read more
Interesting story in Bloomberg about what some arts organizations are doing to resist being displaced by gentrification. The article focuses on Alma Weiser who formed Equity Arts as a Perpetual Purpose Trust (PPT) to buy and operate a building in Chicago. The PPT format allows Equity Arts to have for-profit projects which benefit the non-profit/charitable … Read more
The blog for Master of Management in International Arts Management had a case study post by Donna S. Finley and Vijay Sathe examining how the Calgary Philharmonic Orchestra (CPO) and Alberta Ballet (AB) had revamped their business model in an attempt to stabilize their finances. Feels like it has been awhile since I covered a … Read more
Little trip down memory lane to an entry I did referencing Joe LeBlang, the owner of a tobacco shop whose entrepreneurial mind created NYC’s first Times Square discount ticket service in 1894, long before the 1972 opening of the current TKTS booth. (h/t again to Ken Davenport) At the time shop owners would be given tickets … Read more
Gene Tagaki raises some interesting thoughts over on the Non-Profit Law blog on the question of how legal concepts and structures may need to adjust to reflect changing values in the non-profit sphere. He lays out some thoughts in regard to Charitability, Philanthropy, Governance, Technology, Fundraising, Advocacy, and Employment. I provide this list with the … Read more
Andrew Taylor made an interesting video/post about dominant arts management styles on his blog recently. I am always wary about personality type tests and categorizations, particularly because so many are based, developed and administered using questionable methodology. I do think they can be useful as a tool for self-reflection and consideration if they are subsequently … Read more
Last month, Washington Post Classical Music Critic Michael Andor Brodeur wrote a piece about why people like himself are unhappy with classical music organizations ditching printed programs. Most places started shifting to digital programs during Covid to cut down on opportunities to transmit the virus. While we weren’t primarily a classical music venue, my team … Read more
Last week, Sunil Iyengar is the NEA director of the Office of Research & Analysis, penned a piece aligned with the occasion of Labor Day, commenting that the value of art often subtracts the artist from the equation. Readers know that I have regularly written about arts having value beyond educational and economic outcomes for … Read more
Artsjournal.com linked to an article on Australia’s Arts Hub which looks at how the philosophy of “arts as a business” has undermined the arts in that country. The overall theme seemed to be that so much which was perceived as a blessing ended up narrowing the ability to broadly pursue independent creative expression. Katharine Brisbane … Read more
Daniel Pink made a tweet today that I immediately bookmarked so I could go back to it. Good question to ask yourself on a Monday morning, whatever your position or role (and even if you're a one-person band). WWYRD? What would your replacement do?https://t.co/tyDjLs2X5h — Daniel Pink (@DanielPink) January 25, 2021 I hadn’t noticed at … Read more
I recently came across an article the LA Review of Books on the book The Death of the Artist: How Creators Are Struggling to Survive in the Age of Billionaires and Big Tech by William Deresiewicz. Obviously, this sounded like a book I wanted to learn more about. According to the reviewer, Robert Diab, Deresiewicz … Read more
I neglected to note who had posted it on Twitter, but an article in The Economist about what the arts can teach business came across my feed today. One of the first examples was an exercise used by a professor at the Saïd Business School at Oxford which asked MBA students to try their hand … Read more
Today was the big day for our community’s On The Table discussion. If you aren’t familiar with the nationwide program, it is a day different groups in a community host discussions on any topic they feel needs to be addressed–including just leaving things open for whatever comes up. In our community, there were hundreds of … Read more
I have been extremely busy preparing for the sponsor reception capping off a $3 million facility renovation at my day job. (It really well tonight, thankfully) I wanted to briefly call attention to an article Michael Rushton cited about the literal prescriptive use of the arts. What caught my eye was the following sentence: Doctors … Read more
Back in February CityLab covered an effort by residents of the Frogtown neighborhood of St. Paul, MN to get people invested in contributing to the Small Area Plan for their neighborhood. This was in part driven by the experience the Frogtown Neighborhood Association voted to refurbish an historic theater in town but the mayor choose … Read more
A job listing for a Program Manager at the Armed Services Arts Partnership came across my social media feed today. I might not have followed the link except that I was curious what type of work the Armed Services Arts Partnership did. I thought a lot of the job description was particularly well written in … Read more
If you feel like you don’t have a clue how to run a successful non-profit and are just winging it, you probably know that you are in good company. If you are wishing there was a book someone could give you for Christmas that explained the process to you, according to a recent piece on … Read more
Carter Gillies emailed me a question this morning relating arts with sports which set off a whole cascade of thoughts. First of all, we often talk about how arts organizations and creators need to behave in relation to the frame work of other professions and industries, does anyone ever talk about how other industries need … Read more
The Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP) just released a special report that focused on how alumni of creative arts programs across different graduate cohorts felt about the education they received. Since I am interested in the conversation about artist as entrepreneur and career preparation, I gravitated toward those findings. All cohorts from pre-1985 through … Read more
Somewhat apropos of yesterday’s post, Non-Profit Quarterly had a post about Phoenix Comicon’s recent decision to charge volunteers to work their convention. I am not sure this is really a scandalous decision given that many outdoor festivals I know have had this policy for going on two decades. The more controversial aspect might be that … Read more
There has been some trepidation among members of the Kentucky arts community following the governor’s recent dismissal and reconstitution of the state arts council. Gov. Bevin dismissed all but four of the council members, reduced the size of the council from 16 to 15 and accepted the resignation of the executive director according to a … Read more
One last post about the arts entrepreneurship conference I attended a couple weeks ago. Tomorrow it will be on to other things. There are increasingly productive efforts being made toward teaching/mentoring/instilling, (whatever term you want to use), artists to manage their own careers. I purposely didn’t use the term entrepreneurial practices because there are those … Read more
I attended a presentation by Mosaic Education Network about their efforts working in conjunction with the Barnett Center at Ohio State University to provide some entrepreneurship workshops for artists in the Columbus, OH. One of the things that impressed me was that they seemed to have made an effort to attract a more inclusive range of … Read more
Yesterday I wrote about the exciting things happening at the student-run ventures at Millikin University. Something I should mention, all these ventures are being run at the undergraduate level. You might naturally assume that students in the school’s MBA program were the impetus behind some of these efforts, but they are all undergraduate run. While … Read more
As I had mentioned yesterday, I had been looking forward to participating in the Society for Arts Entrepreneurship Education conference at Millikin University for a year due to their student run venture program which include in music publishing, a visual arts gallery, a theater space, a printing press, a publishing house, a printmaking studio and … Read more
This weekend I got to do something I waited an entire year to do…go to Decatur, IL. Your first response may be to wonder why the heck I was looking forward to that for an entire year. The reason is because the Society for Arts Entrepreneurship Education conference was being held at Millikin University. At … Read more
Harvard Business Review had a short piece about a study that found that having a back-up plan often undermines one’s motivation to succeed. The interviewer specifically uses an example of having a back-up plan to an arts career in one her questions. (not to mention the first image you see is a dancer en pointe … Read more
Back in March, Entrepreneur magazine website had an article listing 7 Interview Questions to measure Emotional Intelligence. (I have no idea why it says it was published on July 20, 2016 at the bottom.) Emotional Intelligence is one of those qualities you would think an arts organization would be seeking in an employee. Perhaps I … Read more
I frequently write about the need to have a donation acceptance policy. In addition to not having the resources to handle non-cash donations, some donations come with conditions that do not correspond well to organizational missions. Recently many donors have required institutions and buildings be renamed as a condition of their giving. Sometimes there are … Read more
Throughout my life I have frequently seen articles about all the careers you can pursue with X major. Some of the options seemed a little far fetched and based on individual outlier examples. (Though philosophy majors have racked up some interesting achievements so perhaps it is I whose vision is limited.) Over the last few … Read more
As I was looking back in my archives for some content to post about, I came across Dan Gioia’s 2007 commencement address at Stanford. He acknowledges there had been a little controversy about his choice as commencement speaker due to his lack of celebrity. If you weren’t aware he was the chair of the National … Read more
The most recent issue of Arts Management Newsletter has a translation of a piece written by Wolfgang Lamprecht about the death of corporate sponsorship. Citing the number of corporations disengaging from their support of a host of international venues and events, Lamprecht says the days of sponsorship as publicity is past. The value of sponsorships … Read more
A week ago I wrapped up my final post about the arts entrepreneurship training programs being developed in colleges and universities by pointing out that there was still the unmet need of artists who had already embarked on their careers. I think the challenge faced by artists is summed up pretty well in the comments … Read more
I have recently started to become a little more vocal about one of my pet peeves about how the arts are viewed. It is no news to anyone that most career paths that involves pursuing a creative endeavor are dismissed out of hand in favor of a real job with real prospects. I don’t have … Read more
As promised yesterday, today I am going to continue discussing my observations from attending the Society for Arts Entrepreneurship in Education (SAEE) conference this weekend. I think it bears pointing out that the organization and its efforts are very new. This is only the second conference they have held. There are a lot of questions … Read more
This past summer there was an article on Vice.com about award-winning chefs who have been interning or volunteering at other restaurants, farms and with food scientists in order to pick up new skills and deepen an understanding of their craft. My first thoughts relating it to the arts was the ongoing debate about artists working … Read more
Last week I drew attention to Joan Garry’s post for people in the for profit field who wanted to interview for a position as a non-profit executive director. Since then, I came across a post on Creativity Post where a researcher at Cambridge, Will McAskill, was urging people not to enter the non-profit field right … Read more
Everyday I get a flurry of emails from the agents of performing artists letting me know when the performers are available cross the course of the next year or two. Often I notice that artists with whom I am familiar have moved under the representation of a different agent. After my post yesterday about the … Read more
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
We often hear that our social media posts shouldn’t be heavy on self promotion, but rather seek to engage people with information that might be useful or interesting to them. But I think it is hard to conceptualize what that really looks like. What should you be offering? What is a good ratio? Since every … Read more
A little while ago Entrepreneur website had an infographic Guy Kawasaki created of the “The Only 10 Slides Needed When Pitching Your Business.” I bookmarked the article because even though most non-profits don’t pitch investors the way a Silicon Valley company might, they still need to convince various constituencies to support them and doing so … Read more
Seth Lepore wrote a piece on HowlRound about the need for Artists to Be Entrepreneurs. I thought it was pretty well written and on the mark. However, I have been feeling extremely frustrated by the response to his column. The amount of retweets of the piece has had me cursing under my breath because it … Read more
If you are one of those organizations which find success packaging and promoting their shows as part of seasons, you may be looking toward the design of promotional materials for your upcoming year. With that in mind, it seems like a good time to point out this article on the Psychology of Color that appeared … Read more
Yesterday Thomas Cott tweeted two articles taking a Pro and Con view of the value of arts degrees. The first talked about how you don’t have to appear on Broadway to have derived value from your theater degree. The second wondered if BFA and MFA programs in dance aren’t part of a pyramid scheme. My … Read more
I just finished teaching a public speaking course this semester. One of the pieces of advice I tried to emphasize for my students was not to fill your Powerpoint slides with tons of text. It was difficult to accomplish this goal. I must confess part of me was secretly pleased that members of the visually … Read more
Inc Magazine recently had an article of 100 Great Questions Every Entrepreneur Should Ask. As you might imagine, there was a lot in the list that have relevance to non-profit organizations. Some deal with topics that continually arise in conversations about the arts like relevance; allowing a pursuit of funding to divert the organization from … Read more
Seth Godin recently made a post that provides a good summary of how value influences the way consumers view price. “It’s too expensive,” almost never means, “there isn’t enough money if I think it’s worth it.” Social entrepreneurs are often chagrined to discover that low-income communities around the world that said their innovation was, “too … Read more
One of the more intriguing ideas I have come across in my 10 years of blogging is the Artist Pension Trust which has artists deposit their work into across the course of 20 years with the proceeds of the sales going to fund their pensions. When I first wrote about this back in 2006, I … Read more
Wow! I didn't know that there were places forcing the use of smartphones. You'd think theaters would want to encourage…
I actually ran into this situation last month. No option to print at home. You had to have the tickets…
"Though while the author wishes they could buy it in Walmart..." Who is "they"? The kids? The author? Something else?…