Thanks For The All Creativity

I am going use the assumption that everyone is focused on traveling for Thanksgiving and not on reading blog posts as a license to be admittedly a little lazy here and not dwell heavily on arts and cultural administration related topics today.

Over on ArtsHacker, we posted about what we were thankful for as arts administrators.  If you have been reading this blog for any length of time, you won’t be surprised to read I appreciate the efforts people and organizations are making in advocating for the cultivation of an individual’s capacity for creativity.

More importantly, they are getting out there and providing people with hands on opportunities to help them recognize that capacity.

Hope everyone has a great time with family and friends this holiday season and travel safely.

It was with some sympathy that I read today that traffic will be awful in cities that are usually great to commute in whereas places with awful traffic jams will hardly notice it has gotten worse. Be safe out there.

In a list of the 25 U.S. metros that draw the most Thanksgiving travelers, Cleveland, Ohio, turns out to have the highest spike in pre-holiday traffic—probably because on a normal day it’s generally one of the world’s less stressful cities in which to drive.

Turkey-destined slogs through towns more generally besieged by traffic—Seattle, Dallas, and San Francisco, for example—will be still be arduous, yes, but not as shockingly so. Small comfort, I know.

Placemaking As Imagined By The People Who Live There

The Shelterforce website had an interesting article about some data collection techniques being used for Creative Placemaking efforts. Author Keli Tianga’s description of a crowdmapping process was the approach that most intrigued me.

In crowdmapping, participants get out on foot and survey a neighborhood for its existing creative and cultural assets. “Every small group gets a small section of [a neighborhood’s] overall map to work from—this is so they can focus their efforts and share ideas with one another,” said Leo Vazquez, executive director of the National Consortium for Creative Placemaking.

Teams are given color-coded stickers, and mark places on the map they’ve identified for their potential. Large, blank walls on the sides of buildings can become canvasses for murals; empty, fenced-in land owned by private business can become a site for temporary large-scale sculpture installations; community gardens can also become venues for outdoor music performances, and small parks can become designated spots for contemplation or solo art-making.

In the process, I made special note of being outside and observing how a community moves and interacts with one another and with space—where people are gathered, which streets have the most pedestrians, which playground is the most popular are all things to remember when at the point of trying to reach people “where they are.”

Crowdmapping’s virtue is its practicality and democracy—it requires no prior training, and everyone’s viewpoint is useful…

What appealed to me most was that is such great participatory activity that can go a long way toward solving the problem of involving people who are most impacted by decisions but may not show up to formal meetings. People who don’t feel like they are represented or have their voices heard can gain a measure of confidence that their contributions matter when they are made responsible for imagining/suggesting what a neighborhood might become.

The article discusses how places like Baltimore are using these type of maps, overlaid with other data about social and economic indicators to make decisions about how to deploy resources.

Keli Tianga also writes about some really intensive one on one discussions that were conducted in Cincinnati as part of a process called “design thinking.”

Following a link to a story about the design thinking process on the ArtsPlace America site provided some usefl insight about why people are reluctant to participate in community meetings soliciting feedback about development plans.

…we discovered barriers that hadn’t been considered before. Many of the events weren’t physically accessible to Walnut Hills’ older residents. Other residents said they didn’t feel safe leaving their homes, or were afraid that by vocalizing their concerns they’d be labeled as “snitches.” Finally, some admitted that they thought attending these meetings would only encourage and accelerate the gentrification of their neighborhood.

[…]

High Fives was ultimately seen as a huge success for both the RF and Design Impact. Residents who hadn’t previously participated in listening sessions or community council meetings stepped up to plan what High Fives looked like, when it would happen and how to get other residents involved. Those who felt less comfortable leading tasks still contributed by spreading the word or distributing signs, a reminder that “resident leadership” can look different depending on the person.

If Your 990 Were Being Interviewed, What Would It Say?

If you are gearing up for Giving Tuesday and getting all sorts of great promotional materials out in circulation, you may want to consider what potential donors might see when they start to investigate your organization to see if you are worthy.

I had a post that appeared on ArtsHacker today based on a helpful Non-Profit Quarterly article that charts out what sort of information is communicated in each section of your 990 filing.  Obviously, there is nothing you can do between now and Giving Tuesday to change the impression people infer from your 990 filing. Presumably your solicitation strategy extends beyond the next couple weeks meaning there is still an opportunity to affect the information people receive in the future.

The ArtsHacker post that appeared today also drew on some other pieces I wrote. One about the potential for lawsuits by beneficiaries, marginalized board members, donors who use the increasingly easy access to 990 filings as the basis for a claim.  Another dealt with the IRS’ increased scrutiny on good governance and whether an 990 indicated appropriate policies were in place.

As I also point out the 990 doesn’t need to be a major source of worry. The form provides a section for supplementary materials.

“… where you can attach additional information you think is pertinent. This may be a discussion of changes in operational and philosophical direction that resulted in an atypical shift in your finances. This is also an opportunity to mention any points of pride or information of interest to make a case for your worthiness to those who may be perusing your 990 filing to learn more about your organization.

 

 

Someone Loses When Everybody Wins

I would swear sometimes that Seth Godin is spying on me and then writing blog posts based on what I am thinking at the time. Or maybe he is just good at writing stuff that you can easily project your own experiences upon.

In any case, today he wrote about how you can make people feel like outsiders even if that is not your intention.

You can’t have insiders unless you have outsiders.

And you can’t have winners unless you have losers.

That doesn’t mean that you’re required to create insiders and winners. All it means is that when people begin to measure themselves only in comparison to others (“How did I rank?”) then you need to accept the impact of those choices.

It’s entirely possible to be happy and engaged and productive without creating this dynamic. But in a culture based on scarcity, it’s often easier to award or deduct points and to keep a scoreboard instead.

Just yesterday I cited Nina Simon’s Palo Alto TED Talk where she talks about this very idea. In her talks and book, The Art of Relevance, she mentions that even if you are providing more opportunities for a wider range of people and not reducing service or access to the demographics you have long served, there will be people who will view themselves as having lost out in the process.

I have written about two of Nina’s talks on the subject before so I won’t expound too much on the subject except to reiterate Godin’s point that you need to understand people may evaluate their situation in these terms.

Godin’s last sentence is particularly applicable to arts organizations who definitely operate in a culture of scarcity and are apt to adopt score keeping.   The state arts council or large foundation may be pleased that they have been able to increase funding in your community by 25% over last year. Instead of viewing this as a testament to the burgeoning creative vitality in the community, it can be easy to focus on the fact that another organization got more than you even though your own funding didn’t decrease, or decide you would have gotten more funding if not for the 5 new organizations that emerged in the last two years.

From this perspective, you might begin to empathize with the long time insider who insists they have lost out even as you believe everyone in the community should be excited that your hard work and sincerity opened new doors for a wider range of people without closing off existing opportunities.

What Is Curation These Days?

I was perusing the Arts and Letters Daily site and saw a link to a Weekly Standard article discussing how the idea of curation has evolved from PT Barnum’s American Museum to a professionalization of the process to the current state where:

…“curating” has emerged in recent years as a ubiquitous cultural tag for fashion, groceries, Instagram posts, Pinterest accounts, and much else. Grammy winner Usher “curated” a July 4 fireworks and light show for Macy’s. On its website, a strip club in New York promised a few years ago to “curate a night of Curious burlesque.” Self-help gurus suggest that by self-curating—decluttering your life—you can find inner peace.

The mention of social media posts as forum to present a collection of things, ideas, images, etc that one has personally curated reminded me of a post I made last month about the search for authentic experiences.

In that post, I cited a CityLab piece that suggested that in aggregate, the unique experiences presented on social media sites blended in a bland sameness.

Consumers craving “authentic” experiences tend to build their digital personas by recycling the same kinds of content that populate their own feeds. Especially on Instagram, photos of under-the-radar coffee shops, building interiors, and artful design objects begin to look utterly banal as they aggregate by the thousand. The real world, without any impetus other than the encouragement of the market, has conformed to these aesthetic standards in response.

I started to wonder if arts organizations might have a role to play in helping people stand out by bringing the focus more sharply on them as an individual again. Nina Simon has talked about setting up pop up museums in bars where people can display artifacts of their failed relationships. Providing this sort of opportunity allows people to curate as a fish in a much smaller pond and lends some of the prestige and imprimatur of an arts organization to the individual.

Even if every other arts organization replicates the same program, the fact the experience is only occurring at a single physical location avoids the problem of being able to see 100 variations on an idea in 15 minutes that exists with social media curation.  Sure the curator receives fewer “likes” but hopefully the face to face validation ultimately feels more valuable.

Now my suggestion that an arts organization would be lending their prestige to amateurs might raise the hackles of some who fear the diminution of their reputation. Others would counter that arts organizations need to recognize reality and not seek to preserve their reputation at the cost of a diminishing audience.

Both views have merit. The degree to which an arts or cultural organization invests themselves in providing these opportunities and promoting what people have curated should be well considered.

Being associated with something silly or low quality may be embarrassing, but there is an opportunity to recover. The Weekly Standard makes reference to the Confederate statuary which is being torn down around the country. It is often mentioned that many of those statues were erected years after the Civil War ended and were funded by various interest groups which strikes me essentially as a form of curation by the public. Towns and cities permitted the placement of those statues and now find themselves involved in some controversy.

Lest you interpret this as a cautionary tale against being too permissive or emphatically supportive in any future programs that allow community participation, it is just as much a warning about hewing closely to any longstanding, potentially unsavory associations your organization has had that may come to light. Being viewed as increasingly open and welcoming to involvement by the breadth of the community might mitigate any negative historic associations.

Math, Science, Theater All Win Today

This video tweeted by Massachusetts Math teacher Kim Spek made me very happy today. h/t to Sarah Carleton

Perfect statement illustrating the intersection of science, math, theater and wonder. Nothing more I can say except follow the link and check out the slo-mo version on her Twitter feed to better see how the transformation works.

Forging Your Our Purpose(s)

There was a piece in Harvard Business Review that made me realize we need to place “finding one’s purpose in life” in the same category as concepts about finding true love and instant success being experienced by special geniuses. It makes for great movie plots, but the reality is that all these things are nearly always the result of unacknowledged hard work and dedication.

The title of John Coleman’s piece, “You Don’t Find Your Purpose — You Build It” sums it up as all good titles do.

It isn’t just movies, but inspirational books/speakers and societal expectations like declaring your college major at 18 years old which reinforce this idea that we need to have a purpose to drive us through life.

In the article, Coleman expounds on the following misconceptions we have about life’s purpose.

Misconception #1: Purpose is only a thing you find.
Misconception #2: Purpose is a single thing.
Misconception #3: Purpose is stable over time.

The article is short so I will let you read the details on each if you would like to know more.

One brief passage relates back to what I have been writing about recently in regard to the idea that creativity is a personal choice and shaped by society:

In achieving professional purpose, most of us have to focus as much on making our work meaningful as in taking meaning from it. Put differently, purpose is a thing you build, not a thing you find. Almost any work can possess remarkable purpose.

Just as the individual decides whether something is a creative exercise and societal pressure often shapes that, so too can an individual determine whether what they are doing has purpose and societal pressure likewise can shape that.

I probably don’t have to point out that while these are similar dynamics, they aren’t necessarily closely related. There are plenty of creative pursuits that individuals and society don’t find to be worthwhile and plenty of things deemed to be worthy purposes that are not considered to be particularly creative.

Nobody Wants To Play Find The Non-Profit

I have mentioned before that people don’t normally perceive a difference between non-profit and for-profit cultural organizations. Colleen Dilenschneider has a good summary of the research showing this.

What makes people care about the difference between for-profits and non-profits is the positive social impact that the organization is achieving.

Dilenschneider writes:

Nonprofits do not “own” social good. Corporate social responsibility is a necessity for companies today. There are countless articles on the importance of for-profit companies doing good. It is a key tactic for gaining customers and increasing sales.

Being good at your mission is good business. Data demonstrate that organizations highlighting their missions outperform those marketing primarily as attractions.

Interestingly, this is the one area in which non-profit identity definitely works in favor of their tax status. In a piece on The Conversation that Non-Profit Quarterly cited last summer, researchers found the following (my emphasis):

In one study, we asked people to donate money to an organization supporting literacy and education. The only difference was that some people were told the company was a for-profit social venture – it had a social mission and also made a profit. Other participants were told it was a nonprofit. People gave 40 percent less money when they believed the organization was a for-profit social venture.

In another study, we gave people money and asked them to purchase a decorative notepad from one of two organizations. When given a choice to buy it from a nonprofit or a for-profit social venture, nearly two out of three people went with the nonprofit.

It seems people don’t think companies can make a profit and support a social cause at the same time.

These findings along with Dilenschneider’s data may emphasize the value of highlighting your organizational mission and the impact you have over encouraging people to engage with you in a commercial manner.

Before you get too excited thinking this could be good news if you just change your messaging, the researchers in The Conversation had additional insight that recalls our old nemesis, Overhead Ratio.

…emphasizing a social cause makes people think the company is altruistic. When the company also makes money, this flies in the face of a belief that it’s generous or altruistic. When companies have a social mission, people tend to think that all money should go to the social cause…

This doesn’t mean that nonprofits always win though…when people were told the nonprofit was known to have excessive spending, the majority of people flipped and bought their notepad from the for-profit social venture.

Creativity Is Partially A Social Construct

When I was writing my post last week about research suggesting that creativity is often a choice people make, I kept seeing citations referencing an article written by Howard Becker. So I followed up on those citations. It was actually Becker that pointed out many times creative practice involves executing repetitive tasks.

In his article, Becker suggests there is a lot of what we would objectively consider creativity being done out there. It isn’t rare or special at all.  However, societal rules often dictate who and what gets to be considered creative. It is not what is being done, but rather who is doing it.

This doesn’t contradict the idea that creativity is an individual’s choice because internal perception about what is worthwhile is often shaped by external factors, including societal perceptions. Whether you decide to self-censor or just do it, and the rationalization behind just doing it, can be very personal.

There have been other articles written about the fact that people say they value creativity but are afraid of the disruption it might introduce so what is acceptable creativity often falls in a pretty narrow range.

Or as Becker puts it, (my emphasis)

I think it likely that what we, from a different standpoint, might call creative often makes trouble by being “too” creative, too different, not easily assimilable by the organizational apparatus already in place to deal with the category its products belong to, and thus not entitled to such an honorific title as “creative.” Only a short distance separates “creative: from “pain in the ass.”

Becker says there is creativity all around us, but it is being performed by groups who aren’t “allowed” to be creative for various reasons.

Conventional judges, working in conventional organizations, may well classify whatever such workers do as ordinary, certainly not creative or original, because that entire category of work or, alternatively, any kind of work done by members of those social categories, conventionally falls into the category of “uninteresting” and therefore essentially incapable of generating creativity. If the problems those people deal with in their work aren’t “important,” no solution they create can deserve the label of “creative.”

I wondered if an element of this is what reinforced the idea of the starving artist–the sense that the suffering outsider has license to be creative in a manner and magnitude that a person without that backstory isn’t. Accidentally mix up the bios and maybe the starving artist has to starve a little longer while the person standing to their left gets discovered.

Becker cites the example of a mother who has to balance the dietary preferences of a family of fussy eaters against a food budget, what is stocked in the stores and how much time is available for preparation. In other environments, a person navigating such challenges with aplomb might be lauded. Mom’s efforts often pass without comment.

No one gives “genius awards” to these inventors. Not even James Beard Awards for creative cookery. Their creativity goes unremarked and does not provide the subject matter for studies in the field (although culinary critics of course will treat similar experiments by well-known chefs with awe and reverence). Conventional thinking does not imagine that women who are not specially trained and educated can be creative, and some people still think that women are simply, perhaps genetically, incapable of the kind of unusual thinking that merits the word “creative.”

I think there is still more to consider about creativity than what I have written about in the last few days. In an email last week to Carter Gillies, I noted that people often talk about creative practice providing a sense of transcendence and connection with something greater. Theater, dance, song and visual arts all originated with religious and spiritual practice. It isn’t unreasonable to think that people continue to identify with some element of this.

In part, whether you feel a sense of that greater connection may define whether you view an activity is drudgery or having creative associations.

Creativity Is Partially A Choice

Last week Isaac Kaplan wrote an editorial on Artsy about a study that suggested whether you were creative or not was partially a matter of perception.

I might not have gone on to read the study, but the title, “I Don’t Take My Tuba to Work at Microsoft”, kinda reeled me in. (Actually, the full title is, “I Don’t Take My Tuba to Work at Microsoft”: Arts Graduates and the Portability of Creative Identity.)

In the quest to help people recognize their capacity for creativity, figuring out how arts graduates craft their identities can be an important first step.  The authors of the study note that the narrative we have for ourselves can serve as a coping mechanism in potentially disappointing outcomes,

…our notions of personal success and professional status, including the expectations we think others have for us; what roles we imagine for ourselves; and what work we are willing to do…for example, shows that an artistic or bohemian identity helps middle-class kids justify taking working class jobs.

Because viewed objectively, creative practice often requires executing repetitive tasks

“… for example, we label playing in a symphony “creative,” though it is to a certain extent “extremely repetitive and boring work..”

The researchers drew a large part of the data for their study from the The Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP). The “don’t take my tuba..” in the title is a quote from one of the respondents.

As you might imagine, while some people didn’t find the work they were doing to be creative, others saw opportunities to employ the skills they had acquired in their arts training.

(The following are from three separate sections of the study, as reflected by the breaks in the left edge line)

As another former music major responded, “I can often apply the same creative thinking strategies I learned as a musician to scientific problems.”

Research is a remarkably creative process, which relates to the training I received at [arts school].

My education has been a solid foundation for being open and creative with my work, although it is an indirect relationship to my major course of study. I have been very effective professionally in large part because I use creativity in my approach to solving problems, planning, and innovating. I am able to see possibilities where others can’t, and I’m able to identify the consistent and related themes woven among seemingly divergent concepts . .

As an executive assistant, I have a boss who thinks in very grand sweeping terms and a staff that thinks in very precise “tell me exactly what I need to do” terms. As a theater director, I’ve learned how to speak both languages fluently, and often serve as “translator” to others. I also have a strong creative thought process, which I’ve applied to suggesting overhauls to many of our procedures to make our work much more efficient.

Likely none of the respondents were told their artistic background would be helpful in these ways when they were hired. They saw the opportunity to apply what they had learned to the situation.

I am by no means implying that the difference between people who view their training as being applicable to their positions and those that don’t is a matter of having an optimistic, can-do outlook. There are plenty of environments where initiative and innovation are not welcomed and actively stifled.

What I took away from the piece is that creativity is both a factor of perception and opportunity. It is not enough just to give people the opportunity to be creative, the perception needs to be cultivated and reinforced.

Packing boxes containing 100 bowls in the back of a truck may feel menial and boring whereas putting 100 bowls into a kiln to be fired may feel creative despite the first act taking 10 minutes and the latter taking over an hour.

It isn’t as simple as deciding the artist feels more invested in their work than a person loading a truck. Both may employ the same amount of diligence to avoid breakage. There is no guarantee the person loading the kiln isn’t an assistant hired to keep a space clean and yet feels they are engaged in a creative endeavor a la the old “…what and quit show business? joke.

How do you help people find that ineffable quality that makes all the difference?

End of An Era, Who Will Pick Up The Torch

Over the last week you may have seen mention that after 10 years in existence,  Createquity will be ceasing operations at the end of the 2017 calendar year.

This is a great pity. One of the goals founder Ian David Moss had as he developed his blogging project into a think tank was to facilitate arts administrators’ ability to understand research findings since they so often didn’t have the opportunity to review, much less finish research reports. Just last week, I cited one of his recent entries as the basis for a post.

It will probably come as no surprise that difficulty finding suitable funding for Createquity’s efforts is the basis for the decision to cease operations. Ian discusses all the options they weighed and opportunities of which they tried to avail themselves.  Ultimately, in summary he says,

These are among the reasons why the arts field has, since the 1980s, dug a formidable graveyard for failed think tank initiatives, some of which have become so buried under the weight of history that I only learned about them for the first time earlier this year.

The project I most regret seeing fall by the wayside is their effort to chart what we know about the benefits of the arts in improving lives.  Createquity graphed out research studies about the benefits of the arts on a scale that indicated the quality of the evidence and whether the research said a benefit existed.  This information is extremely important to know if you are going to advocate for arts and culture and cite research findings. Looking at Createquity’s evaluation, the evidence that supports commonly made assertions about the benefit of arts in educational and social outcomes is weaker than it is made out to be or there is a lack of corroborating research.

Think about it this way. TV news programs often have short segments where they talk about the amazing benefits of dark chocolate, red wine, acai berries, etc., but when you take the time to really examine the evidence you discover you would have to consume three times your body weight daily to realize those benefits.

Funding for arts and culture entities is already tenuous as it is, (to whit, Createquity), the sector doesn’t need to have people denouncing it for making overblown claims. (And as I have often argued, we shouldn’t be invoking the utilitarian value of the arts to justify it anyway.)

There the end of his post, Moss talks about the preparations they are going through over the next few months. They will be publishing summary articles about the work they have done.  (One on cultural equity was published today.)

They intend to make their work available to anyone who might wish to continue where they are leaving off.

Over the next couple of months, we will be polishing up our internal training materials and resources to make it as easy as possible for people in the arts community to carry on aspects of the work we’ve started in their own spaces and in their own names. And in November and December, you can expect to see some parting thoughts from our team to philanthropists and researchers seeking to optimize their investments in the arts in the decade ahead. Our goal in all of this is to activate the latent potential of our work over the past ten years into the most accessible and actionable content possible.

I think there are many who join me in hoping that someone will be able to continue the important work they have started.

Planning Out Your Creative Utopia

About two years ago I started an after (work) hours art show that would provide students and local artists an opportunity to show their work and get experience speaking about it with people who didn’t have the shared vocabulary of visual artists.

Last Thursday we had the 4th iteration of the event, which we have been holding every 6 months or so.  Due to my involvement with the Creating Connection initiative, I consciously tried to employ suggested language about personal capacity for creativity in the promotional materials. I referenced people’s past comments about not realizing their neighbors were so talented or even interested in creating works of visual art.

Our frequent local partners/collaborators, the Creative Cult, had approached me about having a hands-on activity for attendees so the opportunity to create something yourself also figured heavily in our promotional materials. Since we usually have more artists enter than we have space to accommodate, we originally discussed placing the activity in a side corridor off the lobby. However, we had fewer applications than expected so we were able to move their activities to a prime spot.

They got people involved in executing their vision of a Creative Utopia…in cardboard. While the idea was to theoretically rebuild our town with the features that would make it a great place for people to express their creativity, few people felt constrained by that basic concept. And who could blame them.

The cardboard village was dubbed “Cult-topia” since the guys from the Cult provided all the art materials and scrounged up a lot of cardboard in advance.

While young kids were the most enthusiastic and added the most color to the project, there were a lot of people of all ages who contributed to the creative utopia.

One thing we noticed about the event– People lingered a lot longer than in the past, even those who weren’t helping to build Cult-topia. We aren’t exactly sure why. Did they like watching people have fun making ugly buildings out of cardboard? Was it the presence of more cafe tables to sit at? Even though the crowd was the same size as the past, did the ambiance feel calmer and less frenetic because the layout was a little more spread out?

I was reminded of an observation Nina Simon made in her book where she mentions that her museum started offering all-ages participatory activities at their events and exhibitions. She says none of the activities were specifically targeted as family events. Kids and adults just worked side by side at many of the events. Little by little, they noticed the melded events were packed, but the Family Day branded events saw decreasing attendance. She characterized it as the appeal of a room that was large enough to accommodate everyone versus a special segment.

I wondered if something along those lines was in operation in this situation. Did the presence of participatory activities keep all attendees engaged for a longer period of time regardless of whether they contributed or even viewed themselves as someone who would dive in to cardboard construction projects with gusto?

At the end of the night, I was asked if we could leave Cult-topia up on display for a few days. Some might feel it was a mistake to agree to leave a shabby looking project created by committee prominently placed in an art center lobby. This is the type of thing that draws derisive commentary about something not being art, art being dumbed down or the infamous, “I could do that.”

But that is sort of the point. By leaving it up for about a week, we hope to validate people’s capacity to make a creative contribution. No one is saying it is great art. Just that people had a great time putting it together. It is a small step in a journey of 1000 miles.

It can be a risky move and could diminish the organization in the eyes of some. But probably the easiest way to combat the perception that work by “people like me” doesn’t appear at an arts event is to display the work of people like them.

Considering The Essence Of Being Mainstream Or Culturally Specific

Earlier this month Ian David Moss wrote a piece challenging the arts and culture community to evaluate the language and mindset in which we frame artistic and cultural expression and practice.

He make a case that:

Separating our concepts of “mainstream” and “white” could allow us to treat European art forms as just one of many types of cultural expression within a mix of organizations and communities, instead of privileging them as the historical default.

Starting this post off with that may raise a sense of defensiveness in readers and a reluctance to continue reading which is probably why Moss doesn’t bring it up until the last quarter of his post. Nonetheless it is an issue that is becoming increasingly relevant.

Moss says there is something to consider in response by Justin Laing, a former senior program officer at Heinz Endowments, to a post last year about cultural equity,

Moss provides further context noting:

…The logic on researchers’ part is that “culturally-specific” organizations explicitly target a specific demographic population, whereas “mainstream” organizations target everyone.

[..]

But many cultural equity advocates see orchestral music as unabashedly and irredeemably white: it originated in Europe, the vast majority of composers presented (even by Latin American and Asian orchestras) are European or European-descended, and most of the people who enjoy it are of European origin. To them, when we talk about culturally-specific organizations, that includes symphony orchestras–and ballets, and operas, and encyclopedic art museums. And it’s not at all obvious to them why certain culturally-specific organizations should continue to receive such a disproportionate share of public and philanthropic support compared to other culturally-specific organizations.

Moss acknowledges there are arguments to be made for the universal appeal of these forms, citing Venezuela’s pride in El Sistema and the fact that many arts organizations have been successful at attracting attendance from Black and Latin communities.

This week Artsjournal linked to a Dance Magazine piece talking about how Philadelphia was a hub for black ballerinas from the 1930s-1950s. (Article has video interviews with some of the women that trained as dancers during the period.) There is a sense of hope that there is a trend in this general direction again.

He points out that while there is crossover appeal, it is also clear that opera, ballet, symphony, et. al are by no means the most popular art forms in the U.S. and are perhaps more appropriately labeled as culturally specific rather than mainstream if they are indeed not serving everyone.

This is where the concept of divorcing “white” from “mainstream” comes in. (Moss’ emphasis)

Were the field to adopt this new understanding, an unavoidable question would face every organization celebrating European cultural heritage in the midst of a substantial nonwhite population: is our foremost loyalty to our art form or our local community? In answering, boards and executives would need to realize that true commitment to the latter could mean dramatic changes, changes that would make their organizations unrecognizable to the individuals who founded them. Yet reaffirming a primary commitment to an art form with clear ethnic roots–which, I want to emphasize here, is an equally valid choice under this paradigm–would be a signal to the world that the organization’s diversity and inclusion efforts can only reach so far. And yes, that may make it untenable to go after large sums of money from foundations and government agencies on the premise of being a local “anchor institution.”

So much of this paragraph reminded me of a post I wrote last year citing a similar piece on the topic written by Ronia Holmes where she writes,

All that being said—I don’t think arts organizations are bad entities filled with bad people doing bad things…They really do believe in diversity, equity, and inclusion, and really do want to offer meaningful, authentic moments of connection.

The problem is that most organizations are not built to do that, and are constantly struggling with it because of expectations that they should be something they are not. Every year, organizations jump through hoops to secure restricted grants that necessitate yet another outreach program or diversity week or community partnership, hoping that if they impress the funders enough they will be given money that can be used for what the organization actually has a mission to do.

If real, authentic, genuine community building isn’t central to your mission, if it isn’t your raison d’être, then you shouldn’t be doing it. Because chances are that not only are you doing it badly, you’re doing it at the expense of your real mission. The mission of most arts organizations—the real mission—is simple: to present an art form. And that’s ok. We need organizations that prioritize preservation, development, and presentation of an art form, and I for one don’t think any organization should be penalized for it.

Both Holmes and Moss are acknowledging the existence of the same dynamics. I can’t imagine they are the only ones thinking along these lines which suggests that perhaps there is both potential and need to have additional conversation and thought in this direction.

It may be uncomfortable to discuss and acknowledge much of what is involved and needs to change, but the general framework of this paradigm is a fair and generally constructive way forward.

(I would suggest, however, that being completely forthright and declaring your mission is to preserve and perpetuate European cultural heritage is not going to be constructive on oh so many ways.)

Incentive To Throw An Expensive Gala

There was recently a piece on The Conversation which, contrary to my expectation, said that tax deductibility rules allow charities to throw high priced galas and still maintain a low fundraising expense ratio.

The costs of a fundraising event attributable to things donors enjoy, including food, drink and auctioned items, don’t have to be recorded as fundraising expenses. Instead they can, in accounting jargon, be “netted” against donations.

In other words, if a donor pays $1,000 to attend a gala but gets a swag bag of goodies that cost the charity $900, the event reflects a (net) donation of $100. It does not have to treat the $900 spent on the bag as a fundraising cost. That approach, in turn, helps keep the costs associated with throwing fancy galas under the radar of ratings agencies, since many of the costs are not considered fundraising expenses but instead are buried in the details.

And this routine accounting practice means that charities with incentives to be frugal are generally free to break the bank for special occasions.

[…]

Here’s the bottom line: While galas don’t automatically signal wasteful spending, you can’t count on the authorities or other experts to call it out when they do.

I had never really thought about the fundraising overhead ratio in this light before. On top of that, if some of the items in the swag bag was donated, the charity makes more money, thereby lowering the ratio even further. The donor still can only claim a $100 deduction because the fair market value of the contents are still $900.

While I opened this post using the term “deductibility rules allow,” the article authors characterize the rules as incentivizing large gala fundraisers.  So when the conversation comes up questioning why people hold these fundraisers when they rarely make money, it might be worth acknowledging that the way the accounting is handled allows non-profits to throw a big party and not suffer under the disapproving gaze of watchdog reporting.

The article also acknowledges that many charities are foregoing large charity events in favor of No-Go Galas where you donate the amount you would have spent getting dressed up and attending. In this way there is even less of a cost to the charity.  Basically it is asking for a donation with added context to encourage you to give more than you might to an annual appeal

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 visual graphs which makes it easy to interpret. Though I also hungered for some analytical commentary from the Culture Track folks about what the greater implications might be.

A few observations from Supporting Data in the hopes of making the opportunity to dig in irresistible for readers.

First of all, the charts seem to belie the idea that Millennials are  abandoning cultural experiences. Except for watching TV (which includes streaming) they lead in every category. This is only one of three pages.

 

Now you may be saying, sure but participation once a year isn’t a high hurdle.

However, that generation also leads in frequency per month too.

 

If you remember what I quoted and wrote last week about the perceptions of those who were high frequency attenders, this has some important implications.

People who attend three or more cultural experiences per month are 94% more likely to cite “it doesn’t change” as a barrier to more frequent cultural participation compared those who attend one or fewer cultural experiences per month.

Given that what people define as a cultural experience is pretty broad, the chances that your average attendee is participating in three or more experiences a month is pretty good. Being 94% more likely to feel lack of change is a barrier to participation is pretty significant.

While you shouldn’t take all this information at face value without digging in and questioning the basis of the findings, the fact the data depicted may contradict your assumptions can be enough to get conversations started reevaluating long held beliefs.

The study authors slice and dice the data through a number of different lenses which make for interesting viewing. Most every question is presented in terms of generation, race/ethnicity, community size, education level, marital status and parental status.

So for example, the following information about where people get advertised and non-advertised information about cultural activities is presented in these contexts. (There is also a chart for offline information sources which I haven’t included)

 

Perhaps of most interest to different arts and cultural organizations, they break down motivators and barriers for participation for 12 different disciplines/cultural activities.

Below is a sample for art museums. There is also a chart with barriers for non-participants for each area.

 

 

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 for the report, I knew this would probably be something I returned to a couple times. So for your homework, review the site and we will talk about it more on Monday.

….Unless I get distracted by something else.

What first alerted me to the release of the study was an advance piece on Artsy titled “37% of Art Museum Visitors Don’t View Them as Culture,” which did its job in getting me to read more.

Sure enough the article notes that,

“For many respondents, going to the park or eating at a food truck counts as a cultural experience, while attending a museum does not.”

This wasn’t far off from some of the responses my organization got last winter during our listening tour where people listed going to the speedway as a favorite cultural experience.

Another interesting finding highlighted in the article was largest motivation to engage in cultural activities was to have fun.

Cultural activities continue to be a source of leisure and relaxation for many. The survey found that 81% of audiences are motivated to attend a cultural activity because they want to have fun. A desire to feel less stressed was tied in third place, along with “experiencing new things,” with 76% citing both as reasons for participation. 71% cited learning something new as a reason to participate in culture.

This doesn’t mean that levity must replace education at museums, noted Harnick, but rather that the two cannot be divorced from one another. Culture offers the opportunity to connect with other people and take a pause from daily life—today’s audiences are full of anxiety and looking for a chance to relax, a conclusion that gels with other findings that show high levels of anxiety among the general population.

I spoke to someone today who suggested the current political environment in the country might be contributing to that sense of anxiety.

In terms of barriers to participation, feeling that the experience wasn’t “for someone like me” topped the list.

I can’t really cover all the findings I found interesting, but here are a few to consider.

In terms of loyalty, people rated trustworthiness, consistent quality and customer service as the top three factors. Pricing and discounts were fifth and sixth. Social media and advertising were 10th and 11th with 15% and 13% of responses, respectively. So pricing and advertising aren’t big factors in building loyalty.

Since there is a discussion about whether people want to experience culture as a passive observer or an active participant, I was interested to read that 28% of people wanted their experience to be active and 24% wanted their experience to be calm. But as with everything, there was a bit of nuance illuminated by the data. (their emphasis)

Cultural audiences—like everyone—are multidimensional, and they have different needs and wants at different times, or even simultaneously. In fact, 15% of cultural consumers who chose “calm” as one of their top-three descriptors of an ideal cultural activity also chose “active,” while 24% of those who chose “reflective” also chose “social.”

In the same section, was another valuable insight about the desire for new experiences by active culture consumers (Their emphasis).

People who attend three or more cultural experiences per month are 94% more likely to cite “it doesn’t change” as a barrier to more frequent cultural participation compared those who attend one or fewer cultural experiences per month.

Given that what people define as a cultural experience is pretty broad, the chances that your average attendee is participating in three or more experiences a month is pretty good. Being 94% more likely to feel lack of change is a barrier to participation is pretty significant. I hope there is something in the report that provides more detail about what types of experiences people are participating in and what they feel isn’t changing. Is it the programming? The overall experience?

The section on the role of digital technology in a cultural experience was also quite interesting. People responded that they felt digital enhanced their experience, provided deeper understanding and allowed them to share their experience with friends.

However, the lack of opportunity to use digital made people feel they were able to focus and become more invested in the experience, made the experience feel more authentic and less complicated.

There is a lot more to learn from the detailed study. Or perhaps it is better to say, there is a lot more I hope to learn from the detailed study.

Perhaps the takeaway is, people are more nuanced than the feedback they are giving you at the moment. Whether it is an audience survey, a comment made on social media, or to the box office a statement should be view as “this is how I feel right now, but in other times and situations, my preferences may contradict what I just said.”

Watch How You Step

A friend of mine sent me a link to a YouTube video that suggests that the way humans walked changed with the evolution of footwear. For Europe this shift started around the 1500.

People apparently shifted from stepping toe first to stepping heel first as the bottoms of their shoes became sturdier to deal with urban environments.  Heel stepping was a gateway drug to poor calf definition and bad posture because it is a more forgiving mode of movement that allows for a degree of laziness.  You’ll fall over if you have bad posture while toe stepping.

What does this have to do with the arts you ask? Well there are pictures in the video of artwork and fencing manuals created prior to the 1500 which show people moving toe first.  This reminded me of a lecture I heard years ago that said ballet was based on the idealized movements of members of the (French, I think) court. The speaker made a particular point in discussing how the clothing of the time dictated how people moved– the necessity of holding your arms away from your body, etc.

Seeing this video made me think that perhaps the footwear and attendant walking style of the time were also elements that entered ballet.

I also got to thinking, has the fact that people no longer walk toe first contributed to a sense that ballet is not relevant to people’s lives? Not that we move around in the fashion of really any type of dance. It just got me wondering if lacking familiarity with toe stepping as a mode of movement adds an additional layer of alienation.

Check out the video.

https://youtu.be/EszwYNvvCjQ

Take A Rare Opportunity To Review Others’ Reflections

Back in August I called attention to a transmedia project in Reading, PA, “This Is Reading,” that playwright Lynn Nottage and a host of others worked on creating to help the community tell stories about itself.

I had initially learned about the project via a post by Margy Waller and must credit her again for tweeting about a follow up conversation that occurred.

With such a push for placemaking and community building projects like “This Is Reading,” having access to the reflections of project participants is of great value to others engaging in similar work.  There are a number of observations and lessons learned that can provide guidance about what worked and what needed to be done better.  It is rare to have this type of material shared publicly so take advantage of the opportunity.

Not only does the newspaper article provide a summary of the report, the report itself is embedded in the webpage and is available for download.

The first thing that caught my eye was that the meetings from which the feedback was collected appeared to be driven by the participants’ desire to continue the momentum started by the project.  The impression I got from the article was that a post-mortem conversation hadn’t been planned, but the project leadership were wise enough to recognize the need to do so.

“The reason we wanted to do this meeting is because this was a more than five-year process,” he said of the installation. “A lot of the volunteers and a lot of the participants expressed interest in what’s next. To me, it was ‘Let’s debrief, let’s talk about it.’ “

The fact of Reading’s decline plays a large part in the content of the project and the subsequent feedback. (Recall the railroad was famous enough to be included in the Monopoly game.) There are multiple times in the report that the investment young people have in the community is called into question. This is in tension with the perception that the nostalgic project content had a greater resonance with older attendees than younger.

The article mentions that the phrase “Reading was…” kept coming up in conversations during the development phase of the project so the title “This Is Reading” was an attempt to emphasize the need to break from a focus on the past and dated thinking.

Given that this exactly mirrors the conversation occurring in the arts (perception youth are not committed, content only relevant to older generation) there are any number of lessons here for the arts and culture community.

Here is the summary listed in the newspaper article:

• Being a person of color in Reading is wrought with stress, tension and discomfort.
• Reading can be a vibrant center of arts and culture if there are significant outreach efforts to invite and welcome; the art is interesting to people of different ethnic, racial or economic backgrounds; and obstacles that prevent or deter participation are eliminated.
• Its self-perception impedes the city’s ability to move forward.
• There is a strong interest and desire in the resurrection of a rail system that would connect our community with nearby communities.
• Long-held community “stories” or narratives can be rewritten by the arts in public spaces.
• There is a desperate need for a shared downtown public performance arts space.
• The city needs a vision that focuses on what Reading is and can be, not what it was.
• Youth and young adults in Reading need to be encouraged, developed and engaged.
• Leadership is needed to champion efforts to build on “This Is Reading,” and the most effective champion would be the city.

An Authentic Experience Is A Branded Experience

When people are surveyed about what they want out of an interaction with the arts, among the top answers are authentic experience and an opportunity to share that experience with family and friends.

Within the last two days I saw two articles that address how many companies are addressing this expectation among consumers.

The first was a story on Slate about how Apple’s Genius bars were developed to answer this emerging desire.

…stores and malls are looking to adopt the holistic, experiential attitude toward retail space that Apple helped pioneer, one that lures customers out of the house with an idea of service that goes far beyond sales. Sephora will put on your makeup. Sur la Table will teach you how to cook. After last week’s TaskRabbit acquisition, it looks like Ikea is about to start assembling your furniture.

[….]

…Apple retail head Angela Ahrendts unveiled at the company’s keynote last month in Cupertino, California. “We actually don’t call them stores anymore,” she said. “We call them town squares.” As a metaphor for the tech industry’s appropriation of the public sphere, it seemed a bit on the nose. But it’s a fitting culmination of Johnson’s initial strategy to cloak the exchange of cash in civitas.

If you think recasting an Apple Store as a town square is a cynical corporate attempt to cultivate a relationship with consumers, you may not like reading a piece that appeared today on CityLab that talks about corporate attempts to create a “branded experience.” In the context of the Slate story, Apple either pioneered the idea or was on the leading edge of an emerging trend.

The story primarily talks about branded environments in NYC so the demand for such experiences may not translate to other communities. Though I would suspect the differences are only a matter of time and degree.

I was interested to read the following which makes an argument for why in-person interactions in physical spaces remain important even if they aren’t as convenient.

The current conventional wisdom on retail holds that digital sales cannot reach far enough on their own to build sustainable customer bases, so digital-first brands have migrated toward physical stores, pop-up shops, and other experiential marketing strategies.

[…]

The new branded space doesn’t merely satisfy a customer preference for finding products IRL. It opens up a new inflection in retail’s historical role as a venue for urban sociality, spectacle, and leisure.

So while brands strive to enable people to represent their own personal brand, the ubiquity of images of other people’s similarly “authentic” experiences creates a growing sense of dissatisfaction with one’s own. In other words, back before social media expanded our awareness, ignorance was bliss.

What happens when everyone is hunting for unique markers of personality and taste while simultaneously emulating widely popular and algorithmically curated patterns of behavior?

Consumers craving “authentic” experiences tend to build their digital personas by recycling the same kinds of content that populate their own feeds. Especially on Instagram, photos of under-the-radar coffee shops, building interiors, and artful design objects begin to look utterly banal as they aggregate by the thousand. The real world, without any impetus other than the encouragement of the market, has conformed to these aesthetic standards in response.

As they (actually, Alfred Korzybski) say, the map is not the territory. The experience is the experience, not the picture of the experience.

Perhaps one of the challenges arts and cultural organizations will face is that after pouring a lot of thought and energy into wholly revamping the experience they provide, people may still be dissatisfied due to what they value.

But that isn’t new. There has never not been a misalignment between an experience and what is valued by those present. Not everything we do is for everyone. You don’t have to stand for an ovation at the end of the show and clap as hard as the next person.

If you read the CityLab article and shudder at the prospect of having to compete with the expectations created by a Cadillac showroom/lifestyle space  that bills itself as “Public Meeting Place Where Innovators, Creators and the Curious Can Find Inspiration–and one another,” yeah that is simultaneously intimidating and perplexing.

Chances are, that showroom concept isn’t going to be exist outside of NY, LA and Chicago. You know your community and the opportunities that exist to shape experience expectations. It is good to be aware that influences like Cadillac House are likely to seep into your community and influence expectations so stay aware and consider your response.

Intersection of Sports and Art Has Occur For More Than Just One Guy

Last week this tweet from Howard Sherman caught my eye.

If you read the article, you can really see his point. Except for the fact that the musical Daryl Morey is putting together is about basketball, there is really nothing sports related in the article.

Morey talks about how much he loves theater, the conversations he had that pulled the creative team together, the process of putting the production together–all things that you would expect to see discussed in the arts section.

Except, you know, the NY Times has cut back on its arts coverage, especially outside of NYC. (The show is opening in Houston with hopes of moving to Broadway.)

I don’t know if that is the reason it appears in the sports section. Given that Morey was the general manager of the Houston Rockets, he would likely have a better relationship with the sports staff than arts staff. The former would be more likely to get a better interview out of him.

If I am being optimistic, I also see the article as a good example of how a love of sports and arts are not mutually exclusive. If you are looking for someone with some gravitas in the sports world to make a case for theater, Morey is your man.

The musical, called “Small Ball,” which is now bound for rehearsals and a six-week run in Houston, bridges two of Morey’s great loves: basketball and Broadway…Morey — former high school trombonist, current theater obsessive — has relished the chance to sneak behind the curtain.

“Someday,” Morey said, “I want to live in New York and just go to shows.”

and later

Morey was a band geek at Highland High School in Medina, Ohio. After performing excerpts from “Les Misérables,” he was hooked. He recalled coming across a rare cassette recording of “Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat,” a thrill for a young fan of the composer Andrew Lloyd Webber.

Today, Morey’s appreciation for Stephen Sondheim runs so deep that he recently paid an artist to re-create “A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte,” the seminal work by the painter Georges Seurat that became the same work upon which Sondheim based his musical, “Sunday in the Park with George.”

When asked on social media what he would be doing if he wasn’t in basketball, he answered he would probably be doing theater. Still even he admits there isn’t a big intersection between people who love basketball and theater.

Perhaps the most encouraging lines in the whole article are the last ones.

Still, Morey said he came away feeling energized. He also gained an appreciation for the talent of the actors and for his theater colleagues’ managerial skills.

“Let’s keep it vague,” Morey said, “but I’m like, ‘Geez, they deal with more stuff than I do.’”

If you are thinking, boy we could use 100 more like him, the truth is they are out there. Many of them are already participating in our events and serving on our boards. Maybe they don’t feel like they have the ability to clearly express the passion they feel and need some guidance to do so.

If they are talking about their passion, it might be in front of like minded people at gala fundraisers or chamber of commerce meetings. Perhaps it ends with “that is why I encourage you to give….” which might turn people off. That ain’t all the arts are about despite what the job descriptions of arts executive directors say. It might even be better if these conversations are encouraged at a bar stool or supermarket…or basketball game.

Hey Buddy, You Want To Share A Creative Experience?

Back in August I presented material in a pre-conference session at the Arts Midwest (AMW) conference alongside AMW President/CEO David Fraher; Creating Connection Program Director Anne Romens; and my friend Nick Sherman. (Slides on the AMW site, scroll down to “Messages that Matter: Tapping into What Audiences Value + Creating Connection: What Does Your Community Value?”).

For my part of the presentation, I spoke about some of the programs we had instituted in our community based on materials from Creating Connection, or as I often refer to it, Building Public Will For Arts and Culture.

One program I hadn’t talked about was our Arts Buddy program which we developed to respond to the problem of having no one to attend an event with which is often cited as a major impediment to event attendance. Long time readers will remember I started developing the idea back in 2015 after being inspired by a program instituted by a Brazilian bus company.

Anne Romens wanted to know more about the program so they could discuss it in workshops they were conducting in September. We ended up turning our discussion into an interview which Anne posted on the Creating Connection blog last week.

Anne told me she presented the idea at 5 workshops in September and people loved the idea. They pulled out their pens and started scribbling. One person apparently asked if I had legal rights to the idea or if she could use it.

I had I known it would be so popular I would have patented it and started a licensing program!

(The idea was developed with feedback from a number of people both through my blog and emails so neither I, nor anyone else should be looking to patent it.)

You will have to read the interview to see what all the excitement was about.

Major Case Of Do As We Say, Not As We Do

Back in August, I came across the most extreme example of failing to plan for an executive transition that I have seen to date. When the executive director of MarinSpace decided to step down, the board chose to dissolve the organization rather than to look for a replacement.

The board’s vote to dissolve occurred when longtime CEO Shelley Hamilton announced she no longer wished to play that role, opting instead to take another, part-time role.

“Her skill set is so specific and unique that when she decided to move to part-time, the board decided it would be [too] difficult to move someone into that (executive director) role with that same skill set,” said interim ED Peter Lee. “Instead of trying to go through that process, we thought it would be better to dissolve and spread the wealth in Marin County.”

And the organization has no lack of assets to distribute:

After it dissolves, it will have between $2 and $3 million in assets, including a building worth $2.5 million, and these will need to be distributed. The 14,500-square-foot building currently houses other nonprofits at 20 percent below market rate.

[…]

Lee laid out three possibilities for distribution of the assets: one organization could acquire the assets and staff and run the group relatively as-is; assets could be liquidated and distributed among a number of nonprofits; or a nonprofit could acquire MarinSpace’s building and staff, but the cash assets of approximately $300,000 could be distributed to other groups.

The thing that really gets me is the disconnect between their mission and practice.  The organization’s mission is:

We believe positive social change happens best through collective effort. Our mission is to strengthen networks of community organizations by providing collaboration services and shared workspace.

and they boast

“…our CEO provides key leadership services to the Nonprofit Centers Network, both as a founding Board Member and as a senior project consultant.

They list Sustainability and Professionalism among their guiding principles.

Yet they have a situation whereby they have created a structure that they have decided can’t exist in the absence of a single person. How does that reflect best practices for leading non-profits that they were theoretically instilling in client organizations?   How have they worked toward their own sustainability?

What sort of effect might this decision have on the non-profits housed in their facility and those served by those non-profits? How does this decision and uncertain outcomes reflect their mission of collective effort?

Fortunately, they are taking a responsible course by intending to create and oversee a process of distributing their assets as part of the dissolution. As I have written before, sometimes non-profit boards will walk away from an organization and declare they have washed their hands of their involvement. In doing so, they can actually be held personally liable for anything that occurs in relation to the organization having lost the protection of director and officers liability insurance.

The Arts Gotta Get Cookin’

In a piece in on the Harvard Business Review site, food industry consultant Eddie Yoon notes that even as audiences show interest in cooking shows, the desire to cook is waning.

Early in my career I gathered some data for a client on cooking…At the time, the sizes of the three respective groups were about 15% who love to cook, 50% who hate to cook, and 35% who are so-so on the idea.

Nearly 15 years later I did a similar study for a different client. This time, the numbers had shifted: Only 10% of consumers now love to cook, while 45% hate it and 45% are lukewarm about it. That means that the percentage of Americans who really love to cook has dropped by about one-third in a fairly short period of time.

Beyond the numbers, it also suggests that our fondness for Food TV has inspired us to watch more Food TV, and to want to eat more, but hasn’t increased our desire to cook. In part, Food TV has raised our standards to discouragingly high levels: How many of us really feel confident in our cooking skills after watching Iron Chef? (My high school chemistry teacher quit the cello in college after playing a semester next to Yo-Yo Ma.)

He goes on to talk about how consumption trends and technology may force grocers to abandon whole categories of foodstuff that are aligned to the practice of home cooking. The article is worth reading if only for its discussion of food preparation technologies that will retain the fresh taste without preservatives or need for refrigeration, providing greater opportunities to fight hunger around the world.

The article raised a number of questions for me in terms of efforts to increasingly engage communities in creative expression.

We are told people would rather do something creative and participatory than to sit passively. Does the fact that people would rather watch cooking shows than to cook themselves belie that? Is this a situation that applies differently for cooking than for other creative pursuits? Is Yoon correct in suggesting that people are intimidated by cooking shows?

The intimidation factor is something to keep in mind when trying to engage people in creative activities and help them understand their capacity to do so.  The equivalent of a cooking practice as an egg wash that seems simple to insiders may intimidate people. (If just reading “egg wash” caused slight anxiety, you know what I am talking about.)

The other thing to consider is that cooking may suffer from the same problem as other artistic and cultural pursuits. It may be perceived as something other people skilled in secret techniques do that is outside personal ability.  By pursuing a goal of empowering creative expression in others, the arts and culture community could help revive an interest in home cooking.

Consider, while the percentage of those in Yoon’s survey who love to cook has dropped 5% in 15 years, there are also 5% fewer people who hate it.  Presumably both groups have moved toward lukewarm impression given that has increased by 10%. There may be a potential to move the dial closer to love again.

On the other hand, Yoon says cold cereal consumption is shrinking and buying breakfast at Taco Bell is growing, so it may almost be too late for some people.

Portland Vs. The Overhead Ratio Beast

You may remember that back in 2012 voters in Portland, OR approved a $35 flat tax to benefit arts education in schools. The tax has survived a number of legal challenges, but according to a piece on Artsy, may fall prey to the dreaded overhead cost beast.

Even with the tax’s successes in schools, accounting concerns remain. The cost of administering the tax has risen above the allowed limits, while returns still have yet to reach the expected $12 million annually estimated at the time of passage.

In a memo to the city council last week published by the Portland Mercury, Thomas Lannom, Portland’s revenue division director, detailed some of the challenges—namely, that 7.7% of the total funds raised over five years has gone to administrative expenses related to collecting the tax….

Under the existing law, only 5% of the total raised by the tax should go to administering it. Think of it this way: Since the art tax began in 2013, the city has spent $3.69 million to collect a total of $47.99 million. Under the official cost cap, the city should have spent, at most, $2.4 million.

[…]

…. 7.7% of the total funds raised over five years has gone to administrative expenses related to collecting the tax. Averaged over the last three years, that figure is an even higher 8.9%.

Much of the overhead costs are due to the fact that residents are mailed a tax notice which they must pay separately from federal and state tax. If they don’t pay, the city staff has to take follow up actions and assess penalties.

The process is partly to blame for relatively low compliance with the arts tax. Original estimates predicted that 85% of Portlanders would fork over the funds. But only 73% of residents on average paid in the first three years of the art tax.

While a city government isn’t a non-profit organization, imposing a 5% overhead cap on the program feels just as much an unrealistic expectation as those imposed on non-profits. In the Portland Mercury article, the revenue division director says as much and mentions the 5% cap polled well. What I had hoped the article would mention is the overhead cost typically involved with collecting other taxes in the city.

The other taxes Portland collects are business and occupancy related. People are more habituated to paying these taxes so if those collection costs hovered around 4%-5%, you know it isn’t practical to assume a once a year tax assessed on individuals would have comparable expense levels.

You May Be Dead, But Thanks To A QR Code Your Memory Can Last Forever

Over on ArtsHacker today, Ceci Dadisman wrote a post suggesting that the dreaded/derided QR code may be making a comeback thanks to improved functionality on Apple’s new iOS11.

I have been keeping an eye open for close to a year to see if QR codes might return given that they are used on and for E-V-E-R-Y-T-H-I-N-G in China. With that sort of massive usage, it isn’t hard to foresee that companies will recognize the utility in transactions and encourage people to use them. When I say they are used for  everything in China, I mean beggars on the street have signs with QR codes on them so you can donate.  A village planted trees in the shape of a QR code that can be scanned from the air.

There are some other interesting uses like the shopping mall with a giant code on the side of the building so you can discover the hours as you drive by rather than pulling up and squinting at the sign on the door. QR codes also allow all those people waving signs on the side of the road/middle of the sidewalk get paid for catching your attention when you scan their sign to learn more.

The one use that really caught my eye, and you almost miss it in the article, is putting QR codes on tombstones so that people can learn more about the person.

But QR codes appear for dead people, too… Since people in China believe that QR codes are here to stay, even tombstones are engraved with QR codes that memorialize the life-story — through biographies, photographs, and videos — of the deceased. From the leadership of the China Funeral Association: “In modern times, people should commemorate their deceased loved ones in modern ways”.

While some obvious uses for QR codes in the arts would be to provide information about art works in museums and performers and their characters in performances, (especially interactive ones where a printed program might get in the way), I wonder what innovative uses for storytelling people might come up with.

One idea that just popped to mind is a quest that wasn’t dependent on the presence of physical objects. If you scan a treasure chest or information source without having first found and scanned a key/preceding information source, you won’t receive the treasure/solution. That way you can have multiple people play a game without having to make multiple versions of an item for people to claim.

Anything else pop to mind for people?

Looking To The Countryside

As a person who has lived and worked in rural locations, I read an article about the Catskill Mountain Foundation (CMF) on the Inside Philanthropy site with great interest.  I thought some of the observations made in the piece were valuable both for funders who might be reluctant to fund rural organizations, and for organizations who were rallying support for creative placemaking and related endeavors in rural locations.

Writing for Inside Philanthropy, Mike Scutari suggests that some of the assumptions funders have about getting the most bang for their buck by supporting programs based in urban locales might not be entirely accurate.

Scan Inside Philanthropy’s archives and you’ll find examples of huge urban philanthropy efforts whose return on investment is murky at best. Most recently, David Callahan wrote that despite an influx of $1 billion from the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation to Flint, Michigan, life has mostly become worse in the city over the past half-century.

Finn’s smaller-is-more-impactful approach flips conventional wisdom on its head: Funders can move the dial more effectively by operating in more concentrated communities.

CMF Founder Peter Finn identified four challenges that particularly face rural organizations in addition to the perennial general concerns about the shrinking pool of available funding.

First, a feeling among some locals that change is not welcome. It’s an idea we sometimes see in urban creative placemaking, where some longtime residents can view arts organizations as interlopers and gentrifiers. Finn’s experience suggests that rural organizations aren’t immune from this perception. “The Catskill Mountain Foundation encountered this at times during the past 20 years,” Finn noted, “but seems to have finally gotten beyond this.”

Second, attracting sustained participation from the local community….

Third, finding talented staff. “We have been lucky that we were able to hire several excellent staff members…But in rural communities, the pool of talent to select from is limited.”

And lastly, the perennial specter of donor fatigue. “It is relatively easy to attract money in the early years for an energetic new arts organization that seems to be on path to success. All organizations encounter bumps in the road, and some donors are lost in this process. There has to be a core of key donors committed to sticking with the mission for the organization to become both successful and sustainable.”

Some of these points probably aren’t groundbreaking revelations. Still, it takes living in a rural community to appreciate the particular nuances of some of these points. I included the entire quote about CMF encountering resistance to change over 20 years because acceptance of the new tends to be a lot faster in urban environments. In many places rural locations you are considered a newcomer if you haven’t been around for about 50 years. I don’t doubt that some people may have finally warmed to them after 20 years.

Remind Yourself Maximum Performance Is Not Necessarily Optimum Performance

Last week I wrote about a blog entry Seth Godin made in January that examined phrases like “The purpose of society is to maximize profit” and “The only purpose of a company is to maximize long-term shareholder value.

I intentionally wrote about Godin’s January post in order to provide some additional context for a post he made recently. (Though last week’s post got some pretty good response so check it out too)

I once drove home from college at 100 miles an hour. It saved two hours. My old car barely made it, and I was hardly able to speak once I peeled myself out of the car.

That was maximum speed, but it wasn’t optimum.

Systems have an optimum level of performance. It’s the output that permits the elements (including the humans) to do their best work, to persist at it, to avoid disasters, bad decisions and burnout.

One definition of maximization is: A short-term output level of high stress, where parts degrade but short-term performance is high.

This excerpt from his post addresses a number of issues faced by non-profit organizations.

First is the obvious reminder that it is easy to equate optimum outputs with maximum outputs.

This mistaken equivalency is the basis for the whole “X needs to run more like a business,” and “X should be self-supporting or close” sentiment. The work non-profits do can’t be maximized because it involves interacting and responding to humans, not providing products for human consumption.  There is a difference between helping someone cultivate their creative abilities and producing the computers, instruments, paint, lighting or fabric that serve as a medium of creative expression.

Which is not to say it didn’t take Crayola a fair bit of time and effort to develop their new blue crayon, but the trial and error mixing chemical compounds can be accomplished a lot faster and with fewer repercussions than involved in trying to use that crayon to express what is inside yourself.

The second obvious reminder for non-profits is Godin’s point that humans are one of the elements that is susceptible to burnout. Optimum output is nowhere near the maximum output staff are capable of but the replacement cost is pretty high.

We are all pretty much aware of these issues because the problem is discussed across a range of forums. Still the press of societal expectations make it easy to succumb to the mistaken notion that maximum equals optimum and therefore if our organization isn’t working to its maximum ability, we are not producing optimal results.

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 up a little on a blog post Seth Godin made earlier this year where he addresses the mistake of equating profitability with value.

Profit is a good way to demonstrate the creation of value.

In fact, it’s a pretty lousy method. The local water company clearly creates more value (in the sense that we can’t live without it) than the handbag store down the street, and yet the handbag store has a much higher profit margin. That’s not because of value, but because of mismatches in supply and demand, or less relevant inputs like brand, market power and corporate structure.

[…]

I hope we can agree that a caring nurse in the pediatric oncology ward adds more value than a well-paid cosmetic plastic surgeon doing augmentations. People with more money might pay more, but that doesn’t equate to value.

The best way to measure value created is to measure value, not profit.

The purpose of society is to maximize profit

Well, since profit isn’t a good measure of value created, this isn’t at all consistent. More important, things like a living wage, sustainability, fairness and the creation of meaning matter even more. When we consider how to advance our culture, “will it hurt profits?” ought not to be the first (or even the fifth) question we ask.

Pay attention to the last line of this next quote from Godin because it is basically verbatim a core point made by the Potter-Warrior-Philosopher Carter Gillies.

The only purpose of a company is to maximize long-term shareholder value.

Says who? Is the only purpose of your career to maximize lifetime income? If a company is the collective work of humans, we ought to measure the value that those humans seek to create.

Just because there’s a number (a number that’s easy to read, easy to game, easy to keep track of) doesn’t mean it’s relevant.

Okay, so Carter may not be a warrior, but he does fiercely fight to advance the notion that just because we can measure it, it doesn’t mean the measure is relevant.

One of my favorite quotes from Carter that runs along these lines is in a guest post he made on Diane Ragsdale’s blog.

The way we mostly talk to these people is we have found that our ends, the things we value in themselves, can be the means to their own ends. They value the economy? Well, the arts are good for the economy! They think that cognitive development is important? Well, the arts are good for cognitive development! We make our own ends the means to their ends.

But this never teaches them why we value the arts. It is not a conversation that discusses the arts the way we feel about them. Its not a picture of the intrinsic value of the arts, because in talking about instrumentality we always make the arts subservient. That’s never only what they are to us. Sometimes we just have to make the case for a lesser value as the expedient means to secure funding or policy decisions. It’s better than not making any sense at all.

Just as Godin says, concepts like economic impact and cognitive development can produce numbers that are easy to understand, game and keep track of which helps when making the case for funding and policy. But none of these numbers are expressions of the core value of arts and creativity. Why those of us in the field value it.

It takes more effort to explain a complex concept like the value of arts and culture which is why Arts Midwest and others are engaged in a long term project to build public will for it and create an environment in which a similarly shorthand expression of value is possible.  I don’t think anyone will necessarily equate the value of arts and culture with clean water and pediatric nurses. The goal is an environment where the value of arts and culture is generally assumed.

Back in June Diane Ragsdale made a similar post exploring the different concepts of value and cited an idea that there are different types of “economies” that exist, each with a different “currency” that serves as a valid measure of value and relevance. In this context, we wouldn’t equate the value of clean water and pediatric nurses with that of arts and culture any more than we would equate the winner of the World Series with the most effective Coast Guard cutter crew.

Say Musicals Aren’t Serious Drama, But They Are Seriously Hard To Emulate

Telling a story in an interesting and compelling way ain’t easy. Sure, we all know that, but an article about efforts Chinese creatives are making to tell their own stories through musical theater reminds us it isn’t as easy as it looks.

Broadway and West End musicals are pretty popular in China, but Chinese artists understandably have a desire to see works with domestic origins onstage as well. While China has opera traditions that were considered to have reached their maturity 800 years ago, the basic format and practices don’t easily translate over to musical theater conventions.

“People prefer to see foreign musicals because they’re more mature productions,” said Jin. “Our original musicals still have many issues — with the market, theaters, production, rehearsals.”

One particular issue, believes Qiu, is that Chinese musicals suffer from clumsy scripts. Many playwrights consider musicals to be simply a matter of “adding a storyline to a gala” or “a drama plus songs,” he said.

“Our creators and producers are lagging behind actors and musicians,” said Jin. “They need to slowly work out the laws of musicals.” Jin believes that most local productions are hastily thrown together without a clear development process; he previously complained… that domestic productions focus too much on visuals and too little on the music and script.

In contrast, Zhou pointed out, successful international productions often center on strong narratives and timely themes. “Americans are good at telling stories; they’re good at finding problems that exist in the here and now,” she said. ….“Only when we find things that we want to express will we truly find the soul of original musicals,” Zhou said of Chinese productions, which she believes rarely address contemporary societal issues. “Only then will musicals really be good and will people really want to see them.”

The lesson I take from the perspective of outsiders trying to adopt the form is that we often take for granted just how much development, both rapid innovation and quiet increments, has been involved in familiar modes of artistic expression.

Last year I saw an Ira Gershwin musical from the 1930s that sounded good on paper but left me wondering how it had won a Pulitzer Prize for Drama. The experience gave me a greater appreciation as to why shows like Oklahoma! were considered groundbreaking for unifying story, song and dance. So much of what I expect from musical theater is a result of the changes Oklahoma! brought to the stage. No one could imagine hewing to the previous conventions after that.

Given that the performing arts in the West are faced with a similar challenge of finding a new narrative with which their audiences can relate, it isn’t outside the realm of possibility that Chinese creatives might help provide the template for doing so.

Know Thy Self And Don’t Keep It A Secret

Last month Barry Hessenius made a post that expanded on a concept proposed management guru Peter Drucker’s article, “Managing Oneself,” that I wrote on a decade ago.

Drucker had suggested that people understand how they work and then communicate that to other people to help others help you to be more effective.

“Whenever someone goes to his or her associates and says, “This is what I am good at. This is how I work. These are my values. This is the contribution I plan to concentrate on and the results I should be expected to deliver,” the response is always, “This is most helpful. But why didn’t you tell me earlier?”

And one gets the same reaction – without exception, in my experience-if one continues by asking, “And what do I need to know about your strengths, how you perform, your values, and your proposed contribution?” In fact, knowledge workers should request this of everyone with whom they work, whether as subordinate, superior, colleague, or team member. And again, whenever this is done, the reaction is always, “Thanks for asking me. But why didn’t you ask me earlier?” Organizations are no longer built on force but on trust. The existence of trust between people does not necessarily mean that they like one another. It means that they understand one another.”

Hessenius suggests very much the same thing in the context of writing a “Users Manual” for others. He cites some suggestions made by Abby Falik, founder and CEO of Global Citizen Year,

She synthesized these answers into a six-section manual: Note: See link for her excellent user manual for ideas.

My style
What I value
What I don’t have patience for
How to best communicate with me
How to help me
What people misunderstand about me

Then he added some of his own suggestions:

Here are some variations of the above (with just a couple of ideas in each) along the same theme:

How I communicate – preferences (e.g., do you prefer direct contact, phone calls, emails, tweets, Facebook or something else)
What’s important to me in workplace relationships (e.g., do you like blunt, direct communication or do you prefer gentle tact)
What I don’t like, what I try to avoid (e.g., do you abhor people who are late, or are you flexible with timelines? Do you like ad hoc conversations or consider them a waste of your time?)
How you can help me work better……
How I can help you work better…….
Things that don’t mean much to me (e.g., is getting credit really important or is the idea itself what you are after?)
What I’m not so good at, but trying to improve (e.g., do you have a short fuse or are you calm and steady; are you detailed oriented or a big picture person?)
Bad habits that drive me crazy (e.g., does it make you crazy when people tell you they will call you in the afternoon with an answer and then don’t?)

Hessenius’ thoughts are a good update from Drucker’s original concept given the advances in technology since Drucker originally wrote “Managing Oneself.” What technologies and methods of communication people are comfortable using might be included in the manual.

Since there is a blurring line between work and personal time, someone might want to declare whether they are open to being contacted after 5 pm, on weekends and vacation periods. Likewise, organizations might declare their values are that no one is expected, overtly or tacitly, to regularly work or respond outside of regular business hours.

Indeed, since there so many options and opportunities for collaborating to reach certain goals than in the past, the necessity of creating a statement about your process and expectations may be more of a requirement than an option.

It also occurred to me that someone might be inspired to use such an “owners manual” at some point in a romantic relationship. While I honestly think it could help avoid a good deal of misunderstanding and miscommunication, when I imagine people using it, I envision Frazier and Lillith from Cheers. (I am sure there is probably a similar scene from Big Bang Theory, but you gotta love the classics)

Public Radio Has Appeal Among Its Most Truculent Detractors

There was a very interesting piece on Current.org last week about just how many truck drivers listen to NPR in seeming contrast to the “business leader,” “educated lifelong learner” or any of the profiles described by National Public Media.” 

Even truckers who hate the politics and values embodied by public radio programs tend to be regular listeners. After using a disparaging term for the network, a driver who is a member of the KKK is quoted saying he can’t stop listening because it accompanies him across the country. Another says he listens for much the same reason even though he finds public radio “disturbing.” One driver said she wore out a booklet listing all the public radio stations in the US she received for pledging and wished she asked for two.

This information came to light when long haul truck driver, Finn Murphy, started talking to public radio stations about a book he wrote. Most were incredulous at the news that a large swath of truckers listen to NPR.  Some stations and programs do recognize that there are a lot of drivers among listeners, but

the system has a blind spot, said John Sutton, general manager of WESA in Pittsburgh…When people in public radio look at research and talk to potential underwriters and foundations, Sutton said, they focus on how public radio listeners are different — how they’re well educated and more likely to volunteer and engage with the arts.

“Those things are important, but … we often blind ourselves to how similar our listeners are to the average American,” Sutton said. “There are a lot of people who listen to us who don’t have college degrees, and we just don’t focus on those people in a lot of our discussions.”

Murphy suggests that public radio stations try giving a shout out to truck drivers during pledge drives to see if they would be willing to donate. If nothing else, the acknowledgement helps build relationships and goodwill for the network of stations.

You have probably intuited the point I am working toward. Misconceptions about the demographics of existing and potential audiences are a problem shared by a wide range of arts and cultural entities. So don’t get down on yourself for doing a bad job of it because you are in good company. But it is something that needs to be done better.

Oh Sure, I Love Doing That…But That’s Not Art

Tyler Cowen featured a study on the Marginal Revolution blog noting that children in India couldn’t do formal math problems, but had no difficulty finding the solution when it was framed as a market transaction.

It has been widely documented that many children in India lack basic arithmetic skills, as measured by their capacity to solve subtraction and division problems. We surveyed children working in informal markets in Kolkata, West Bengal, and confirmed that most were unable to solve arithmetic problems as typically presented in school. However, we also found that they were able to perform similar operations when framed as market transactions. This discrepancy was not explained by children’s ability to memorize prices and quantities in market transactions, assistance from others at their shops, reliance on calculation aids, or reading and writing skills. In fact, many children could solve hypothetical transactions of goods that they did not sell. Our results suggest that these children have arithmetic skills that are untapped by the school system.

This somewhat paralleled the concept I have raised many times here. If you ask people if they are a visual artist, dancer, singer, actor, etc, they will say no. But if you ask about their hobbies you might find they are a woodworker, sing in the church choir, design and execute elaborate parade floats, etc.  All of which yield some artistic and creative product.

There has been an effort, in varying degrees, from the National Endowment for the Arts to Arts Midwest’s Creating Connection initiative, to reframe what people do to help them recognize their capacity for creative expression.

The last line in the passage I cited above was what made the connection for me. Just as the children have arithmetic skills untapped by the school system, people in general can have creative ability untapped by the way creative/artistic expression is currently framed.

Solving problems on a piece of paper is difficult math. Handling a complex financial transaction which ensures a livelihood is something simple you learned when you were five.

Creating a delicate sculpture is something only real artists can do. Recreating a spindly Eiffel Tower out of lumber, chicken wire and flowers so that it is structurally sound enough to travel a windy route as a parade float is the type of exciting challenge you dive into every year.

Discussing creative expression in different frames of context can help people recognize they already participate in some manner or can help remove the intimidation factor by modifying the concept of what being creative entails.

The process of that discussion takes time which is why Creating Connection is envisioned as a long term effort. It will also take creativity to help people make those connections to their personal creativity.

Fortunately, that is one resource we don’t have a shortage of.

The Secret of Magic (And Pretty Much Everything Creative)

I was catching up on episodes of This American Life this weekend and came across a great piece that illuminates so many underappreciated elements of the creative process.

They speak to Teller of the duo Penn & Teller about a magic trick he worked on.  It was a re-imagining of a trick that was created in 1920s/30s so you might think the adaptation process would be relatively easy but it took him 18 months to get it to the point he was satisfied with it.

To some extent, mastering the technical aspects were easy compared to being satisfied with the framework of the trick.  Teller’s partner Penn disliked the trick, even when it eventually became part of the show but there were points in the process where he hated it. When it became part of the show, he just disliked it because it wasn’t too his taste. Still there was a point where Penn told Teller he would be fine with making it part of the show but Teller wasn’t satisfied and kept working on the presentation.

What I loved about the story is that it explored all the elements that went into the creation of the piece: How Teller would work on the trick every evening after the Vegas show and in his pajamas while on vacation. All the input Teller got from different people about how to frame the trick. What bits of psychology and storytelling are important to creating and presenting a trick.

Perhaps most significantly, despite the long,  uncomfortable series of conversations Penn and Teller had about the trick. These type of conversations have been part of a 40 year partnership.

Ira Glass

… Here are these two men, who respect each other but don’t socialize or hang out together, who have been arguing, they say, constantly and fiercely, but productively, for over 40 years, and Penn knows how much work Teller has put into this trick and how much he would enjoy performing it every night.

Penn Jillette

He’s not saying this outright, but it’s implicit. This is beautiful. This is mystifying. This is entertaining. People will love it. It’s really important to me. All those five things are true. So it’s very, very uncomfortable.

Ira Glass

Uncomfortable because Penn agrees. It’s a great trick. It totally works. He just doesn’t like it. It doesn’t feel like their show to him, this red ball that’s also a disobedient puppy….

Part of the solution that gets the trick on stage is letting the audience in on part of the secret—the trick is done with a piece of thread. This actually isn’t ground breaking given that Penn and Teller are known for telling people how tricks work. They believe this adds to the enjoyment of the trick.

Teller

If you understand the good magic trick, and I mean really understand it right down to the mechanics at the core of its psychology, the magic trick gets better, not worse.

[…]

Ira Glass

Teller gestures to the ball like he’s summoning it with his hand and it glides along the thread to him. That’s the sound you’re hearing. Now, what’s mind-bending is that David and I can actually see that he’s tilting the thread downwards and that’s why it slides towards him. We can see the ball’s on a thread. We can see how it’s done. We hear it sliding along.

David Kestenbaum

God, that’s pretty.

Ira Glass

And at the same time, it totally looks like he’s this sorcerer who enchanted this inanimate object into obeying him.

David Kestenbaum

That is so beautiful, actually, when you see the thread.

[…]

Ira Glass

He then takes the hoop and spins it around the ball in various ways, which makes it look like there can’t possibly be a thread there. But of course, we can see the thread.

David Kestenbaum

Can I say that’s crazy? That’s so convincing. Your brain really cannot sort that out.

Teller

Your brain cannot sort this out. It’s visual double-talk. It’s amazing. I’m sitting here and I’m doing it, and it’s still fooling my brain.

I felt like this provided some reaffirmation about inviting people to witness and participate in the creative process. If even the guy who knows exactly how it is done is fascinated, how much greater still is the enjoyment of the people who are allowed to witness the secret?

The secret isn’t just the technical execution of the trick. It is understanding what makes your mode of creative expression work. It is the commitment to not settling. It is acknowledging that conflict is part of productive partnerships.

I have written before about how often we just assume a great idea or skilled execution springs fully formed from the brain of geniuses whose abilities we can’t match. The truth is pretty much every creative work or idea is the either directly or indirectly the culmination of previous efforts.

As I listened to the program, I also realized that it isn’t just enough to literally or figuratively give a back stage tour in an effort to provide insight into the process. Backstage tours can be illuminating and intriguing for those who have never been, but they also tend to present a superficial perspective into what really goes on.

It is one thing to say people work together to develop elements of a performance. When you talk about the challenges Teller faced in developing a trick, how he sought to resolve them and how sometimes the solutions were perceived as worse, it provides much deeper dimension to the concept of working together to develop something.

How to do that effectively is called good storytelling. Sometimes you need someone else to help you do it. Could Penn and Teller have told that story in 20 minutes or was This American Life best suited to the task?

Here is a video of the trick by the way. You may actually enjoy it more if you listen to how it came together.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZDoXUWGhtQ

Small Glint Of Hope In The Overhead Cost Conversation

I have to give Brad Shear of the Facebook group Non-Profit Happy Hour a significant tip of the hat for calling attention some interesting information about the non-profit starvation cycle buried in a Harvard Business Review piece about Business Management needing the influence of philosophers. I would likely not have read the piece long enough to come across the information.

Briefly, the non-profit starvation cycle is characterized by grant makers funding a program but only allowing a small portion of the money to be used for the overhead costs necessary to execute the program.

In the HBR article, authors Roger Martin and Tony Golsby Smith discuss a scenario they ran into regarding assumptions being made  about donors and foundations.

The consulting firm accepted this framing of the problem and believed that the strategic challenge was figuring out how to persuade donors to increase the percentage allocated to indirect costs. It was considered a given that donors perceived indirect costs to be a necessary evil that diverted resources away from end beneficiaries.

We got the firm’s partners to test that belief by listening to what donors said about costs rather than selling donors a story about the need to raise reimbursement rates. What the partners heard surprised them. Far from being blind to the starvation cycle, donors hated it and understood their own role in causing it. The problem was that they didn’t trust their grantees to manage indirect costs. Once the partners were liberated from their false belief, they soon came up with a wide range of process-oriented solutions that could help nonprofits build their competence at cost management and earn their donors’ confidence.

This is the first time I ever read that donors acknowledged the problem and their role in perpetuating it. That was cause for optimism.

I disliked reading that there such a level of distrust that the grantees would manage costs well. I would venture to say that insufficient funding contributed to a situation where organizational staff members were filling too many roles to properly focus on cost management. Though I don’t doubt that some organizations needed to improve practices regardless of staffing levels.

I am curious to know about what the process-oriented solutions were and if they required significantly more effort or if the solutions helped the organizations manage their costs more efficiently while roughly investing the same effort.  Probably more importantly, were the solutions indeed successful at earning a higher level of trust and funding from the donors?

 

Hoping To Not Just Change The Name, But The Smell Of The Rose As Well

In the last couple weeks two arts service organizations have taken the arguably long overdue step toward establishing greater parity among their members.

Last week at the Arts Midwest Conference, Ohio Arts Presenters Network (OAPN) president Robert Baird announced that the organization would be changing its name to Ohio Arts Professionals Network. While the acronym remains the same, the change was effected to acknowledge that agents, artists and other professionals were members of the organization.

Today, the Association of Performing Arts Presenters (APAP) made a similar announcement that going forward they would be the Association of Performing Arts Professionals.

This isn’t the first time APAP has changed its name to reflect the composition of its membership. It started in 1957 as Association of College and University Concert Managers (ACUCM). In 1973 it changed to Association of College, University and Community Arts Administrators (ACUCAA) and became Association of Performing Arts Presenters in 1988 to acknowledge the membership wasn’t primarily based in higher education any longer. (Though I think ACUCAA, pronounced ah-koo-kah, was a lot more fun to say than APAP)

More than just superficially changing the name, APAP committed to a new program to help artists become members,

In addition to the updated name, this year the organization has introduced a pilot initiative called Artist Access, a one-year introductory membership program allowing qualified individual professional artists who have never been an organizational member of APAP, and who have never attended APAP as a full registrant, to become an APAP member and attend its annual members conference at reduced rates. More information is found at artistaccess.apap365.org.

Certainly, there is more work to be done to help everyone feel like an equal member of the respective organizations. (As with my cable company’s special pricing, I wonder where are the discount and benefits for long term loyal artists who have felt marginalized.) The format of the artist/agent/presenter interactions at the conferences often leave all involved feeling uncomfortable.

There have been efforts to change this situation. Over a decade ago, the Western Arts Alliance started experimenting with the physical layout of their conference, seeking to change the power dynamic.  Along with the name change, last week OAPN expressed their commitment to making attendance at their conference feel less confrontational by shifting the focus to a block booking format where artists, agents and presenting organizations sit down and try to set up beneficial routing arrangements that save the presenters money and get the artists working.

It will be interesting to see how these efforts develop and what new initiatives emerge to address concerns about the state of this corner of the creative and culture industry.

The Battle Against Ticket Brokers Inflating Prices Has Been Waged For Over A Century

I re-discovered an interesting story I had nearly forgotten about.

You may be grateful when you go around with posters for your event and businesses agree to display them for free. At one time in NYC, Broadway theaters would give merchants tickets in exchange for displaying posters. That practice contributed to a precursor of the famous TKTS booth in Times Square where one can purchase discounted tickets.

Apparently in 1894 tobacconist Joseph Leblang started taking tickets he got, as well as those he collected from other shopkeepers, and sold them at a steeply discounted rate.  While the shows may have initially been upset by him re-selling tickets he got for free, he was selling so much that the theaters began to send their surplus to him.

Today it’s known as The Broadway League, but in 1905 it was called the Producing Managers’ Association and Leblang’s relationship with them rotated between adoration and contempt. Most Broadway producers were personal friends of Leblang, but loathed his business model, which they charged lessened the value of their product. They made a number of attempts to run Leblang out of the business, but as Leblang went on to save a number of Broadway shows from closure he became an integral part of the Broadway show landscape.

Interestingly, both Leblang and the Producing Managers’ Association disliked ticket brokers because they contributed to ticket speculation which alienated audiences. It just goes to show how long the effort to stop ticket brokers from reselling tickets at sky high prices has been going on. Leblang was just beginning to see success with a plan to limit their impact when he died.

As Ken Davenport wrote in The Producer’s Perspective,

Joe took something that was handed to him, and turned it into a business. At the same time, he revolutionized an industry.

The irony is that a zillion other shop owners were given those free tickets. They all could have done the same thing. They all could have made that money . . . and more importantly . . . made that significant impact.

Opportunities are out there. You just have to keep your eyes open, and then act on them.

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 of Seville and What’s Opera Doc, did their own interpretations of opera.

While people mention the cartoons frequently, I don’t recall anyone asking why there isn’t anyone clever enough to do something similar today.

Some years ago, I wrote about how Donald Duck comics sell 250,000 copies a week in Germany where the Disney icon is adored far more than in the US. Donald is much more erudite in Germany. According to the Wall Street Journal, thanks to translator Ericka Fuchs who references German culture,

He was a bird of arts and letters, and many Germans credit him with having initiated them into the language of the literary classics. The German comics are peppered with fancy quotations. In one story Donald’s nephews steal famous lines from Friedrich Schiller’s play “William Tell”; Donald garbles a classic Schiller poem, “The Bell,” in another. Other lines are straight out of Goethe, Hölderlin and even Wagner (whose words are put in the mouth of a singing cat). The great books later sounded like old friends when readers encountered them at school. As the German Donald points out, “Reading is educational! We learn so much from the works of our poets and thinkers.”

When I was younger, I used to read Classics Illustrated which adapted literature into comic book form. More recently, I have read manga/manhua books and seen anime based on historic events and classical literature of Japan and China. While they aren’t completely true to the source material, (nor was Bugs Bunny, after all), they are relatively popular and introduce readers and viewers to the basic people and dynamics in an engaging way. Obviously it can be done and be well received.

Other than TNT’s loose adaptation of William Shakespeare’s lift, I can’t think of any current attempt in this vein, but perhaps I am nothing thinking and looking broadly enough. To clarify, I am thinking more about ongoing, long term efforts to use content rather than attempts to revive and/or reinterpret a single piece of content on Broadway or in a movie.

Do Differences Still Impede Collective Action?

I am off at the Arts Midwest conference this week, but as always have prepared some entries to cover my absence.

I thought it would be appropriate to revisit part of a report that was issued after the 2008 National Performing Arts Convention.  (I took a more extensive look at the report back in 2009. Some of the discussions are dated with the passage of time.)

The convention was attended by representatives of theatre, dance, choral and instrumental music disciplines, including those respective service organizations.  In assessing the opportunities for cross-disciplinary collective action, the report found that differences in language and culture were potential impediments.

Nearly 10 years later, I wonder if people still feel this is the case or have things developed to the point that the different disciplines can join in a more united front.

Were these really significant impediments to action at all and the will is simply lacking?

…our team observed frequent and obvious disconnects between the language and culture of each discipline. The dress and demeanor of the different service organization membership was a continual point of discussion in our evening debriefing sessions, and were often heard used as shorthand by one discipline to describe another (“take time to talk to the suits,” said one theater leader to a TCG convening, when referring to symphony professionals).

Some of the difference was in rites and rituals: from the morning sing-alongs of Chorus America to the jackets and ties of League members, to the frequent and genuine hugs among Dance/USA members, to the casual and collegial atmosphere of TCG sessions.

Other differences, which manifested in more subtle ways, shed light on the deep underlying assumptions and values held by the respective disciplines. The team noticed, for example, that the word “professional” was perceived in a variety of ways in mixed-discipline caucus sessions. For many participants, “professional” staff and leadership was an indicator of high-quality arts organizations, and an obvious goal for any arts institutions. Several members of Chorus America, however, bristled at the presumption that professional staff was a metric of artistic quality, as they held deep pride in their organizations, which were run by volunteers.

[….]

Catalysts note the need for basic fluency in the business models and challenges of other disciplines. Says one leader, “Being an executive director is an incredibly lonely job because you’re the only person in your community who has this set of challenges. You build your network. I talk a lot with the heads of other performing arts organizations here [from other disciplines], and it’s all right, but oftentimes when we talk I’m spending the whole time explaining the whole story so they can understand. As opposed to sitting with somebody who’s in a different community, you can start the sentence and oftentimes that person can finish your sentence for you.”

Insight Into Creating Public Art Works

Last week Americans for the Arts had a blog salon covering lessons learned from public art projects. As a person who is always interested in the process people went through to execute their project, I read many of the entries with great interest.

Two stood out for me. The first was Jessica Witte’s discussion of how she got people involved with the creation of an intricate 400 foot long seed drawing near the St. Louis Arch. She gave examples of how previous works lead to the project and then how she executed the project.

I appreciated that she mentioned the different considerations that went into the project. Things like chalking out the design the night before are pretty obvious but she also discusses how she made sure there was water, picnic tables and food trucks available to encourage people to linger and explore.

She also reached out to non-profits whose mission aligned with the project early in the planning stage which she noted will constitute a network of advisors and assistance for future projects.

She hired Art Ambassadors to help her welcome people, explain the project and encourage them to join in. Part of this effort also involved crowdsourcing the documentation of the project.

Throughout, she reflects on how she would improve the project for the next time.  I appreciated all the detail as a resource of things to consider if doing a similar type project.

 

The other entry I liked was Daily Tour les jours’ post about how they prototyped the Musical Shadows installation in Mesa, AZ. I may have posted on the project before, but I can’t find the entry. Here is a video of the final result:

Again, for me learning about the process was interesting. I would never have imagined that an early stage involved placing post it notes on the ground of a concrete plaza in order to get some initial feedback about the concept from people.

There is a short video of them using a piece of paper on the end of a cordless drill to help make a shadow over their sensors. That apparently helped them determine “the spacing of the sensors would have a large impact on the interaction, and forced us to begin considering different sensor layouts”.

Then there was field testing of various types including getting feedback from people about what sounds worked best. In total, they list eight different prototypes before delivery.

This entry made me appreciate just how much work goes into projects like this. Embedded in that are lessons about failure and revision that are valuable to remember.

I hope you will explore the entries a bit more and even take a look at the whole salon since there is likely something in there that will impress you in ways that didn’t strike me.

Do We Underestimate The Power Of “Wow, I Didn’t Know You Were So Talented”?

I had mentioned before that I will be presenting part of a pre-conference professional development session at the Arts Midwest Conference next week. I was going to make a shameless plug for people to sign up, but I see it is sold out (woo hoo!…oh wait, also increased pressure!)

The session deals with Arts Midwest’s Creating Connection/Building Public Will For Art and Culture program that I frequently discuss.

One of the central tenets of the program is helping people recognize their capacity for creativity.

As I was developing the content for my contribution, it occurred to me that one things we lose by having less art in K-12 schools is the affirmation and validation of one’s capacity to be creative. Basically, the experience of having someone walk up and say some permutation of, “Wow, I didn’t know you were so talented.”

It seems like a simple thing to stick your kid’s art up on the refrigerator, but the effect is likely cumulative. And when the opportunities for creativity stop, so does the reinforcement.

Obviously, not everyone is going to reveal a great talent or have an inclination to apply themselves.  I suspect that when art instruction, and more importantly, active creative expression, is a regular part of a child’s education rather than intermittent, the child grows to take their basic creative capacity as much for granted as they do their basic mathematic and reading ability.

This may seem blatantly obvious but I remember a time when I mentally conceded that if kids at least got exposure to the arts in school, that was acceptable.  Even that is disappearing now. Now I realize a compromise of that nature gives up development opportunities that can never be regained.

Being Smart About Lawyer-Board Members

Non-Profit Business Advisor recently published a piece to make non-profit organizations aware of the potential problems related to having a lawyer serve on the board. Back in 2016 I provided similar information on ArtsHacker.  I wanted to revisit the topic due to how easy it is for both the lawyer/board member and the rest of the organization to misunderstand the role the lawyer is fulfilling

The general aim of both pieces was to emphasize the need to distinguish the context in which advice and comments are being made.

Some of the questions both raise are:

When the lawyer board member makes a comment, is it a legal opinion or personal opinion? Are people according the member’s personal opinion more deference due to their profession?

When they provide their professional opinion, could it be clouded by the fact they earlier advocated or voted for a related course of action?

Is a conversation covered by attorney-client privilege?

Loss of Attorney-Client Privilege. Are you communications with the rest of the board protected by the attorney-client privilege? If it’s clear that the communications are to be attorney-client communications, they should be protected by the privilege. However, such protection may be lost if it’s not clear that you are communicating only as a lawyer or if the communication is recorded in minutes to which other persons have access.

If a lawyer represents a statement as professional advice, do they actually have the specialized knowledge and experience to offer that advice?

Actually, as I notice the strong similarities between my ArtsHacker post and the recent Non-Profit Business Advisor article, I realize that both were drawn from lawyers at the same law firm so either of the links here represent a good resource for exploring the nuances of this topic more carefully.

RARRRRR!! Express Your Creativity And Smite Your Inner Demons!

My admiration of Zenpencils artist Gavin Aung Than continues to grow with his illustration of Berne Brown’s thoughts on personal creativity. Below are screenshots of the first few panels as an inducement to visit his page rather than passing over my text link to the page. Clicking on the images will take you to his site.

Interestingly, he had originally made a comment dismissing the current trend of coloring books for adults as an outlet for expressing creativity. People took exception to his remark. He subsequently apologized and offered high resolution versions of his art for people to color.

When Kissing Feels As Safe As Being Stabbed

From the “why hasn’t this existed before” file is an article about staging intimacy with the same care employed with fight choreography.

The fact I came across this mention on economist Tyler Cowen’s Marginal Revolution blog rather than a performing arts industry aligned publication somewhat compounded my curiosity about the lack of conversation the topic.

The article in the Louisville Eccentric Observer discusses the need for clear rules when employing any type of intimacy onstage. Whether it is a kiss, nudity, simulated consensual intercourse or staging emotionally and physically intense depictions of sexual violence, abuse and unwelcomed physical contact, performers shouldn’t be left on their own to negotiate the interaction.

Those interviewed discuss the need to have someone act as third party providing an element of control and clarity for each situation. In some cases, they take a page from fight choreography practice and place the recipient of an action in control. (For those who aren’t familiar, in situations where a person is grappled, thrown, choked, pulled around by their hair, the person being attacked rather than the attacker is generally in control.)

Even if you could be guaranteed that everyone would be well behaved and well intention and no one would take advantage of the opportunity afforded by the way a show is staged to take liberties for their own gratification, being asked to engage in an unfamiliar action with an unfamiliar person is difficult for people.

Having someone who works toward assuring a environment of safety and comfort for all parties when it comes to intimate acts just as they do with stage combat seems like it should have been a standard practice for years. Reading the article I wouldn’t doubt that many groups may already approach these interactions with the same care they would have approached fight choreography and never thought they were doing anything special.

I do want to suggest a different term for the role be created. I have a sense that being asked to work with the “Intimacy Director” might make people as uncomfortable as being told to just improvise the scene because the director didn’t have any ideas about how it should be staged.

The article suggests that while every theater company may not have the means to hire an intimacy director, they can use existing guidelines to make things safer and more comfortable.

Among those guidelines and suggestions are the following:

They are practitioners who use concrete guidelines and techniques, such as the “four pillars” of intimacy direction, according to Alicia Rodis, a member of Intimacy Directors International.

Consent: Get the performers’ permission — including concrete boundaries and out of bounds body parts, and do it before you start.

Communication: Keep talking throughout the process. What’s working, what’s not, who’s touching who and how and do they feel safe.

Choreography: Performers wouldn’t spontaneously add an extra pirouette to a dance number or an extra kick to a fight scene. Don’t add an ass grab or extra kissing.

Context: Just because you kiss someone in one scene doesn’t mean you can kiss them in another scene without communicating about adjusting the choreography and seeking consent to do so. Just because someone is topless with you on stage, it doesn’t mean they won’t mind being topless around you offstage, or in another scene onstage.

Being Heard Is Not Necessarily Being Acknowledged

There is often mention that if the performing arts want to be relevant, audiences need to see themselves and their stories on stage. More and more frequently I am hearing about projects like the one in Reading, PA Margy Waller wrote about last month.

A number of artists and arts groups worked together to create a transmedia production called “This Is Reading,” that allowed the residents of the city to talk about and depict their experiences in the community.

One of the collaborating groups, The Civilians, went to other cities around the country and videotaped interviews with residents about their best and worst memories as part of a virtual dialogue with the residents of Reading, PA.

The various elements of performance, projection and interactions were staged in a community event involving food trucks and special lighting.

According to Margy Waller, the producers went to great pains to ensure participation by a wide spectrum of the community,

“The producers made sure that residents got tickets, delivering them in person to people they were afraid might not learn of the show through traditional marketing. All of the tickets were free. When the first two weekends of six shows sold out quickly, they extended the show for a third weekend.”

As I read Waller’s post and explored some of the other links and videos about this event, I recalled assertions that the last Presidential election resulted as it did because people didn’t feel like they were being heard. I wondered if events like the one in Reading might provide the sense of being heard, even if the relevant political leaders didn’t attend.

It is theoretically easier to make oneself heard to a wider group of people than ever before thanks to the Internet and social media. I suspect that this method of expression doesn’t provide the confidence that what one has said has been sincerely acknowledged in a way that existed 25-30 years ago when the effective reach of a statement was much more limited.

Even as people are increasingly able to experience creative expression without leaving the comfort of their homes, perhaps the value that local arts and cultural organizations can offer is the sense that people are being heard and what they say has value. The quality of experience when others are present to witness your story depicted in a performance, visual representation, broadcast or projection is entirely different from having your story appear on an online forum for 100,000 anonymous eyes.

How Quickly Things Progress

If you want some evidence about how quickly new technologies and methods of doing business are having an impact on our lives, check this out:

In May 2009 I wrote about the potential legal consequences of posting solicitations for project investors online.  It just so happens that Kickstarter was founded a month before, April 2009, but it hadn’t really started to have a noticeable presence.

October 2011 I started writing about legislation and rule changes starting to take place that would remove many of the previous limits that limited giving to Kickstarter type campaigns to donation status rather than allowing investment with an expectation of return.

By December 2011, people were talking about this as a potential funding model for productions with Off-Broadway show or smaller budgets.  A short time later, people were writing that some of the limitations may not be conducive to those type of project.

I am not sure where things stand at this time. I know the laws have continued to evolve. In 2015 Broadway producer Ken Davenport wrote about how recent regulation changes would have made the crowdfunding effort he engaged in for 2012 Broadway production of Godspell a lot easier. At the time he claimed, “Yep, my friends, for-profit crowdfunding is here.”

This might be a funding model people would want to look into for future projects.

While it didn’t seem like it unfolded that quickly at the time, looking back I am surprised as how quickly things transitioned from the founding of a crowdfunding platform to the establishment of a critical mass that made authorization of new avenues of investment important. (Though granted, anything that facilitates the flow of money for investment is going to be prioritized in the US)

 

If You Don’t Have Anything Nice To Say, We Don’t Want To Hear It

A long time complaint about arts coverage in newspapers has been that the writers seldom get it right. They don’t present the full story or employ fair criteria.

Of course, more recently the complaint has been that newspapers have completely eliminated their staff providing arts coverage.

Back in 2009, I wrote about an exchange between the communications director for the Guthrie Theatre and a writer for the Minnesota Star Tribute.

The former accused the newspaper of not engaging in substantive journalism about real stories and the latter accused the Guthrie of only participating in stories they liked and shutting down in the face of potential criticism. The incident was so noteworthy that even though the link to the communication director’s original letter no longer works, Minnesota Playlist reprinted it as part of a retrospective in 2014.

Even though arts organizations may not get arts coverage from local media the way they once did, I think the real value of my original post is in the discussion of transparency that arts organizations exhibit when sharing information about themselves in any forum.

Looking Back At Some Of My Favs

Back in the day, Drew McManus ran an annual series on Adaptistration during the month of April which he christened,  Take A Friend To The Orchestra month. I found an old post which recounted some of my favorite entries which provide some great insight into the way different people experience attending the orchestra.

One post I linked to but didn’t quote was composer Alex Shapiro’s. As I re-read some of the entries I cited, I wanted to call attention to some of what she said.

If this orchestral thing is so enjoyable, why the heck do we need to fortify, inform, pre-warn, pre-inform and generally pre-experience it for someone? Is it actually that scary? That risky? Will body armor be necessary? Are we supposed to treat a new listener like a piece of food and soak her in a rich marinade of background information in order to ready her for the searing flame of the auditorium seats? Ouch!

As with all live concerts in any genre- chamber, jazz, rock, reggae- symphonic music washes over us as a sensual experience. If we insist on viewing it as difficult and challenging (perhaps because that automatically makes those of us who like it look awfully darn smart), we’re missing the point. And equally sadly, we’re sending a message that it’s an awful lot of work to listen to music. With an implication like that, people just might stay home, or opt to do something with their money that they perceive as a more obviously enjoyable experience. Hmmm. Sound familiar?

Later she talks about the way the L.A. Phil was advertising concerts. While this was in 2006 and the L.A. Phil has probably made changes to their promotional style, I am pretty sure there are still groups that employ the methods about which she complains:

One day last year as I was driving, a radio ad for the L.A. Phil came on. A haughty-sounding middle-aged white woman was cooing an oily, British-inflected voiceover into a high-end microphone, telling listeners just how marvelous the upcoming season was and that we won’t want to miss the “divine splendor and magnificence” (or some such combo of adjectives) of the Los Angeles Philharmonic.

I was livid. This was “my” wonderful orchestra that was trying to get backsides into the seats, but this truly obnoxious ad “reached out” to only a very small and specialized segment of our population. How was this elitist presentation supposed to build audiences for the future? I love hearing the Phil at Disney Hall, but that radio spot even made me want to stay away, thinking, “gee, I guess this isn’t for regular folks.” These are the kinds of approaches that must be reconsidered, if the great tradition of the symphony orchestra is to continue. It has to do with the attitude we wear- not the clothes.

I know you have heard these sentiments about promotional efforts made before, but it is always good to be reminded. Especially because we don’t often hear “insiders” empathizing with the negative impression audiences might have of the way arts organizations talk about themselves.

Any way, I hope you will check out some of my suggested posts. They are a good mix of humor and insight about the experience of concert attendance.

Shredding Perceptual Barriers

From the “Stuff We Didn’t Know We Wanted” file, a few years back I wrote about the idea of using a mobile shredder to help lower perceptual barriers with your community. At the time I had seen sign inviting people to “engage in some Spring cleaning and bring their sensitive documents to be shredded. While there people can participate in a potluck/streetfair type event.”

I totally forgot about that, but you can bet before I started writing this entry I added it to my running list of ideas so I wouldn’t forget it again.

As I had written in my post,

It struck me that this is the type of community service an organization could offer that will NEVER in a million years show up on a survey as something you could do to help the community. It is one of those things people need but don’t realize they need when asked.

This is also the sort of thing that breaks down barriers to attendance. You advertise an open house barbecue picnic at your organization and as someone who has never been to an arts organization, I might figure the only difference between the picnic and attending a performance is good ribs. Faced with the prospect of being the only person there who doesn’t know how to speak theatre/ballet/classical music/visual art, there may still be a high anxiety factor even if I don’t have to go into the building.

A shredder truck in the parking lot on the other hand is a service I can actually use. While I am there, maybe I grab some hamburgers and look around a little. If things get a little uncomfortable, the shredder provides my excuse as I notice the line is getting shorter, excuse myself and go over there. Heck, there isn’t much danger in bringing the kids either. Even if the arts stuff doesn’t appeal to them, watching papers get consumed by a giant machine is always interesting.

Though as I noted, even with this approach it still may take people showing up five years in a row before they feel comfortable participating in your regular activities.

What’s Art Good For Thought of the Day

A few years back I wrote a post that included the following quote from Fractured Atlas’ Adam Huttler.

No need to read my original post, I just offer this as a thought of the day that hasn’t lost its validity. (my emphasis)

I’m always skeptical of arts advocacy arguments that emphasize the importance of arts as a hobby in support of other (presumably more serious or important) endeavors. You know, like when people claim arts education is important because it helps kids do better at math. That’s great and all, but what’s wrong with the fact that it helps kids do better at art? Why isn’t that enough? Even setting aside the intrinsic value of the arts, the direct benefits to society from arts and culture activities are well documented (economic development, urban renewal, etc.) We shouldn’t have to justify our existence on the idea that, by supporting and practicing the arts, some totally unrelated but positive thing might happen by accident.

A Manufactured Rival Might Be Better For You Than An Actual Rival

I am taking some time off to spend with family so I am plumbing into the archives again for a bit.

A few years back, I wrote about a company that didn’t feel they had enough competitors to force them to be innovative so they invented one.

Nothing consolidates a team and brushes away internal squabbles like the threat of a common enemy. Because ePrize’s next largest competitor is too small to raise their blood temperature, the company created Slither Corp.

By asking its employees what they think their counterpart at Slither would do differently, Linker says ePrize “creates a fun, safe opening for continual discussion about what the company could do better.”

Ask yourself these three questions to see if a threat can unblock your business’ innovations.

Who or what is our worst enemy?
What is our enemy doing that we can do better?
Can we create an enemy to spark new ideas?

Since most arts organizations probably feel they have no lack of competition, I had suggested using a fictitious enemy to remove some of the emotional associations which might get in the way of objectively addressing issues the organization may face.

It can be difficult to get motivated to do better if you perceive that the other organizations in town get all the grants, have the more affluent donors, get more recognition, get the benefit of the doubt when they make missteps, etc.  It is easy to make excuses why you will never succeed if you are focused on how great other people are rather than your own successes and capabilities.

The suggestion I made back then is worth considering.  Essentially, competing against the pretend rival you inflate in your mind might be more constructive than competing against the actual rival who you have inflated in your mind.

By creating an imaginary enemy, you can concentrate on responding to events without the emotional subtext lurking beneath the conversations. Yes, there are plenty of groups out there eating your lunch, but your biggest problem is The House of Extraordinary Matinee idols. (THEM) Your fictional enemy, THEM, noting the trend of sold out shows has decided to program seasons of 100% musicals. How do you position your next season in relation to this imagined challenge?

The fictional enemy doesn’t have to be a proxy for an actual rival in the community, it just has to present a credible challenge to your organization in order to spur innovation and creative thinking.