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Audience Relations

Free Admission For True Believers

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I don’t usually promote products here on the blog, but my assistant theatre manager found this in a Pier One and bought it for the theatre. We are thinking of putting it out by the lobby for all our free events. I pretty much captures who we are and what we are trying to accomplish with many of our shows.

To Those Who Believe Sign
To Those Who Believe

If you go into Pier One to get one of your own. Tell ’em you represent a theatre, museum, dance company, school, etc., Let them know the arts organizations in the community support them.

More thankful to have staff that is on the same wavelength as me (and I will credit her for shifting my thinking, too) and taking the initiative to grab the sign for the theatre.

Can You Pursue The Intrinsic Value of Arts Alone?

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There was a post by KCET columnist Corbett Barklie last fall that has had me thinking and wondering if there hasn’t been enough conversation about this topic.

In short, Barklie feels that arts organizations are sacrificing a focus on the intrinsic value of art in the pursuit of “social service” related activities. (my emphasis)

Arts groups exist to interpret the past, elucidate the present, and imagine the future. To borrow from Dewitt H. Parker’s The Principles of Aesthetics, “The intrinsic value of art must be unique, for it is the value of a unique activity — the free expression of experience in a form delightful and permanent, mediating communication.”

Nonprofit arts groups and the artists that run them are not reactionary entities. They are visionary entities.

You may be thinking, “But what about art groups who work in schools? Artists who work in hospitals?” In my opinion, those are arts service organizations — a rarely made but critical distinction. Arts service organizations exist to create and provide ancillary programs that help fulfill the missions of social service nonprofits such as schools, community centers, hospitals, etc…

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Because no distinction has been made between arts groups and arts service organizations, the general arts and arts policy conversation (set by funders and designated leaders) is getting more and more muddled. And artists who exist in organizations that are only concerned with artistic excellence are beginning to feel marginalized.

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Unless and until arts groups find their voice of disagreement and set aside fear of funding or political ramifications long enough to speak up for themselves, the conversation will continue to focus less and less on challenges facing arts groups that are committed solely to artistic excellence. Eventually these arts groups will fade from view completely.

My first thought was, but isn’t an educational component the way it is supposed to be? Most non-profit organizations are organized under the aegis of the education part of 501 (c) 3. In a time when there is less arts education in schools, isn’t it in our best long term interest to be providing educational services? But then again, by Barklie’s definition, I have been working for arts service organizations for the last 20 odd years so this is the normal for me.

So my question to my larger audience; is it as Barklie suggests (and most recently echoed by Diane Ragsdale), have funders and others lead the arts in this direction?

After all, at one time, art was presented for arts sake and there wasn’t any efforts to supplement the efforts of education and health care.

Is this an improvement or a dilution of our effort? It can be argued that pursuing education programs helps put arts organizations in touch with their and constituencies, helping to remove ivory tower mentality and acculturate the community.

But there is also the issue of diverting resources from the core competency and mission of the company. For profit businesses aren’t expected to do this. Many get immense tax breaks with no expectation that they serve the public good.

Is it the new normal that arts organizations must split their focus in order to maintain their existence? Is there an egotism inherent to believing you should be able to pursue the intrinsic value of art alone?

Shaping oneself as an arts service organization seems about the only option for garnering foundation funding and mollifying governmental entities who want something more than pursuit of artistic excellence as a justification for being.

Thoughts?

Info You Can Use: Leveraging Transitions Well

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So I really hadn’t intended to write too much more about my job change until I left my current job or took my next one. However, the assistant theatre manager who is chairing the search committee is using some activities which I think are really beneficial to my organization and the community.

Today she held a meeting with various stakeholders to discuss what they wanted from the person who would replace me. I wasn’t included, but I eavesdropped on the conversation rising to my office off and on for about 15 minutes.

The group was comprised of about 15 people, some of which who are members of the search committee. Among them were faculty from music, theatre, visual arts; chair of Arts and Humanities; Dean of our division; our theatre staff; community artists; representatives of three renting organizations; volunteers; and our development officer.

They started out writing down what things they valued about the theatre, focusing especially on what will be missing if the theatre didn’t continue operations. Then they took turns talking about what they had written and sticking the post-it notes up on the wall in themed groups so that they could see what values people gravitated toward.

Later they moved on to some group activities to generate suggestions.

I spoke to some people after the meeting and they seemed pleased with the process. They were especially happy that the assistant theatre manager kept things moving along.

What I thought was really great about this exercise was that it brought so many different constituencies together who never meet each other. Each one became aware of what the other did in the facility and why certain elements of the facility and the services offered were relevant to them.

More importantly, this was all done in front of college administrators and the development officer which helped them understand the wide range of activities that occurs in the facility and why its existence was important.

It sounds strange to say, but I think this process was successful because I am leaving.

If we had tried to gather a group of people to talk about why they loved the theatre, I am not sure as many people would have shown up or been as eager to participate.

I think the sense of immediacy and the opportunity to influence the type of person chosen as the new theatre manager garnered far more investment in the process.

While part of me craves melodramatic gnashing of teeth and wailing, “Oh what shall we do without you, Joe? You are our source of inspiration and have that musky, Victor Mature-like scent,” I am really happy to see the transition turning into such a constructive process.

Just offering it here as an example something other organizations might try.

Oh, and I forgot, they fed the group Valentine’s Day cupcakes. That probably helped, too.

Info You Can Use: Are You Prepared to Weaponize Your Storytelling?

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Hat tip to P. Martin for the link to Chris Brogan’s guest post on Copyblogger about Content Marketing. I will confess that I think the term content marketing is a phrase devoid of much meaning. In the comments section of the post, Brogan agrees but says he just uses the terms that everyone is Googling.

It was hard to pass by this post though due to Brogan’s very quotable declaration that “Content marketing is weaponized storytelling.”

Brogan says that he used that phrase at a conference, but he isn’t sure that he really believes it and amended it to the admittedly less evocative, “Content marketing is sales-minded storytelling.”

His premise is that content marketing isn’t branding. He feels that only really big companies with large budgets can afford to build brand awareness. The little guy has to depend on content marketing which is aimed at “helping your market make a decision of some kind.” This doesn’t mean constantly making a hard sell.

Your site/email newsletter/podcast/whatever should consist of something like this:

Some posts that are just friendly and storytelling.
Some posts that are gentle pushes towards a next action or an ask.
Some posts that are pure selly-sell, as I like to call it. Apparently over here they call that an offer.
Some (but very few) totally off-topic posts.

This would be true of a blog, an email list, or whatever. I believe that the real goal of content marketing is to advance your business.

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This is where it’s tricky. Because the business goal just might be entertainment. The business goal of my writing a guest post on Copyblogger is to get you to consider signing up for my awesome free newsletter.

Based on this great post (okay, decent post), you’re supposed to now think, “Wow, I really like what Chris had to say. I think I’ll give his newsletter a try.”

Did I charge you any money? No. Did I tell you about my product or service in the body of this post? No. What I did was start what I hope to be a relationship with you and I’ve invited you to get my awesome newsletter. That’s me content marketing.

Do you feel dirty? No. (You might already be dirty, but that’s awesome, and yet, not my fault.)

One of the commenters on this post felt Chris was wrong and made too many generalizations. His company has focused on positioning themselves as experts in the industry and gets great response from that. He said the only time responses have flagged was when they tried to inject content. Chris agrees that different industries and markets require different approaches.

Acknowledging that, I have to think that Chris’ approach is more aligned with the needs of arts organizations which largely employ storytelling to engage their customers/audiences.

At my theatre, we don’t do it with our newsletters as much as I would like. They have been mostly focused on communicating information about shows with interesting visuals and language and keeping text to a minimum. We are still evolving that approach.

However, our Facebook page has been a place where we share all sorts of information about the arts in general along with information about the shows. We have done this somewhat out of a desire to keep people engaged with the organization during the gaps between shows.

We want to give people a reason to continually visit our Facebook page, but also communicate information about arts careers and opportunities to the students and artists whom our facility serves. We have a television monitor with information about our shows in the lobby and it just occurred to me that would also be a great place to share some of the interesting tidbits we post on our Facebook page alongside our show information.

Many of these ideas can be offered free to the public without making a hard sell or talking about your company. So think about it. What resources are available to you? What can you do?

Age And Artistic Taste–Discuss

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Writing about the concept of music discovery, Tyler Hayes suggests that after a certain age, most people are pretty set in their music tastes and in terms of paying for recordings of music, are better served by buying and owning rather than “renting” the music from a service like Spotify.

He argues that technology currently does a poor job of creating an environment for music discovery.

The problem with Pandora is that it may replace the radio for some, or a lot of people, but there is no spark the same way when a friend says “Hey, you should check out this band, they’re great.” A computer can’t replace that, yet. There will be an app or site or service that does fix and solve discovery… But that isn’t now or even this year.

Music discovery should be a verb or an accident, through active looking or serendipitous stumbling, but it shouldn’t be paraded around only as a marketing term.

A number of thoughts that occurred to me as I read this. First was that idea that new music discovery tapers off after a certain age. There are studies that show that people often mature into an appreciation for classical music. But I wonder if the ground work for that appreciation isn’t laid when people are younger and attend live performances in general with their family and classmates.

Yeah, I know the arts for the kids discussion has been beaten to death. I am just suggesting that even though you turned out okay and appreciate art even though you had minimal exposure when you were younger, the general environment has greatly changed since then.

If you are in your 40s as I am, or older you and your parents watched many of the same television shows because that was all that was available. Even though I didn’t go to many Broadway shows in my youth, my mother would often play Fiddler on the Roof, Camelot and Godspell records. I would dance around singing the chorus of “If I Were A Rich Man” when I resented having to do chores.

Your parents had a fairly strong influence on your taste and you shared many of the same experiences. While it may have been to a lesser degree, you probably gravitated toward some of the same general arts genres your parents did as you got older. Even if you rebelled against sharing their aesthetic taste, you were still engaged by art to some degree.

I am not sure we can necessarily count on the same effect with the current generation. Lacking any exposure from any quarter, their tastes may solidify as they are and never include traditional/classical art forms as they mature.

I am open to hearing counter arguments, but if you are older than 30ish, be honest, are you as voracious a consumer of music/art as you were when you were younger or are your choices pretty much explorations along general lines you established in the past with some interesting, but not radical deviations?

Second thing I began to ponder was whether terms like audience/community engagement and discovery are largely marketing terms that are being used to add a little luster to the same general programs as before or if arts organizations have started making a more directed effort in these directions. This isn’t something I can opine upon even generally because I don’t have any really solid data. It is a good question to ask ourselves, though.

I do think that the thing arts organizations offer over any other entertainment form is the opportunity to experience the frisson of personal discovery. I love Tyler Hayes’ definition of musical discovery as “a verb or an accident, through active looking or serendipitous stumbling.”

You absolutely miss something when you try to experience it via a small screen or ear buds vs. going into a performance hall or gallery. Even if you don’t understand Dali, you have an experience standing in front of one of his wall sized works that you don’t by seeing a picture of it.

The challenge has always been trying to communicate that through media insufficient to the task without under or overselling it. The other part of the challenge is whether people will continue to value the seeking process.

Info You Can Use: Discovering Your Ideal Customer

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Last June I came across a useful article by Sarah Arrow about identifying your ideal customer. According to her, there is are a very narrow profiles which constitute a business’ ideal customer then the people who are secondary customers who influence your ideal customer. Her article is mostly aimed at writing different blog posts for the ideal and secondary customers, but it is just as easy to substitute “ads” or “social media updates” for blog post.

In the non-profit world there are many constituencies we serve: audiences, boards, government officials, students, parents, performers, ethnic groups, etc. In performance based arts, we talk a lot about diversifying our audiences to attract a wide range of people. There are also very limited resources available with which to communicate ourselves to these groups.

In light of all this, it can be difficult to decide who to target and so opt for trying to appeal to everyone in general. This may be largely ineffective because it engages no one specific very well.

Arrow runs through a process which can help identify an ideal customer. The example she uses are baby strollers. (my emphasis)

Imagine you sell buggies (strollers for my US readers), your marketplace is people with babies and toddlers – new mums, dads, grandparents, aunts and uncles. And the chances are you don’t just sell one type of buggy, but multiple types and styles so you can meet the needs of your customers.

That’s a big marketplace,…

When you have the ideal customer you get a better picture of how to market your buggies to that person. If your mum is a health nut, she’d love the buggy that you can jog with, Dads are often taller and buggies with adjustable handles will speak to him… but here’s the thing, a new mum tends to spend more than a second time mum, she’s the ideal customer in that big marketplace. You have to market to her first and get a relationship started with her swiftly before someone else does.

Arrow continues noting that first time grandmothers are also a lucrative market, but their concerns are much different than that of first time mothers so you need to provide a separate and different approach.

Secondary customers (in this case, the mother’s female friends) keep an eye open for the interests of the primary buyers and influence them. While they may not buy things themselves, Arrow says refer a friend offers are helpful because they still allow people to take action, even if it isn’t making a purchase.

So think about your audience. Can you whittle it down to three important categories like this? That becomes a little more manageable when it comes to producing materials, right?

And remember, they may not all require the same format. Older people read the physical newspapers more than other demographics so only one message may be needed for that medium. Other audiences may follow closely on social media so two or three different messages targeted at them may be required. Social media isn’t as cheap as people imagine, but also tend not to be as expensive as print and broadcast media.

The trouble might be identifying who the ideal customer is. First question that popped into my mind was that it is often women who provide the impetuous for ticket buying. Are they the ideal customer or the influencer? I suspect a little of both.

I think a far bigger problem for arts organizations will be an unwillingness to trim the list down. There is such a strong impulse to identify everyone as the primary customer and avoid being perceived as exclusionary. It doesn’t help that granters and foundations reward with funding those who can claim an impact on the widest possible field.

The truth is, the profile of the best people to pursue is probably much narrower. This doesn’t necessarily exclude the diversity funders seek. For some organizations, the ideal customer may be K-5th grade school teachers who in turn will bring diverse groups of students.

For other organizations, that same diversity might be more difficult to achieve. However if they have done the right job identifying and crafting a message to their ideal customers, the positive response rate should be higher than before.

Who Really Values Diversity In The Arts?

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Last month Springboard for the Arts tweeted that the attendance at the Guthrie Theatre’s attendance last year exceeded the Minnesota Vikings’ home game attendance, 425,932 to 421,668.

Springboard Executive Director Laura Zabel blogged about these numbers suggesting the 400k Guthrie audience members should manifest their love for the theater in the same way Vikings’ fans do–jerseys and facepaint.

One of my first thoughts, based on some of Zabel’s observations, was about whether tax dollars were better spent building a stadium which is only used 8 times a year by 400,000 people or a theatre which is used hundreds of nights a year by the same number.

But I quickly remembered the big to do about the lack of diversity in Guthrie’s current season. I wondered if the attendance numbers reflected any push back against that.

Based on a calendar year comparison, it hasn’t. At the end of 2011 their attendance was 421,982. That, however, was down from 2010 when their attendance was 435,877.

I don’t have any numbers comparing their seasons which run September – August. There could have been a precipitous drop off September – December 2012 that isn’t readily apparent. My suspicion, however, is that audiences by and large don’t care about diversity, or the lack thereof, as much as people in the arts sector do.

Diversity is an internal concern driven by economic and philosophic motivations rather than by external audience demands. Audiences do want works that speak to them so arts organizations pursue diversity in order to bolster attendance by expanding the appeal of their works.

Non-profit arts organizations are also widely motivated by their educational mission to expose their audiences to new ideas which is often manifested by who is chosen to perform and whose ideas are chosen to be presented.

While arts organizations have to be responsive to the tastes and interests of their audiences, the audiences take a pretty passive role when it comes to programming. They aren’t widely clamoring for their local arts organizations to bring in new faces and new ideas.

If they were, it would actually be easier to program a season because you would have an idea of what people wanted instead of having an empty theatre teach you what they didn’t.

The Guthrie’s artistic director, Joe Dowling noted that many of the shows in their current season were brought to him by the directors. That is how the programming decisions of most arts organizations are driven, artists and agents, rather than audiences approach decision makers with ideas.

In fact, one of the things artistic directors probably cringe most at is being approached by an audience member who says “I know this group…” I would have sworn it would never come to pass, but this season we are actually doing a show based on a usher coming up and essentially saying, “I am in this band…” It does happen, but often audience suggestions don’t reflect an understanding of the organization’s artistic and business models.

Just the same, that feedback can provide insight into the type of experience the audience member is looking for. Presenting Lady Gaga may be totally wrong for the Guthrie Theater, but a show where the audience can vicariously identify with the protagonist’s rise to celebrity might work great.

As you are all well aware, arts organizations are in the unenviable position of having to figure it all out. It is difficult to pursue any one agenda as wholeheartedly as you might wish. Program too conservatively and audiences will say the arts are arrogant and out of touch for telling them they ought to value antiquated works by Mozart and Shakespeare. Program too progressively and audiences will say the arts are arrogant for telling them they ought to value works challenging notions of gender, race and politics.

I don’t mean to champion a middle of the road approach. I could easily argue, as many people did regarding the Guthrie’s season, that I have far more diversity on my stage and in my audiences just by cultivating locally available artistic resources. I also know that may be harder to achieve in the next job I hold. A balance between leading and following has to be struck and recalibrated all the time.

Our Stories

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My mother has been doing some hardcore genealogy research for years now. There was a trip to Ireland a few years back, last Christmas we were in FDR’s Presidential Library, this Christmas I got a calendar with pictures and stories from my maternal grandfather’s side of family all over it.

But she isn’t alone, with shows like Who Do You Think You Are tracing celebrity genealogy, the increased use of DNA testing for various ends and Ancestry.com’s growing subscription rolls, show that people are increasingly interested in their heritage.

From what I have read, interest in genealogy usually increases as people enter retirement which is what a lot of baby boomers (including my mother) have started doing.

It occurs to me then that it might be meaningful to many communities if arts organizations made an effort to help them tell their stories through performance, exhibitions and participatory activities.

The one type of show that has pretty consistently done well for my theatre are those that resonate with groups that maintain a fairly strong cultural identity. Some of it has been related to ethnicity, but others have crossed ethnic lines and been more about the shared experience of place.

Even if you don’t have the capacity to produce/commission/organize a performance, I think there are plenty of opportunities for involving the community in interactive experiences.

By default, I think of those Nina Simon does at her museum, but something could easily be organized around a big 4th of July picnic where everyone sits around and tells family stories about the immigrant/frontier experience. Those stories can be collected/recorded/interpreted in some way and displayed.

My intuition tells me these activities that might even abet community building during a time where electronic devices are making people a little more insular.

Context And Environment Matter

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NPR recently teamed up with the TED people to present the TED Radio Hour which takes three TED talks on a similar theme to revisits them with the speakers. The one I heard run this weekend was about how our brains trick us and confuse us about what we value. It was the second segment with psychologist Paul Bloom which caught my attention because it deal with how so much of what we value about art depends on the context.

It started with the story about Joshua Bell playing in the subway station and no one paying him much mind or money, for that matter. When I talked about this experiment before, I mentioned that context and the environment played large roles in people’s enjoyment.

Bloom talked about the Dutch art dealer who was convicted of treason for selling Hermann Goring a Vermeer–until he confessed and proved the painting was a forgery–after which he was deemed a hero.

Bloom also spoke about Marla Olmstead who was painting works at 3 years old that people were paying tens of thousands of dollars for until 60 Minutes came to visit and it was discovered her father was prompting (and perhaps even helping) with the painting.

A common question was raised about each of these. If Joshua Bell is such a great performer which people pay great amounts of money to hear perform, why wasn’t his quality recognized as an anonymous performer in a D.C. subway? Why is it treasonous to sell a Nazi a real Vermeer but heroic to sell him a fake if you can’t tell the difference between the paintings? If you like the painting, why does it matter if a 3 year old or a 30 year old paints it?

The answer has to do with authenticity, the story which accompanies the experience and a willingness to receive. Classical music doesn’t have to be experienced in a formal performance hall or art in a museum gallery. There are successful programs that bring classical music and opera to bars.

But people go to those events expecting to listen to music. There are entirely different expectations and agendas as you move through a subway station which inhibits a person’s readiness to receive the experience.

Art like wine and food is more enjoyable and valuable when the authenticity of provenance is beyond question. You are buying the story as well as the physical object and that makes all the difference. According to Bloom, there are parts of the brain that light up when you believe you are drinking expensive wine that don’t light up when you believe you are drinking cheap wine even if it is the same wine. So it isn’t that you think it is better, you are actually having an entirely different experience.

The lesson for arts organizations and performers is to help your audience to that mindset. Whether you are in a formal performance space or not, there are things you must do in respect to the environment and interactions to help transition people toward the experience.

You could argue that flashmob performances don’t do that with their audiences and they are often well received. But I would say it isn’t the quality of the performance that people are necessarily responding to but the quality of the planning and execution that brought them the experience.

It is akin to crossing a stream and finding a diamond ring in the water. It is the enjoyment of finding an unexpected treasure that pleases. I think you would find people react just as delighted if an accomplished high school orchestra popped out of the woodwork as they would for the Philadelphia Orchestra revealing themselves in the same manner.

What I really appreciated was Bloom’s late addendum to his TED Talk. In the radio program he said the thing he didn’t emphasize enough in his TED Talk, and was pleased to be able to now, was that most people see it as a glitch or flaw that our perceptions and values can be manipulated by such factors. If we were perfect, these things wouldn’t sway us so easily.

Bloom’s view is that this “flexibility” actually allows us to experience more pleasure in life. He feels that taste can be developed through study and learning. The more you know, the more pleasure you can derive. So if you want to get more pleasure from wine or art, you need to do more than just expose yourself by drinking lots of wine and seeing lots of art, you need intentionally educate yourself.

That seems to align with the findings of the Knight Foundation’s Magic of Music report from six years ago which said exposure in the form of lecture/demos didn’t seem to have as long lasting impact on participation and attendance as participatory programs including instruction.

This, of course, reinforces the importance and sense of desperation to get art back into schools.

Stuff To Ponder: The Fairness and Transparency of Ticket Lines

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Seeing and hearing about people queuing up this year for Black Friday sales on the Monday prior reminded me about an article Tim Roberts wrote on Fullhouses.org this September. In it, Roberts asked if making people line up for theatre tickets was really the fairest way to distribute them.

I am sure the British Commonwealth nations who sponsor Fullhouses.org don’t experience the homicidal shopping frenzy that is Black Friday, but it occurred to me that it is something of a double standard to expect arts organizations to be fairer than retail stores.

It isn’t fair to have to take time off of work to stand in line for theatre tickets, but people camp out for a week to get $50 off a flat screen TV and no one blinks, eh?

Arts organizations are expected to operate more like businesses, aren’t we? Why not make people line up and wait? We may be worried about hurting our relationships with our patrons, but it doesn’t seem to hurt retail stores even when customers know they are being manipulated with sale prices.

Shakespeare in the Park in NYC has a long history of making people line up to get free tickets to their shows. And from their website, apparently people are queuing up before 6 am to be online for the 1 pm distribution. My suspicion is that their policy of randomly distributing seats rather than giving the closest seats to those at the head of the line is probably meant to dissuade people from lining up even earlier. It probably also keeps things from getting as emotionally charged as the Black Friday conflicts.

I did a couple posts on the subject a few years back. Now that I look at their site again, it appears they now offer an online lottery of sorts for tickets. While there are some alternative options, I am guessing your best bet is probably still going to be on the line in the park.

I know there have been some grumblings about the Shakespeare in the Park ticketing process, but I think their long history of requiring people to line up proves it is a viable model.

Back to the original question, is it really important to be fair? People generally have no awareness of whether the organization they are buying from is for-profit or non-profit. They are mostly motivated by the content of the show and tolerate quite a bit of unfairness.

People will go online to buy tickets and are poised to make a purchase at the exact moment they go on sale only to find they are all snatched up in a blink by automated processes. The fact people will still crave those tickets at a higher price on the re-sale sites empowers the very practice people say they despise.

A physical line is actually solid proof of your relative standing. If the line snakes down 5 blocks and you don’t get tickets, you may be disappointed but you could see that there really were 500 individuals ahead of you who had invested more time and effort than you did into making the purchase. While more inconvenient, it would seem a much more transparent and fairer option than online and over the phone ticket sales.

What I think the defining factor is is what your audience values as the basis of your relationship with them. In terms of retailers, the whole relationship is based on price. JC Penny found out people don’t care if they are being manipulated, just so long as the price is right.

So even if most people don’t discern between for and non-profit performing arts events, as a non-profit you can’t pursue a relationship based on price for the simple reason that price conscious people don’t make $1000 donations on top of their ticket purchases.

Patrons of non-profit organizations also don’t generally encounter having all the available tickets disappear in a matter of moments so aren’t likely to crave the transparency of physical lines.

Ultimately, how you handle the process of ticket sales is going to depend on your community and what they value. As a non-profit you are working on showing value in areas retailers often ignore.

There is part of me that thinks that if people are willing to queue up to buy something, either physically or virtually, it is hard to buy the sort of buzz and publicity that generates. It may be ill-advised to try to replace that in deference to some sense of fairness if people are not resentful about it.

Even if they are, it could be the sense of excitement inspiring that resentment. People are more likely to be angry that they have to go to work rather than standing on line to buy tickets if they drive by and there is a line of people threatening to buy up all the tickets before lunch break. Without that line, there is less urgency to see the show.

Before Thanksgiving I was listening to NPR as they interviewed people who had already planned to skip Thanksgiving dinner with their families in order to camp out in line–or they made arrangements to essentially tailgate their Thanksgiving dinner. As much as I thought they were crazy, it was clear even over the radio that people viewed the whole thing as a rite of passage type bonding experience.

I don’t think it was that long ago that people regularly did this sort of thing to get tickets for concerts too. I am betting there is an element of the concert tasting all the sweeter for the effort invested too.

The more I think about it, if you are going to have a physical line up, I think Shakespeare in the Park’s solution of providing a chance to be selected to receive tickets provides the best balance. You get the uncertain convenience of online acquisition balanced by the inconvenient certainty of gaining a ticket of your own merit by lining up early. I am not exactly sure how Shakespeare in the Park handles it, but if they keep the percent of the house they are releasing online a secret, they can vary it according to demand and maintain their attendance numbers.

Release The Theatre Ninja!

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The Boston Globe recently had an article on theatre etiquette listing strategies for audience members to use when attending performances to avoid causing any problems and to deal with those that arise. It ends noting that a cinema in the UK has started to employ lycra clad “ninja” to sneak up on ask patrons to be quiet.

What I found most interesting was a comment on the Globe article made by “jwinboston” who related an experience attending Handel’s Messiah. A family with 4 kids were making quite a fuss in the front rows. When she spoke to the father at intermission, he reacted indignantly feeling that his kids were being attacked. She spoke to an usher and found the family wasn’t there at the end of intermission. Others in the audience thanked her for speaking up.

However, she says,

“Over the years I’ve thought about that incident and I’ve come to the conclusion that I was actually in the wrong. I went to that concert with the same expectations that I have when I attend any classical concert, however, a Christmas season performance of Messiah is not any classical concert. Different people with different expectations attend these concerts and they are the target audience, not serious classical patrons. So at this time of year if you are going to attend one of these performances you need to do it in a relaxed and tolerant frame of mind. You’re there for the event, not the performance.”

I think most people would say she originally handled the situation quite reasonably as it was and wouldn’t have found any fault with her. To have this level of self-reflection is quite commendable. (And in fact another commenter does commend her.)

This is one of those times where theatre and religion have a lot in common in that the performances/services during the respective holidays are often well attended by people who normally don’t participate at other times of the year and aren’t quite familiar with the rituals.

Performing arts groups are probably more aware of the events that will attract these more diverse audiences than their regular patrons are. Since I saw this article, I have been trying to think of a way to beg the tolerance of regular patrons in a way that doesn’t sound condescending to one of the segments. If anyone has any ideas, I would love to hear them.

(Don’t make your ideas too good though. I really want to fit my ushers with ninja costumes.)

Info You Can Use: Negative Feedback As GPS Data

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In my last entry, I cited the pitfalls of providing too great a forum for feedback and expectations about how that input will be addressed. I think we all recognize though that as arts organizations, we need to solicit feedback in order to better serve our communities.

How you receive the feedback is just as important as how you ask for it. It is easy to dismiss feedback we don’t like or be paralyzed/depressed by taking it too much to heart. FastCompany recently had an article addressing how to take negative feedback on an individual level, but the advice can scale up to the organizational level.

The article talks about using negative feedback to make yourself more successful. I was interested to learn that openness to feedback is actually a significant factor in an employee’s success.

“A recent study found that 46% of newly hired employees will fail within 18 months. Of those that fail, 26% do so because they can’t accept feedback,…

[…]

“People who are at the bottom 10% in terms of their willingness to ask for feedback–their leadership effectiveness scores were at the 17th percentile,” says Joseph Folkman, president of Zenger Folkman… “But the people who were at the top 10%, who were absolutely willing to ask for feedback, their leadership effectiveness scores were at the 83rd percentile.”

One of the problems a lot of people face with negative feedback is that they see it as an indictment of them as a person rather than, say an indication of their poor typing skills. I don’t know for sure if it is any worse in the arts sector than any other sector, but I imagine given that those involved in the arts tend to derive so much emotional satisfaction from their work, negative criticism may be more apt to be taken personally.

Article author Denis Wilson suggests just treating the feedback as a single piece of data among many to guide your personal development rather than orienting specifically on it. He cites an apt analogy made by Joseph Folkman that a GPS device needs 3-4 sources of information to accurately track your progress. For the same reason, Folkman also cautions against relying entirely on your own perceptions.

The article goes on to suggest a number of ways to handle the feedback, again by mostly focusing on the facts of the situation rather than emotions involved. A patron may complain angrily and indicate that they have lost faith in you due to problems with their experience. Your focus should be on solutions to those problems rather than fixating on and reacting to the anger.

Of course, it it often no small feat to remain centered on the facts of a situation when on the receiving end of emotionally delivered criticism. Remember that being able to do so contributes to your personal growth.

There is nothing to say the person delivering the criticism will be satisfied with your composed reaction and apology. Just reading the comments to the article, it is clear some people have an expectation that those on the receiving end of the criticism will be contrite and cowed.

All Your Dance Are Belong To Us

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Thomas Cott recently included a link to a story about dance and visual arts that I found extremely intriguing. The article starts with a quote from Ralph Lemon, “I wait,” he said, “for the day when a museum acquires a dance.”

My first reaction was that this could be valuable for cross audience pollination. I thought back to an entry I did last February where the coordinator of a visual and performance art festival observed that there was little cross over between her audiences and that of a theatre oriented festival even though they had many of the same artists in common.

Then I started wondering about the logistics and arrangements involved for a museum to acquire and present dance. Fortunately, the article addresses all these things.

Apparently dance and museums are not strangers. A choreographer received top honors at the Whitney Biennial this year. The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is featuring a 3 week dance series organized by Ralph Lemon. I was surprised to learn that both MoMA and the Guggenheim own several dance pieces and have paved the way for museums to collect “ephemeral works.”

Apparently working in a gallery space challenges choreographers to think in new ways about the visuals and use of space. Museums find they need to think differently about performance arts. (my emphasis)

“But dance isn’t performance art, as Jens Hoffmann, director of San Francisco’s Wattis Institute for Contemporary Art, well knows; he encouraged Mr. Sehgal to transition out of dance, and pursue an audience in the art world.

…Naked on a stage, Mr. Sehgal “re-danced” moves from famous choreographers. “I thought it was interesting that he was turning himself into a museum of dance.” Mr. Hoffmann invited him to participate in several shows in Berlin and Dusseldorf.

Mr. Sehgal, who also has a background in economics, is adamant that his work be treated like any other work of visual art—bought, sold and exhibited. To exhibit one of his pieces, an institution must follow certain contractual obligations—the piece must be shown for a minimum of six weeks, during which time it is presented all day, every day, like any other art exhibition.

[…]

According to Ms. Breitwieser, the rise in interest in dance does parallel a similar rise in interest in live art, or art like Mr. Sehgal’s. Since visual art has become so conceptual and predicated on a kind of “de-skilling,” live art, including performance, dance and theatrical works, she said, present an element of “re-skilling” that audiences crave. Awwnd dance presented in the white-cube context of a museum presents a new challenge to both choreographers and viewers that dance in conventional theater doesn’t offer. “The museum’s position is to write history,” Ms. Breitwieser said. “This makes one look at a piece of live art differently.”

How the dance is treated and viewed is of some concern to those in the dance community. If the relationship is to continue, the situation will likely have to move beyond one-offs and short run exhibitions. Tino Sehgal’s insistence that his work be experienced by visitors with the same degree of persistence as any other art work in the museum may become something of a precedent.

According to Judy Hussie-Taylor, the director of Danspace Project, there is chatter in the dance community over whether museums are co-opting dance without fully understanding what it takes to support dancers. There’s also concern that financial resources that now go directly to choreographers and dance organizations may be diverted to museums and visual arts institutions.

“Selling a dance performance as a work of art is an interesting proposition,” she said, “primarily because it’d be great for choreographers to have the same kind of economic control of their work and its distribution [that visual artists have].”

As I said, for me this whole discussion is intriguing to me. I haven’t even been able to imagine all the implications. What does it do for museums which have heretofore always been the site of static art work if they are regularly offering art that is transitory in nature?

One of the big selling points for the performing arts has always been that it happens only for a moment in time. What is the impact of being able to see it 9-5, Monday – Friday in a MoMA gallery? Even though there is still a higher degree of randomness inherent to 50 live performances than 50 viewings of the same YouTube video, do all those repetitions diminish the value of the performance?

On the other hand, does the fact that MoMA has exclusive rights to an exciting, highly acclaimed dance piece and no amount of begging and money can get it performed in Minneapolis enhance the value of both the museum and the company?

How Audiences Are Like The Electorate

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Now that the election is drawing to a close, I think all non-profit arts organizations, especially those in battleground states, should go out tomorrow and ask media companies for donations. There has been so much money spent on advertising during the campaigns, those companies are going to have a big tax burden this year if they don’t find some worthy cause to donate to!

Alas, Hawaii is not one of those states. Neither presidential candidate visited this year even though rumor has it one of them was born here. While we did have a 2 term Republican governor, the state is pretty solidly Democratic. The State Senate has 24 Democratic members and 1 Republican.

Voting participation is so bad, CNN did a long study about why the state is dead last.

This where “all politics are local” comes in. There are some situations characteristic only of Hawaii. There isn’t another state where a sizable part of the population views statehood as the result of an illegal overthrow of the monarchy and won’t vote because they feel it legitimizes the occupation government.

Due to the distance from the rest of the continental US, a person living in Hawaii can actually hear the winner of a national election called by 5 pm local time, providing less incentive to vote. (Though Alaska is in the same situation and has 8th highest voter turnout.)

Two things I took away from the CNN article that applies to the arts.

First, the importance of giving people an opportunity to talk about their experiences. I mention engaging people in conversation about their experiences with the arts pretty consistently in the blog, but the CNN article shows it in action.

A group canvassing neighborhoods trying to get people engaged and signed to vote didn’t get much traction with conventional survey questions, but when they asked what was personally important…

“…At least she’d have to look at us before saying no.

Do you vote?

No.

Would you like to register?

No.

Last-ditch effort: Is there an issue important to you?

The volunteers explained that Kanu is asking candidates questions based on the issues identified by the people they meet while canvassing. If the candidates addressed her concern, they told her, they’d report back.

“Oh!” the woman said. I could almost hear her tongue loosening.

She launched into her life story….

…The volunteers asked again. Wouldn’t you like to vote? Your voice could be heard.

After some discussion, the woman, Marlene Joshua, 58, said yes.

The other lesson I came away with is that simply inviting people to attend a show could possibly be surprisingly effective.

“He never cast a ballot himself until age 34. No one had ever asked him to, he said, and politics just wasn’t something he thought much about…. But then, in 2010, he saw a link to Kanu’s website shared via Twitter. He clicked it and found a page that asked him to make a pledge to vote for the first time.

For whatever reason, he said yes. That decision was the start of an incredible transformation. It led to his current hobby: spending weekends convincing other people that their votes matter.”

and in another part of the article:

Michelson, from Menlo College in California, told me that some groups — racial minorities, recent immigrants and residents of low-income neighborhoods — don’t feel like people who are supposed to vote in U.S. elections. But if you ask them to participate, she said, that can all change.

“It doesn’t really matter what you say. It doesn’t really matter who asks you,” she said. “The important thing is the personal invitation to participate.”

We know that like people in these groups, there are those who also don’t feel like they are the type of people who go to see live performances. Changing that mindset may start with something as simple as a personal invitation. That gesture at least starts to confirm that they are perceived as the type of person who attends a live performance.

Perform In One Place, Teach In 100 Places

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Digital media seems to creep ever more closely to threaten the practice of physically attending live performance. Last month I got an email soliciting submissions for the WiredArts Festival, what they describe as a month long Fringe Festival which will be live streamed.

“there the audience is global, seating is unlimited and viewers can participate in live chat discussions, interact through twitter and facebook, while the performance is happening….We believe that THE SMALL THEATER AUDIENCE ISN’T IN DECLINE, IT’S ONLINE.”

The reasons they give for participating and the services they offer include:

-Instantly provides a platform to take your company and your art to a global audience.

-Opens the doors to online conversations that expand the work for everyone involved.

-Multiple cameras provide professional, high definition quality and creative, dynamic story telling.

-Increases opportunities for support and funding.

-Engages your company more deeply in social media community and the possibilities of social media networking and marketing

-Is fun, exciting and the wave of the future of the performing arts.

-Drives online audiences to the live theater.

YOUR PROGRAMMING SLOT FEE INCLUDES:
1 high-definition, multi-camera edit of your live performance
Social Media Marketing training sessions
3,000 square foot performance space at The Secret Theater
Opportunity to invite your own audience to the Secret Theater
4 camera setup and professional camera operators
Live-Streamed Director
1 Production Manager
1 Sound (for streaming) Technician
1 Board Operator

I am a little skeptical of their claim that this will drive online audiences to live theater given that the trend seems toward individuals increasingly isolating themselves. If positioned and presented correctly I imagine it could entice people to live performances, but it would have to be an active effort rather than passively depending on people liking something so much they decide to check it out live. People in general are too used to experiencing their entertainment via some form of mediation to feel there are some experiences that must be savored live.

Appropriately enough, three days after receiving this email the topic of You’ve Cott Mail was “The Future of Arts in a Digital Age.”

Included in Cott’s email was a piece by Andrew Sullivan basically saying only suckers eschew digital readers like the iPad and Kindle for print, a sentiment somewhat belied by the widespread power outages on the East Coast. A little difficult to read your Kindle by candle light, a feat I managed with an old fashioned print book in Mongolian yurt this summer.

Thomas Jefferson read by candlelight, by gum. It should be good enough for everyone!

Such smug assertions have a pretty short shelf life, though. The benefits of digital format will surely continue to increase.

The question is, what place does a performing arts venue have as this future unfolds? Will the role be like that of The Secret Theater where theatres facilitate the live streaming performance of arts groups by providing space, personnel and technology? And what differentiates this performance from a television show or a YouTube video for the viewer?

The organizers of the WiredArts Festival seem to acknowledge a live audience to provide genuine feedback is important and I suspect it always will be, but this may mean the end of large performing arts venues in favor of smaller 100-200 seat venues. (As point of context, The Daily Show studio seats about 300 people and Colbert Report about 100 people.)

Will those who are skilled at curating and producing these sort of events become recognized as the hottest performance venues potentially shifting the artistic center of gravity away from places like NYC and LA? There is a lot of interesting stuff happening in Cincinnati thanks to the efforts of groups like ArtsWave. As physical location becomes less important to gaining recognition, more creatives may start to gather in cities that provide high quality technology resources/support and low cost of living.

Given that artists will be reaching a global audience, live interaction in the form of workshops/residencies/master classes may become more valued if artists promote that as a service they can offer. Going on an extended tour with a dance company may be less common but the opportunity to work in a small group with a compelling artist may increase in desirability. (So I guess a base of operations in a city with a low cost of living but good airport will be essential.)

This may seem a remote possibility but the Andrew Sullivan article I referenced earlier pointed out people are buying the work of talented individuals rather than trusted institutions these days.

It may just be a matter of making people more aware that personal contact and instruction is possible causing the whole model to become inverted. Instead of touring a performance to 100 places and teaching in a few, you live stream one or two big performances a year from your base and the notoriety it generates supports sending skilled members of the company all over the world to spend a few weeks teaching people how to perform like they saw in the broadcast. If you have the talent and vision to parlay the longer term exposure and interactions with all these different people and cultures into a new creative expression that wows the world, you can keep the cycle going.

This version of the future would dovetail very well with the Pro-Am movement because it would help people nourish their avocation and still acknowledge the value of pursuing the arts as a vocation (though certainly a Pro-Am could just as easily travel about providing educational experiences at cut rate prices).

Patrons With Old Wounds

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A month ago while discussing audience participation and Great Lakes Theater Company Artistic Director’s feeling that babyboomers rather than young people craved interactive experiences at performances, I wondered aloud:

“It occurred to me that as people with training in the arts, we know about the history. But do our audiences in general know? Do they yearn to shout praise or insults and stay away because they can’t? Is the ability to do so something people would value so much they would start attending if they could?”

I was reminded today that while those who may value interactive experiences may not explicitly state their desires, those who would prefer more passive interaction definitely voice their opinions on the matter.

I had sent out an email newsletter yesterday mention an upcoming performance of Alice in Wonderland. In response I received an email from a patron stating the last time she attended she had an unpleasant experience due to people being allowed to be loudly interactive with the performers. Because she did not want to chance another bad experience, she wouldn’t be attending our performances any time soon.

I looked up her purchase records to try to discern what show might have offended her and found that our last attendance record is 4 years old. All that means is that she hasn’t purchased advance tickets in four years. She could have easily purchased tickets at the door or come with a friend and we didn’t capture her name.

My suspicion is that she probably attended one of our free end of semester student performances which tend to be pretty raucous or a Mexican music concert a couple years ago where the band encouraged the audience to sing along. Those are the only performances I can recall where we have received complaints similar to hers. We have also received praise from attendees who enjoyed the high energy atmosphere of these shows.

However…she was obviously so upset by the experience that she continues to be bothered months, if not years, later and she wanted to let us know that she still holds it against us.

I don’t want to advocate for maintaining the status quo, but I do think it is important to remember people like this woman when you start to consider moving toward more interactive experiences. Ask yourself who is more loyal, the people who will hate the changes or the people who will embrace them? Is there a way you can gradually phase in a change of dynamics or do you feel the shift is desperately needed to retain or attract an audience?

If you have read my blog for any length of time, you have probably gotten the sense that I don’t think there is anything to gain by completely catering to those that value the status quo. Pacing of a change over a long period of time can signal a commitment to the new course to your existing supporters without alarming them and assure your target audience that the changes aren’t a superficial attempt to pander to them.

We know people are staying away because their perception of the attendance experience isn’t appealing, but we don’t know how many would regularly attend if changes were made and how apt they would be to return on a regular basis. We know much more about those who do attend on a regular basis, but as the oft spoken mantra goes, they are dying off or retiring to Florida.

The bigger challenge to most arts organizations is discerning the a constructive course of action based on feedback. Those who support your course of action are rarely as vocal about it as those who despise it and it is hard not to react to the stronger emotional response. Supporters who feel you are on the correct course will say nice things in the lobby. Six months later, they may respond to a mailing with “looking forward to the show” which fade in the face of “I am never coming to see a show again based on my six month old experience!”

Stuff To Ponder: MyStage Accounts

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Hartford Courant columnist Frank Rizzo recently suggested an interesting subscription alternative, MyStage Accounts, that is something akin to the flex subscription or monthly membership pass.

Rizzo’s idea is basically like a savings account or gift card that the patron can use as a basis for purchasing tickets. (my emphasis)

Tell theatergoers that for the new season coming up they can simply open an account and from that account they can buy any ticket at any time. Simple as that. Write a check for $100, they’ll get get $115 worth of tickets; $200 and they get $240; $300 they can get $400 worth of tickets; $500 they get $700; $1,000 they get $2,000. Or whatever discounted percent those spreadsheets tell you is viable.

No muss, no fuss. (Is there an app for that?) The more they give, the better the deal (up to a point.) And there could be promotions where the theater can add to some accounts for whatever clever reason their marketing staffs come up with.

Rizzo’s thought is to provide a win-win situation. The theatre gets the money up front just as they do with any subscription and the audience member gets the flexibility of choice. I don’t know that this is any better or worse than the flex subscription or monthly membership model, it just provides another option that might appeal to your community.

What I like about this idea is that: First, it gets people invested in your organization when they think about the amount they have in their “bank account.” If you had a way to easily do an email merge out of your ticketing database you could send people their balance on a monthly basis during your season to keep them engaged.

The other thing I like is Rizzo’s suggestion that you might add to people’s accounts for various reasons. I think this ties in very well with the practices of social media and online gaming sites which give you bonus points and achievements for reaching certain milestones (very often based on use which encourages people to keep using!) or awards bonus points for playing during a certain time of the year.

Obviously a theatre might award bonus points for attending a show that they think would have low attendance but people would soon recognized bonus points signaled a lack of confidence. A successful program would also award people bonus points for seeing shows they want to see anyway like the annual production of A Christmas Carol.

That can actually provide an incentive to single ticket buyers to to open an account. They won’t derive any benefit from the Christmas bonus if they don’t have a MyStage account to deposit it into, after all.

In A World of Sameness, This Movie Stands Out (Just Like The 1000 Before)

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For the next week and a half or so I am enjoying films at the Hawaii International Film Festival. I write a little bit about my experiences every year, but what has struck me this year is a realization about just how hard it is to make a film/performance/whatever sound distinctive in a short space.

It doesn’t matter whether you are writing for the limits of a brochure or have the relative freedom of a web page, peoples’ attention spans dictate that you make your point quickly, succinctly and compellingly.

Now that I have been attending for a few years, I have started to recognize that movie about the quirky characters in the fashionable district of Taipei sounds a lot like the movie last year about the quirky characters gathered in the night market of Taipei.

I wonder if there is enough difference between the documentary about the 60 year old guy trying to find a Chinese wife and the fictional account of the 38 year old Danish bodybuilder who goes to Thailand to find a wife, that I will want to see both of them.

Part of the problem is, regardless of how good a writer you are, people bring certain assumptions to new experiences which they used to place the new thing into a context they can process. Just like the person describing food that someone else has never eaten, the description writer also has to provide some touchstones that will help people decide whether they will enjoy the experience.

Being able to post video on YouTube helps to provide some of the additional information people need to make a decision, but still it is difficult. The aforementioned movies about finding Asian brides for example, there is clearly a lot of authenticity and sincerity present in both the documentary, Seeking Asian Female and the Danish movie, Teddy Bear, but we all know that movie trailers don’t always give the best indication.

How many times have you realized all the best moments of a film were in the trailer? How many times have you recognized the restrictions of a movie trailer didn’t adequately prepare you for just how good the movie would be. I haven’t seen Seeking Asian Female yet, but let me tell you, the Teddy Bear trailer doesn’t do the movie justice. Bodybuilder/actor Kim Kold did a great job portraying the subtleties of the Dennis character.

I am not sure there is any clear cut instructions to give about how to make every experience seem distinct, both due to the way the information is received and because there are really only so many basic plots in the world.

Creating a history of trust with your audiences is one solution. One of the most gratifying comments I get from audiences is that they weren’t sure about the show but they came because they knew we always do great stuff.

It takes a lot of honesty to earn that trust. You can’t barrage people with quotes and language that basically promises a sublime, life changing experience every single time. Not all experiences are equally sublime and people will quickly realize their lives haven’t really changed all that much.

And ultimately most audiences, including mine, are comprised of people who attend too infrequently for us to have developed that degree of trust.

So my conclusion at this juncture is that we must labor on making everything sound interesting in the short space of time we have been allowed and hope we can improve our ability make a compelling case.

By the way, this post title is a reference to the sentiments expressed by these guys:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JQRtuxdfQHw&w=420&h=315]

This Ritual Will Be Tweeted

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If people can tweet at religious services for Jewish high holy days, can tweet seats at all your performances be far behind?

Well, obviously the reality is much more complicated than that. Synagogues aren’t at the forefront of using social media to engage their religious communities. Not yet at least.

But a recent article in the New York Times recounting a Rosh Hashanah service at the Jewish Museum of Florida contained some sentiments familiar to those in the performing and visual arts; including high cost of accessing the event, the need to “re-engage and energize young professionals” and a desire to make the experience accessible to that demographic.

“We can no longer assume that young people will join the Jewish community,” said Rabbi Gary A. Glickstein, Temple Beth Sholom’s spiritual leader. “They need to be helped on that journey.”

Substitute “participate/attend arts and culture events” for “join the Jewish community” and you have an oft repeated phrase of the arts community. (Albeit incorrectly attributed to Rabbi Glickstein.)

As part of the experiment, the organizers changed the formatting slightly and used technology to achieve the same intent as the conventional religious practice. They termed it an experience rather than a service.

The article seems to attribute willing participation in rituals people often avoid contributing to at regular services to the anonymity provided by the technology. What people texted about their own fears and failings appeared anonymously on a screen. The technology allowed people to share and bond as a community without necessarily making any individual feel vulnerable. Thus the organizers were able to serve the spiritual needs of the attendees.

The fact that the organizers felt it was necessary to change the formatting of a traditional religious practice signaled to me that it may take more than just allowing people to tweet at a performance to engage younger audiences. In many ways, tweet seats feels like an overlaid concession to younger audience members telling them they will be allowed to watch and text about the experience as long as they don’t disturb anyone else or have any expectations that the content will change.

Yes, I know there are plenty of people doing interesting and innovative programming that will inspire people to tweet without any prompting. My main thrust is to suggest both that it may be necessary to change the format of the experience to be more complementary to tweeting activity at an arts event and that it may be possible to do so without sacrificing the intent and significance of the experience.

I was encouraged to see that this was organized at a museum. I took it as a sign that the museum was responsive to the community it served and recognized as a viable resource to meet its needs.

Though those attending the Rosh Hashana services in Miami described their experience as “refreshing and fun,” the changes to the service didn’t seem to have a frivolous result. People described the sense of community and engagement they had and their feeling that the experience was honest and thought provoking, all of which I assume are typically the goals of most Rosh Hashana services regardless of where they occur.

Of course, there will always be occasions where live tweeting is not really appropriate…like a bris.

Baby Boomers Secretly Yearn To Play With Us

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ArtsFwd has an audio interview related to the audience engagement posts I made yesterday and about two weeks ago.

Richard Evans of EMCArts interviews Charles Fee of Great Lakes Theater Company and David Shimotakahara, Artistic Director of GroundWorks DanceTheater about their thoughts and practices related to audience engagement.

I was particularly interested in listening to the interview because after writing about Great Lakes’ practice of opening the theatre early, staying open late and having a bar in the seating area, I wanted to learn a little more.

I didn’t find out if anyone complains about noise coming from the bar area during the show, but I did learn that they conduct their fight and dance calls in full view of the audience during that 90 minute period before the show. (which often confuses audiences who feel they are intruding upon something) After the show, they don’t have a formal talk back but rather have the actors go out for a glass of wine and chat with whomever might be interested.

At one point in the interview, Fee mentions they don’t have a post-show talk back because he feels it is unfair to turn to the audience immediately after the show and ask them what they think. I can personally empathize with this sentiment because it often takes me quite some time to process what my feelings about a performance are.

GroundWorks DanceTheater offers a similar pre-show experience of necessity because they are often in non-traditional spaces where there isn’t a curtain to mask their activity or a separate studio to warm up in. Preparations are often done in full view of the arriving audience.

I was particularly interested in the comments made about audience participation in events. Fee mentions he has no problem with including those experiences in the show, but that the nature of the show changes to that of a circus. “It is no longer an aesthetic experience because the aesthetic distance has been shattered.”

There is discussion about conflicting feelings about audience participation. Fee mentions that when performers are audience members, they cringe when there is audience participation because they feel threatened by it, but acknowledges one of the things every performer talks about striving for is breaking down the 4th wall.

Fee mentions that in the continuum of participation, the fact a laugh landed and everyone held their breath as one, are valid measures of audience participation and engagement.

When he said that, I wondered if that is enough. There is frequent discussion about how passively sitting in a theatre is no longer viewed as interesting and that in the old days, audiences used to be far more vocal in their reactions until they were stifled by societal expectations.

I occurred to me that as people with training in the arts, we know about the history. But do our audiences in general know? Do they yearn to shout praise or insults and stay away because they can’t? Is the ability to do so something people would value so much they would start attending if they could?

As I was thinking perhaps we were projecting our assumptions on our audiences, Fee mentioned that he actually didn’t think young people really craved audience participation but rather it is the baby boomers. He said in his experience working regularly with young people, “the environment [of group participation] for them is fraught with danger, social danger…”

I wanted to hear more about what he was basing this theory that it was the baby boomers that were interested in participation, but the interview moved on. I was left wondering if it might be a case of older people projecting their desires on younger audiences, perhaps wishfully thinking about how they would love to get up there if only they were a little younger.

Indeed, the spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. When the flesh was a little stronger years ago, the confidence was lacking.

Shimotakahara opines that young audience are eager to create and want access to ways to create themselves, they may just not be interested in creating with you. Still, they may crave training and guidance to help them express their personal visions in a way that is participatory for them.

So some interesting views on the subject I hadn’t considered before. It’s only about 24 minutes so it is easy to give a listen as you wash the dishes or clean your rooms. (Which is exactly what I was doing when I decided to write about the podcast.)

They Are Just Not That Into Us

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I recently read an article that criticized the current thinking about an arts organization’s relationship with its audiences.

Except, that it wasn’t directed at arts organizations at all, but rather at general marketing concepts.

Yet it seemed to reflect upon the current conservations in the arts so closely, I was 2/3 of the way through before I realized it wasn’t really focused on arts organizations at all.

The article, 3 Ways You’re Wrong About What Your Customers Want, appeared on the website of Australian business magazine, BRW.

The first two myths they address is:

MYTH #1: MOST CONSUMERS WANT TO HAVE RELATIONSHIPS WITH YOUR BRAND.

Actually, they don’t. Only 23 per cent of the consumers in our study said they have a relationship with a brand. In the typical consumer’s view of the world, relationships are reserved for friends, family and colleagues…

How should you market differently?

First, understand which of your consumers are in the 23 per cent and which are in the 77 per cent. Who wants a relationship and who doesn’t? Then, apply different expectations to those two groups and market differently to them…

MYTH #2: INTERACTIONS BUILD RELATIONSHIPS.

No, they don’t. Shared values build relationships. A shared value is a belief that both the brand and consumer have about a brand’s higher purpose or broad philosophy…

Of the consumers in our study who said they have a brand relationship, 64 per cent cited shared values as the primary reason. That’s far and away the largest driver…

How should you market differently?

Many brands have a demonstrable higher purpose baked into their missions, whether it’s Patagonia’s commitment to the environment or Harley Davidson’s goal “to fulfill dreams through the experience of motorcycling.” These feel authentic to consumers, and so provide a credible basis for shared values and relationship-building. To build relationships, start by clearly communicating your brand’s philosophy or higher purpose.

The third myth is – THE MORE INTERACTION THE BETTER. and their suggestion is to stop bombarding your customers with emails.

Because so much of the conversation in the arts these days is oriented on engagement and relationship building, you can probably see why I initially thought it was about the arts. Actually, after reading the article and understanding its target audience, I started to wonder if maybe the ideas of engagement and relationship building might have migrated over from the for-profit business world and was embraced in an effort to “run things more like a business.”

I am not suggesting that arts organizations shouldn’t work on relationships with their community, only that in this context it might be wise to evaluate if every practice and assumption is appropriate for arts and cultural organizations.

I think most arts and cultural institutions realize not everyone is going to want to have a relationship with them. It is helpful to have an idea of what the percentages might actually be so we can better direct resources toward cultivating closer relationships with those who seek them.

One advantage arts and cultural organizations might have over businesses at large is that they are more likely to embody values with which people can identify and share. So there is a greater possibility for an arts organization to build a relationship with a customer.

The Return Of The Gentleman Caller

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A few months ago I saw an article by Peter Ling on History Today about how automobiles enabled a greater degree of sexual and social freedom in the 1920s.

I, of course, read it for the details of the social freedom cars afforded.

Ling talks about how there wasn’t really such a thing as dating before the 1900s. Arrangements would be made for a gentleman to call upon a young lady at her home where he would be entertained in the family parlor, speaking with the girl and her mother and perhaps witnessing the young lady’s skill at the piano.

With an increase in automobile ownership, the gentleman might show up to find the young lady waiting at the door, eager to go out somewhere. People were able to have new experience and interact across social classes.

“Money gave access to theatres, restaurants, galleries and clubs. By 1900, the traditional events of the season, such as the opera, began to be deemed passe by a growing number of privileged youths. These ‘bohemians’ began to perceive the possibility of a new freedom arising from the anonymity of crowded city streets…Thus, affluent youth figuratively ‘crossed the tracks’ to enjoy a surer privacy amidst working-class crowds than they experienced in their parents’ homes…

Women who regularly read the Ladies Home Journal, who could recall being warned in 1907 that it was scandalous to be seen dining alone with a man, even a relative, learnt from a debutante of 1914 that it was ‘now considered smart to go to the low order of dance halls, and not only be a looker-on, but also to dance among all sorts and conditions of men and women…’ Thus leisure-class and working-class youth began to date and sometimes to frequent the same venues

I have recently been wondering if we are seeing a reversal of this trend. With the poor economy, children are moving back in with their parents. People are staying at home to experience their entertainment from the internet and Netflix videos. And, young people today apparently aren’t interested in driving cars.

I don’t think we will see a return to courting and a rush to buy pianos for the parlor. Which is too bad because it would be nice for people to value musical skills more and most of Tennessee Williams’ plays, which often referenced courting practices, would gain renewed relevance.

If people are eschewing cars and staying closer to home, there are some possible benefits for the arts and culture. Back in June I wrote about how young people returning home from the big cities were bringing expectations and vitality back with them.

There may be a shift in importance for neighborhood arts and cultural spaces as people seek things to do closer to home. And if they don’t own cars, lack of convenient parking may vastly diminish as a consideration for attending or participating in a cultural experience which in turn provides more flexibility for establishing spaces.

These spaces may be smaller with versatile use so that they serve the varied interests of the more immediate community. Though I wouldn’t discount the possibility of larger facilities gaining renewed investment from the neighborhood and gladly renovating to accommodate more bikes and pedestrians.

Perhaps they can serve as latter day parlor for young people to call upon each other. Apparently Gen Y isn’t very good at dating and in fact can be very anxious about the whole process. There may be a very real need for a safe, chaperoned environment designed to facilitate interactions.

I make no claims at being a proficient trend spotter so who knows if any of this will really manifest. Still in some places around the country, there is probably some worth in looking around to see if former empty nesters in a short radius are seeing their chicks return and figuring out if there is something of value you can offer them.

Go To The Theatre, Smell Like A Man!

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A little fun speculative post today.

It has been widely recognized that women generally initiate the decision to attend an arts and cultural event. Now given that the vast majority of playwrights, composers, visual artists, choreographers, etc have been Caucasian males and most audiences are comprised of Caucasians, I wonder what it is in their work that seems to speak to Caucasian women more than any other group.

As much as you can point out that it is no longer true that Caucasian male creative artists are  responsible for as large a percentage of creative output as they once were, I can link to tons of blog posts and articles that note that the ratio is still too large. I am sure there will be many who will suggest that an even larger number of women would attend if the creative content was actually geared to them.

So I ask, albeit with a little tongue in cheek, how have Caucasian male artists failed Caucasian male audiences and how can we get those men back?

This is where I want to play my speculative little game. I am not going to advocate for more White male centric art. I think its good that what is out there appeals to a wider spectrum of the community. Given that people have shown the capacity to identify with art created by those who are unlike them and that doesn’t speak directly to their experiences, I think there is room for more to be created by artists of diverse backgrounds.

But in fact, I am not going to really argue directly for artistic content at all but rather suggest maybe we need to think about how the experience is positioned.

Earlier this month, Smithsonian.com had a piece about how the United States was sold on using deodorant. It an interesting story about how deodorants and antiperspirants were formulated and ultimately advertised to the American people by playing on their insecurities about smelling bad.

However, the earliest efforts were aimed at women which resulted in deodorant use being regarded as feminine. A man was supposed to possess a manly odor!

But with half the population not buying the toiletries, manufacturers felt they were missing out on untapped potential. Early attempts were made to get women to buy deodorant for their husbands but it was still largely seen as a female product.

Comments in a 1928 survey read:

““I consider a body deodorant for masculine use to be sissified,” notes one responder. “I like to rub my body in pure grain alcohol after a bath but do not do so regularly,” asserts another.”

Now if rubbing your whole body with pure grain alcohol isn’t manly, I don’t know what is. I feel less of a man for only splashing it on my face after shaving.

Later attempts were aimed at male insecurity as well.

In the Great Depression of the 1930s men were worried about losing their job. Advertisements focused on the embarrassment of being stinky in the office, and how unprofessional grooming could foil your career, she says.

“The Depression shifted the roles of men,” Casteel says. “Men who had been farmers or laborers had lost their masculinity by losing their jobs. Top Flite offered a way to become masculine instantly—or so the advertisement said.” To do so, the products had to distance themselves from their origins as a female toiletry.

For example, Sea-Forth, a deodorant sold in ceramic whiskey jugs starting in the 1940s, “because the company owner Alfred McKelvy said he ‘couldn’t think of anything more manly than whiskey,’” Casteel says.

At this juncture, I think it is pretty much a moral imperative that I insert the following:

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owGykVbfgUE&w=560&h=315]

 

I think if the arts and culture industry is going to take its cues from deodorant advertisers, (and why wouldn’t you?), it is going to need to move beyond depending on women buying tickets for husbands and boyfriends and reframe the experience in some way.

While I am not necessarily above using someone’s insecurities to motivate them into action, I think I would rather take a more constructive approach to making men believe initiating a trip to an arts and cultural event is socially acceptable and perhaps even expected.

Obviously, the arts and culture industry needs to replace the word “men” in the previous sentence with other segments of their community in an effort to serve a greater portion of their potential audience.

And while we no longer get our deodorant packaged in whiskey jugs, (pity), reformulating and packaging the product for wider audience segments is still going to be required. Can’t get away selling the same old stuff.

While it is a lot of fun equating theatre and deodorant, I have to confess I don’t really have a lot of ideas in regard to what an effective approach might be. Anyone have any thoughts?

Do The Arts And Millennials Share The Same Core Values?

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Last month there was an article on Fast Company, Why Millennials Don’t Want To Buy Stuff, that claims the focus is moving away from acquisition of things toward access to ideas and relationships.

Though the article also admits it might be because they can’t afford stuff either.

They also point out many “goods” we consume are actually rented or licensed from services like Netflix, iTunes or Amazon’s Kindle. Exchanging money for a transient product is the norm for Millennials in a way it isn’t for previous generations.

According to the article, when Millennials do buy things it is motivated by one of three things. Either the item provides access to other experiences in the manner of most Apple products; the item can be used to develop a relationship or sense of community; or the item makes a statement about themselves to others.

Of course, there tends to be a lot of overlap between these motivators since sharing experiences enabled by a product can make a statement about yourself which can be shared with like-minded people.

If the article is correct, arts and cultural experiences are pretty well suited to Millenials. The experience is transient and can’t be possessed as a concrete object. It can provide a sense of community and opportunity for relationship building and can make a statement about the person to others.

Of course, as has oft been discussed, what Millennial wants the statement they are making to be that they like hanging out at a performance hall cultivating a relationship with old people.

The fact that this article just provides a slightly different perspective that brings us back to the conclusion that if you want to attract Millennials, you have to provide an experience they find attractive should be comforting. It means that the answer is so simple and evident that we keep reaching the same conclusion.

Or I suppose that we are so fixated on the idea of attracting Millenials, we lack the imagination to interpret it in any other manner.

There is something to be said for the research that shows people tend to orient toward arts and cultural experiences at a certain age range when they have reached a level of personal and economic maturity. In that respect, there is perhaps too much expectation placed on the Y generation to start attending now.

At the same time, I think that: 1- It never hurts in the cause of creating general awareness to let Millennials know now that the opportunities are available when they are of a mind to attend.

2-The product and approach you used to attract their grandparents and parents isn’t going to work on them so you might as well make your mistakes now while they aren’t really paying attention than trying to refine your approach later when they are.

I am encouraged by the thought that the Fast Company article might reflect the values being embraced by Millennials because I think it plays to the real core strengths of arts and culture. The message that the arts are what you get involved with to exhibit you are mature, cultured and refined is an ill-fitting suit in comparison. We have just been wearing it so long we have mistaken it for our identity rather than garb donned when an opportunity presented itself.

Would You Know If Your Candy Machine Was Broken?

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As you might imagine, there are a few vending machines scattered around our campus. The one behind our building get cleaned out regularly when we have rental groups with large numbers of kids or our own shows are in tech week.

A number of months ago, whenever I would try to get a granola bar from one end of a row, I got a message to make another selection. A little experimenting showed this was the case for a few of its neighbors. Across campus near the administration building there is a machine in which a whole row returns the make another selection message.

I usually don’t see the guy refilling the machines or when I do, I am generally in a rush. But I finally said something to the guy about a month ago. He thanked me for the report and said he would tell the technician to take a look at it. Then he commented that he had noticed on his computer inventory that those items weren’t selling.

It is people like him that make me really nervous.

Part of the reason I finally said something to him was because I started to realize he had no real investment in his job. The situation had existed for about 6-9 months.

Even if he wasn’t the same person who was tending to the machines when the problem started, there were many signs one existed. Not only was the fact that part of the machine broken conspicuous when they were the only things ever left when students and kids literally emptied the rest of the machine, but the items that weren’t selling were actually noticeably sun-bleached. And of course, he admitted his inventory was telling him that items in both machines never sold.

Wouldn’t you suspect a problem if an entire row of candy bars in a machine never sold, yet the Snickers were moving well in the sites around the campus?

The reason people like him make me nervous is that I start to wonder what problems I am not being told about. The vending machine guy may not be paid well and doesn’t feel like he has any incentive to make sure the machine is producing revenue efficiently. I begin to wonder if people working for me might feel something similar. My concern isn’t so much about revenue maximization as ensuring patrons, renters and others who use the facility don’t have a negative experience.

One of the most difficult tasks businesses offering services seem to have these days is training people to be aware of problems and be proactive about either attending to them or reporting it for further action.

I generally feel like I have a good staff that pays attention to these things. This afternoon my technical director noted that the dust from nearby construction had infiltrated our ticket office and the room needed to be cleaned. But there have been times when I have noticed a glaring problem and wondered why none of those who pass that way regularly, including cleaning staff, students and faculty, attended to it in some manner.

Of course, a lot of the responsibility resides with those who train and supervise. It is incumbent upon them to discuss the values of the organization, mention the types of behavior that is expected and outline the available courses of action.

It is also important that those courses of action be viable and legitimate. If a problem is reported and results are not forthcoming, there is less incentive to report problems in the future. The same if the resources to effect the solution are rarely available or there is a perception that making the extra effort on behalf of the organization is not valued.

If a solution can’t be effected immediately, the timeline for the response should be communicated clearly–e.g., “The leaky toilet will be replaced when the building is closed for the summer, in the mean time, this is the temporary stopgap solution we suggest.”

In the non-profit arts, frequent communication about what sort of environment and experience the organization wishes to provide is important given the large number of volunteers that assist with so many tasks. Even long time volunteers may forget the overall vision because they are not exposed to it as consistently as regular staff and they may volunteer at a number of other places, each with its own vision of things.

Most of all, supervisors and other leadership need to emulate the values they espouse with their own actions. If they aren’t excusing themselves to assist someone who looks lost or bending over to grab a candy wrapper blowing by, it is more difficult to get others to do the same.

Still Asking Why The Show Was Not Advertised

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Back in 2006 I was pondering the situation where people came up to me at a performance and asked, “Why Didn’t You Advertise This?”

Now given I get this comment most from people who have attended the event for which they are bemoaning the lack of advertising, obviously something worked to get them in the door.

Often they did see/hear an ad or a story or heard about the show from a friend. The problem they have is that they learned about the show close to performance time and had such a great experience, they are concerned that having almost missed it, they will lose out on something equally great in the future.

I made this post 6 years ago so my marketing mix has changed a bit from the one I describe, but many aspects still remain the same, including the fact I get the same question.

What is interesting to me as I think about this phenomenon is that while something we did was clearly effective at getting them into the theatre, some people have an expectation that they will hear about performances from a very specific source, often print media.

I would be curious to know what others do when faced with this situation.

Info You Can Use: Be Careful of Social Couponing

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If you have been considering using social coupons to increase attendance at your events and attract new customers, you may want to read a study covered last month in MIT Sloan Management Review (h/t Drucker Exchange) that noted the repercussions of a badly designed deal could last for months.

The authors, V. Kumar and Bharath Rajan tracked three businesses for a year after they started their social coupon campaigns. The three businesses did attract large numbers of new customers with the campaigns, but experienced significant losses during the month they offered their deal, in some cases two or three times their normal net monthly profits.

“Such losses would not have been so serious if the businesses were able to achieve higher revenues and increased profits in future months. However, this was not the case. Despite their best marketing efforts, the three businesses had difficulty retaining most of the new customers who were attracted to the coupon offers. Based on our analysis, it will take the car wash service and ethnic restaurant 15 and 18 months, respectively, to recover from the profit shortfall following the coupon launch; for the beauty salon and spa, the recovery period for the coupon campaign at current business levels was projected at more than 98 months, or eight years.”

Now granted, given that most non-profit arts organizations lose money on many of their events, these facts may hardly be a deterrent to using social coupons. However, arts organizations do seek new audiences. The authors state that basic design of social coupons aren’t really conducive to new customer acquisition, but steps can be take to mitigate the losses of a campaign.

One approach may be to upselling or cross-selling products and services. Many theatres have tiered pricing on their seating so being able to upgrade to center orchestra may seem like a good deal to some attendees. If theatres are trying to attract a younger audience, they may want to cross sell tickets to their edgier space whose ticket prices are comparable to the discount the person is paying.

In other words, a person comes in with a 50% coupon for a $30 ticket and the theatre asks if they would like a ticket for a later date at the other space where the top price is $20 for the same $15 price. This approach helps to retain the person for another performance for what is probably the average ticket revenue at the other space.

Another approach the article suggests is limiting the size of the discount and the conditions under which it may be redeemed. They mention that the restaurant in their study later offered 30% discount on two days a week and reduced their losses to close to zero.

They also suggest only offering the coupon to new customers, but I am personally ambivalent about that. I think that sours your relationship with existing customers. If you have ever seen those cable commercials that offer tons of great channels at a low price –but only to new customers–like me you may have been a little annoyed wondering what benefit you will ever derive for having paid your bill on time for 5 years. To my mind, even if it isn’t the same benefit, existing customers should feel like they are rewarded for loyalty if the new kids are getting some sort of incentive to participate.

Thus Rises The Individual Curator and Commissioner

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There was an intriguing piece on Wired last week (h/t Thomas Cott) about an alternative approach to funding events via Kickstarter. Andy Baio talks about funding record projects, conferences and festivals by essentially lining up the speakers/performers/resources and then seeing if anyone is interested in buying tickets to the proposed events/project. If there isn’t enough interest, it doesn’t happen.

What was most interesting to me is how this type of approach really empowers an individual to curate a project. You may not be an artist yourself, but you have an idea of what combination of artists and concepts might be compelling and then can set out to bring it together.

While this is sort of my job already, there is something of an expectation that there will be balance in those I invite. I have a certain responsibility to make sure my facility and events are being run in a fiscally responsible manner. An individual isn’t necessarily saddled by those expectations. They can do a project as a one off and no one is concerned about whether their activities are serving the needs of the community.

Makes me wonder if this might be a potential mode of operation for the future. One of many that might replace the non-profit arts organization.

If taken at its face, this approach seems shift some burden to the artists/speakers being invited. If the event doesn’t happen, will they get paid? While Baio doesn’t explicitly mention it, I am guessing you would have to provide some sort of guarantee of payment to the artist/speaker regardless of whether the performance happened or not. Baio alluded to this in a couple places, including his requirements for these projects.

Projects like these have three big requirements.

Strong, achievable concept. Commissioned works should be scoped down to something realistic, because you’re paying for their time, but high-concept enough to capture the excitement of other fans.

Organizer. The funding may come from the crowd, but there needs to be a single person managing the project and handling all the logistics and small details.

Due diligence. The organizer will need a firm agreement from the artist, committing to a timeline, payment, and any other demands. Also, if the project results in a tangible work, determine who owns the rights to it before you start raising money.

While most artists and speakers like being paid, they like to be seen and heard even more so there is also some incentive for them to help promote the cause. It may not occur too frequently at present, but it could certainly become commonplace if the practice of running a project up the flag pole becomes more wide spread.

The other thing, of course, is that it turns your audience into much more active advocates for the work because there is a possibility it won’t happen. We know that many audiences today, especially among the younger generation, tend to wait to see if something more interesting might come along before buying a ticket. Since the performance will occur regardless of their commitment, there is no incentive to commit. The threat that the event might not happen can garner an increased investment in its success even if it is only that people continually check the progress of the funding to see if the event will happen.

A commenter to the piece pointed out a service in Brazil which rewards the early adopters. It sells refundable tickets to a show until the minimum is met. Once the event has secured its funding, it starts selling non-refundable tickets and apparently starts reimbursing the purchasers of the refundable tickets up to the their full purchase price.

Manholes As Destination Tourism (Seriously)

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In answer to the perennial question about how the arts can show their value to the community, I came across an answer/inspiration in the form of the Flickr group, Japanese Manhole Covers. There are nearly 3000 pictures of some amazingly artistic manhole covers.

With NYC looking to ban big sugary drinks and Disney announcing that they will restrict junk food ads, it occurs to me that a constructive approach to fighting obesity would be to commission these artists to make manhole covers.

People would get out and start walking around in an attempt to see them all. Heck, people may even include a manhole tour as part of their tourism. I am sure someone will develop a social media app that maps out the locations and people would compete to check in at each of them on sites like Foursquare. (Actually, looks like there is an iphone app for Japan.) Just to keep things interesting, the public works department can switch them around every so often so that people would have to contribute to a remapping effort.

Check out the Japanese covers, some of them are pretty amazing and show a lot of investment and pride in culture and community.

(Clicking on image will take you to the specific photographer’s page rather than the larger pool of manhole photos)

Osaka Castle Artwork on Manhole cover - Osaka, Japan
Osaka Castle Artwork on Manhole cover photo credit: Neerav Blatt

Stuff To Ponder: Is Too Much Money Being Left On The Table?

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Though I have written about dynamic pricing, I have generally been a little resistant to the idea of implementing that sort of pricing because I feel having a clear and simple pricing is part of an arts organization’s relationship with a community. Or rather, having a complicated one can be a barrier to attendance and also generate a negative association with the organization.

But I have been reading some things recently that make me wonder about that.

JCPenny’s attempt to sell everything at an everyday low price that reflects the value of the product has apparently backfired on them.

According to a piece on MSNBC’s website:

Consumers complain about this constantly. That’s the basis of the Red Tape Chronicles in fact. At its best, the maddening mixture of coupons, rebates, sales and fine print fees can feel like a game. At worst, it’s being cheated. You’d think shoppers would love a chance to buy from a store that doesn’t play these games, the way car buyers (allegedly) like shopping at no-haggle auto dealerships.

[…]

To oversimplify for a moment, here’s Penney’s problem. They told the world that retailers only offer their best prices during crazy sales, and Penney stores would no longer host them. Sensible consumers apparently took that information to heart and decided to simply wait for such sales at other stores. As an added benefit, Penney lowered consumers’ search costs, because they now knew they didn’t need to bother driving to a Penney’s store anymore.

[…]

Shrouding isn’t the only reason Penney’s pricing plan is flawed. The firm is also leaving a lot of money on the table by rejecting a phenomenon known as “price discrimination.” Some people have more money than time, and some have more time than money. Some shoppers don’t mind spending hours to save $20; others would gladly give a store $20 to escape quickly. Smart retailers get money from both. By killing couponing, Penney has eliminated its ability to satisfy price discriminators.

And as others have pointed out, markdowns serve the age-old retailing trick of “anchoring.” For some reason, even very smart consumers feel better paying $60 for something if you initially tell them it costs $100, and then reduce the price.

Right around the same time this article came out, Colleen Dilenschneider on the Know Your Own Bone blog wrote about why offering discounts through services like Groupon is a bad idea for non-profits. The two reasons she gave?

“1) Your community expects more discounts, 2) Perhaps more importantly, your community waits for discounts”

Since MSNBC pretty much confirms what Colleen claims, I started to wonder if maybe arts organizations are fools not to double the prices and then offer 50% off coupons through social media.

Yeah, I know it is cynical and believe me, I still don’t want to get into doing anything resembling this. But I do everyone a disservice if I don’t explore the option.

Are arts organizations being responsible if they leave money on the table by not recognizing some people will pay more for the privilege of getting the transaction over quickly? If you effectively charge what you perceive to be the true value of your product by doubling the price in order to take advantage of consumer inability to pass up a 50% off coupon, are you really cheating your audience? (In other words, intend to sell tickets at $25 by pricing them at $50 and then flooding the market with half off coupons.)

One thing of course, I need to point out is that price does not develop loyalty. You can not develop a relationship with your community if interactions with your organization are based on price. I stated that in the early days of this blog and as Dilenschneider notes this is true even in these days of social media:

“It is far better for your brand and bottom line to have 100 fans who share and interact with your content to create a meaningful relationship, than to have 1,000 fans who never share your message and liked you just for the discount.”

Dilenschneider also points to some data that there are diminishing returns from social media discounts. This may illustrate be where arts organizations and retailers differ. Retailers can offer myriad discounts annually and not suffer, but arts and cultural organizations offer a product valued entirely differently from that of retailers

But lets assume that the current discounting model doesn’t work well for non-profits because it is really designed for the needs of retailers and that a discount offered in an alternative manner might prove more effective. Should we be researching alternative discount structures in order to more effectively generate revenue given that the future of donations and grants looks precarious?

Questions like this get into the core philosophy about the organization’s existence. Is the purpose to preserve and perpetuate the organization so it can continue to do good work? Or was the focus on providing the art in an affordable manner and the inability to do so is a sign that the organization should transition toward closure?

What Signals Are You Reading?

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There is an old rule of thumb about judging the cleanliness of a restaurant’s kitchen by the cleanliness of the restrooms. I actually used this example this past weekend when discussing an experience in what I took for a high end restaurant in another country…until I visited the restrooms.

Adam Davidson, heard often on NPR’s Planet Money had a piece in the NY Times on how people use “signaling” to make decisions.

He gives a couple examples of how people use signaling. He spends more money on a brand of baby formula even knowing there probably isn’t too much a difference between it and a cheaper competitor based on the labeling. A friend bought a more expensive chandelier from Amazon because he felt uneasily that the $100 difference in price meant the cheaper merchant cut corners.

He also cites Pepsi’s decision to pay Nicki Minaj to be a spokesperson:

“Even for consumers who don’t listen to her music or trust her expertise in the carbonated-beverage sector, the mere act of paying for a pop-star endorser sends a subconscious signal that their product is so successful that, well, they can afford Nicki Minaj. It also signals that the company is too heavily invested to turn out a shoddy product. For many, that’s a reason to choose the soda over the generic stuff.”

The example that really got me thinking was about bus owners in Haiti who paint their buses with all sorts of images at great expense.

“Yet bus owners feel the need to get a fresh paint job once or twice each year because few people will pay to ride an unpainted bus. The extravagant decorations suggest that an owner cares about his business — that he spends money maintaining his engines, tires and brakes (no small matter in a country with steep mountains and lousy roads). My hunch, however, is that many owners, short of cash, are likely to invest in a visible new paint job over invisible brake maintenance. With no external authority — government inspectors or consumer-watchdogs or online consumer forums — there’s no way to know if the signal is accurate.”

The reason this caught my eye is that, like the bus owners in Haiti, many arts organizations don’t have the money to fully maintain their buildings and have to make decisions about what to invest in to attract and retain audiences. I wondered if many arts organizations are fully cognizant of what cues audiences were deriving from their experience. Perhaps too much focus is being paid to the wrong things.

There are some aspects whose signals we can be fairly certain about. The surroundings and what others are wearing can often determine whether people feel intimidated or perfectly comfortable. We can draw some direct lines between the experience people have purchasing tickets, getting information, finding parking, being greeted by employees, etc., and what people’s perception of us might be.

But it is more difficult to know whether our ticket prices, quality and content of our brochures and websites are telling people our work is too high or low quality for their tastes. Do they think the performance will be incomprehensibly high culture or too amateurish for them?

Do we need to fix up the entryway because its condition signals that we don’t invest a lot of attention in the quality of our work? Or does it add to a funky-cool ambiance that we didn’t really knew appealed to our audiences and we should invest the renovation money in our work?

Did our sincere attempt at moving a water fountain to be more convenient to the restrooms get interpreted as a blatant ploy to increase traffic at the snack bar?

Many factors which contribute to signalling are unconsciously received so surveying people about all the elements contributing to their impression of you is a fruitless pursuit.

Not to mention, the same element can signal one person’s trash and another’s treasure. Pepsi may gain prestige by engaging Nicki Minaj, but her fans may see it as a harbinger of disappointment since she will have to modulate her behavior to remain a spokesperson.

Be Here, With Me

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Like many of you, my dear readers, I am of a split mind about the inclusion of social media in live performances. Overall, I think this is a good place to be. I have often written here that one should not jump on the hottest trend, but obviously one should not entirely dismiss it. A healthy mix of skepticism and self-education on the matter is valuable.

There was recently a post on the Drucker Exchange that pushed me toward the “against” column. I have talked about the benefits of tweet seats and such in other entries so I am not going to try to balance the “con” argument here.

In reference to employees using headphones and having social media chat window open at work, the Drucker Exchange piece cites former entertainment executive Anne Kreamer,

“The majority of these young workers said that they felt far more connected moment to moment with people outside their workplaces than with any co-workers,” she writes. The problem, according to Kreamer, is that they miss out on crucial exchanges, become less loyal to the company and one another, and innovate less. As studies on innovation show, physical proximity matters.

… For one thing, it’s the reason many people go to work at all. “Work is for most people the one bond outside of their own family—and often more important than the family,” Drucker observed in People and Performance. “The work place becomes their community, their social club, their escape from loneliness.”

[…]

More important, such contact influences productivity, and creating satisfying informal work arrangements among co-workers is especially important for good output. Research conducted by General Motors during the 1940s, for example found that “‘good fellowship’ or ‘good relations with fellow workers’ showed as the leading causes of job satisfaction,” Drucker recalled.

The Drucker Exchange piece echos a rhetorical corollary many arts people ask of those who feel the need to engage in social media exchanges during a live performance experience, “What is the reason you come to the performance at all?”

For many it may be that a friend or significant other encouraged them–but then they aren’t really dancing with the one that brought them, either. (Though granted, that person may also be connecting with outsiders as well.) Or maybe they are getting extra credit for a class or looking to advance their career.

The mention that employees who isolate themselves in this manner at work are less loyal to the company makes me think audience members who do the same probably aren’t developing a lot of loyalty to the arts organization. True, the act of actually writing about what they are seeing may actually forge a connection that passively watching the show wouldn’t, but there is no guarantee the person is relating their feelings about the show.

While arts organizations probably can’t have the same expectations about audiences they could during the days of high subscription rates, audience churn is a big problem. It costs a lot more to attract a new attendee than to maintain a relationship with frequent attendees. It seems ill-advised to encourage activities that don’t cultivate a connection and may even erode it.

Simply forbidding people to use mobile devices isn’t going to magically result in the scales falling from people’s eyes and have them realize how disconnected they were. The arts organization has to provide a reason to get engaged in the immediate experience as an alternative to connecting to friends who are elsewhere.

As much as we may want to believe it, the experience of the performance may be insufficient to get a person invested. For some people, texting, tweeting, etc may simply be filling the void of uncertainty about the experience with a safe activity.

The solution may not be any more complicated than encouraging front of house staff to actively ask people what brings them to the performance and find out what their expectations are. Or perhaps changing the layout of the lobby to facilitate people gathering and chatting in certain areas. Essentially replace the friends who are elsewhere with friendly faces right where they are.

This song went through my mind as I wrote this entry-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LkiU4ruREgI

Recognizing Your Customers

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There has been a post on The Drucker Exchange that has been nagging at the edge of my unconscious for a couple weeks now. Actually, it was one line from a news piece about how the Massachusetts Department of Transportation has been able to replace bridges in days rather than years.

“The highway department didn’t use to see the drivers as customers,” Frank DePaola, administrator of the highway division for the department, told the Times. “For a while there, the highway department was so focused on construction and road projects, it’s almost as if the contractors became their customers.”

There is obviously a lesson here for all businesses, including arts organizations about taking a step back and re-evaluating who your customer is. Often times it is multiple people.

Adam Thurman illustrated this in a post he made yesterday about buying a suit.

“He told me that he understood that no one really needs a suit…
[…]
He understood that people aren’t really paying for a suit, they are paying to work with a person that truly gives a damn about how they look. They are paying for the feeling they get when they look good.

It takes a certain humility to embrace that thought. It takes a humble artist to understand that it isn’t all about her or her art, it’s about the audience and the feeling they get from the experience.”

I actually took the time to follow a link in the Drucker Exchange post to one of Peter Drucker’s books, Management: Tasks, Responsibilities, Practices where he talks about the fact that there are often many customers that have to be pleased. For example, in some cases, it might be both the consumer and a government regulator, each of which have vastly different definitions of what they value.

Another example Drucker gives addresses how people’s priorities change over time–a teenage girl wants the most stylish shoes with price being a lesser concern and durability being of no concern. Her older sister (or the same girl in a few years) will have these same priorities in different proportions.

Arts organizations have seen this effect. When people reach a certain age, they tend to gravitate toward the arts more frequently than when they were younger because their priorities change. The challenge being faced now is that overall social priorities have gradually shifted over time as well so while people’s priorities still mature over time, the way they choose to express those priorities are manifesting in a different manner.

So in the context of all this, one of the challenges I constantly face in serving my customers is the perception that our theatre is hard to find and get to. Even though I recognize this is a need to be served, it really confounds me and is therefore somewhat akin to my not recognizing who my customers are.

There are standard department of transportation road signs directing people to us from 2-3 miles out. To get to the theatre from the highway, you make a right, go three lights, make left, go to the bottom of the hill, make a right, make a left and you are pretty much delivered to the campus. It is generally straight drives and right angles. There are no confusing one way streets to navigate. Everything is well lit and on major thoroughfares with regular signs. Parking is free and plentiful.

I understand that people might overlook the signs, obvious though they are. We offer directions and maps for download off our website that include reverse directions so that you can get back home. We have copies of those directions available in the lobby as well as people depart.

We have a dedicated directions line you can direct dial to, which from the feedback we have gotten, I suspect people are listening to on their cellphones as they drive.

My suspicion is that “hard to find” really means they are unfamiliar with the location because they don’t drive by the neighborhood on a regular basis. We are separated from the local retail area by an interstate and there is no reason to drive across unless you attend school or live in the neighborhood.

The other problem is that most people probably use GPS or Google Maps instead of checking our website for directions. Unfortunately, the shortest distance route actually makes you get off the highway three miles early and takes you through a zillion stop lights. At certain times of the day, that route can easily add an hour travel time due to traffic.

These aren’t things I can solve, though I am always looking for options. One thing I will try to do is communicate the sources of reliable information more frequently via various channels before people embark on a trip to the theatre.

If anyone has suggestions or stories of how you solved this sort of problem, I would love to hear about them.

Info You Can Use: There Are No Dumb Questions, Just People Who Attract Them

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Audience Engagement being something of a buzz word du jour, (yeah, I have used it a bunch of time here and am aware I am complicit), one of the easiest ways to make your audience and community feel involved with an event is to allow them to ask questions.

In the last two years, we have had some really good audience discussion sessions with our touring artists. Some of the questions and observations that have been made have blown my socks off. However, the greater part of my career experience has left me a little cynical about the experience. Most of the time the conversation and questions have bordered on the inane (and quite often jumped over the border.)

I often attributed it to people’s lack of familiarity and comfort with the material and attendance experience. Maybe they weren’t as savvy as I assumed.

However, according to a recent piece on HowlRound, the audience is plenty smart, the wrong people may have been involved in the discussion sessions. Brant Russell who leads the post-show discussions at Steppenwolf Theatre offers 11 (or so) rules for post-show discussions, writing:

“If you’re an actor in the production being discussed, and you want to come out for the discussion, please be aware that your presence affects the tone of the room far more than you know. You inadvertently change the kind of discussion that is possible. The audience wants to talk to you, and they want you to talk to them, and as a result they will ask questions that they don’t really care about (How did you memorize all those lines?). What’s more, the audience will hold back some of what they would otherwise express because they don’t want to hurt your feelings….The best case scenario when an actor was onstage for a discussion was that the conversation turns into a moderated interview, and we would end up discussing what it was like to work with XYZ director, rather than the big questions the play asks…I try to partner with the actor to lead the discussion, rather than direct questions toward him or her. That way, everyone is participating in the same project…”

He has a similar rule about leading the discussion if you directed or produced the work because criticism will color the way you conduct the conversation.

My assumption has always been that people will want to have someone who has been involved with the artistic elements of the performance present at the discussion. While that certainly is the case, Russell’s observation that their presence will limit the scope of the conversation makes perfect sense. The audience is perfectly able to conduct a discussion in the absence of artistic personnel.

Most of his rules are to basically get out of the way of the conversation – Rule 3 – You are not an expert, Rule 4: You’re not a teacher, Rule 5: Keep it short, Rule 7: Get out of the way. Basically, you moderate an exploration of the production and keep it from being hijacked or waning, but otherwise let the discussion continue.

The one rule that intrigued me most was number 9 –

“If you really hate the production you’re discussing, just wait. I’ve found that if I lead enough conversations on a play, something will emerge that I will fall in love with. I have never liked a production less as a result of continued discussion.”

I like the idea that the audience can help those involved with the creation of the production to appreciate it more. We often think of an arts event as something we offer to audiences for their entertainment and education. Typically our end of the transaction involves receiving money and applause.

The idea that audiences can teach us something about our own work makes the exchange seem somehow more complete. Perhaps the next iteration of the intrinsic value of the arts survey should ask the arts organizations what things they learned from their audiences.

It is probably a good piece for leading discussions pretty much anywhere, including conference panel discussions and the like. If you are like me and feel you haven’t been thinking enough about how you could do the post-show discussion thing better, the article is definitely a good place to start.

Stuff To Ponder: Oh The Hats You Will Wear

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The Non-Profit Quarterly had an article this week, “Why Every Nonprofit Has a New Job Title: Publisher.” It really resonated with the way I had been feeling lately. Back when I started in my arts career, I didn’t do so much writing as I do now. Sure, as the new guy I had to write press releases and brochure text, but that was on occasion and scheduled by the marketing calendar.

Now I am writing everyday. It isn’t just this blog. I am creating social media updates, composing emails  , no make that designing emails given their highly graphic nature these days, writing press releases, brochure content, web site content, uploading images to other social media sites. Some of it is produced on a schedule, but more frequently it is produced spontaneously as events unfold so that the information is timely and fresh.

There are a lot of tools which make it much easier for people to connect with what we do from wherever on earth they may be. Servicing them is a lot harder than it used to be.

There seems to be something of a confluence of discussion around this topic lately. Thomas Cott circulated a series of posts about the media arts organizations use to communicate with this week. I was particularly interested to learn email is still more valuable than social media as a marketing tool.  I reminisced a little reading Trevor O’Donnell’s recollection of the 80s as a simpler time for creating marketing materials.

Don’t believe John McWhorter’s claim in the New York Times that “in the proper sense, e-mail and texting are not writing at all.” Maybe he ain’t doing it right, because it certainly feels like I am investing as much time as required when I do it on behalf of my venue.

Even in an increasingly visual media environment, you have to be a skilled writer and do much more of it than in the past. The talent required now is bringing writing, video, images, music together to tell a compelling story. People who made movies may claim this is old hat for them, but this sort of production is no longer their sole province. Now people like you an I can participate in production in places where highly paid professionals once walked.

It is probably good for all of us to remember that last bit as we look askance at Pro-Ams encroaching on our performing and visual arts territory thinking they can produce and participate in our sphere as well as we can.

Truth is, we are probably doing the same thing in respect to graphic design, music and video making among other areas. We now have the confidence to experiment ourselves. We aren’t necessarily as good as the professionals we used to/might have had to pay for the same service, but we are satisfied we are making a good show of it.

(Apologies to Dr. Suess)

The Customer Is Sometimes Very Wrong

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Earlier this month, Thomas Cott’s You’ve Cott Mail had some stories about dealing with divas. While there are a few divas I have had to deal with, I actually feel like I have encountered fewer abrasive personalities in the arts over the last few years than when I was younger. It may just be that I am more confident now than I was in the early part of my career and I have enough experience dealing with such people that I either 1) identify them immediately and avoid becoming involved in the first place or 2) identify them immediately and take preemptive action to diminish opportunities for conflict.

I have actually had the occasion to pull customers aside and tell them I won’t tolerate them treating my staff in a certain manner more recently than saying the same to an artist. Of course, as I mentioned, looking over a touring artist’s contract you can often prepare for potential problems months prior to their arrival. You really don’t know if an audience member/renter will cause a problem until the moment it occurs.

Which is not to say you can’t channel your inner boy scout and be prepared.

Cott cites a blog entry by Seth Godin who mentions that it is tougher for people to get away with being a jerk because technology allows us to both learn about problematic people more effectively and identify alternatives.

While this is true for the providers of services, this is also true for the consumers. Performers can find out about bad experiences others have had at different venues and either avoid them or take steps to ensure their needs are met.

But it is also true for our customers. We often don’t talk about using this side of technology. We celebrate the fact that technology allows us to offer better customer service by recording customer preferences, noting how we disappointed them in the past so we can do better in the future and rewarding them for their record of loyalty. This is as it should be. Our focus should absolutely be on providing better service.

However, we should also value the contributions of our staff, collaborators, partners, etc, to our success and make an effort to provide a positive work environment and experience. Corporations apparently need to spend billions paying bonuses to retain the top talent, it behooves us to spend a little time making notes and taking steps to retain valued employees.

The same technology that allows you to remember your customer’s preferences so that they don’t have to reiterate them at every interaction also allows you to note that they give your staff a hard time, press them with heavy demands when renting your facility due to their lack of preparation or frequently challenge their credit card charges.

Making notes allows you to address these issues in advance of the next encounter in an effort to improve your relationship and experience–and take appropriate action if the changes don’t emerge.

Obviously, most companies aren’t going to get into discussing negative experiences with their customers over the internet the way customers will about them. (Though you may be sorely tempted!!!) However, when I wrote a few of these examples, I had particular instances in mind. The situation with people challenging their credit card statement in a serial manner has actually happened. Being on a ticketing system which shares a database of names and addresses allows us to serve our customers without repeatedly asking them to wait while we enter their personal information and it also allows us to provide warnings to colleagues about who is habitually trying to get out of paying for their tickets at venues around town.

The problem with flagging people for negative interactions is that it can be abused to take revenge for petty slights. Which is one of the reasons few companies encourage these sort of notes in customer records. Not to mention the records might be subpenaed or hacked so you don’t want to write anything you wouldn’t say in public.

But for those egregious cases where people make your staff miserable, you owe it to everyone to keep proper records. Time makes memories fade and problems don’t seem as serious later on…until the person does something to remind you why you didn’t want them back. In non-profits there is a lot of staff turnover so good notes can help smooth transitions by maintaining a portion of the organizational memory.

Good notes can help you strengthen your relationships with the majority of your customers by identifying their needs and preferences, but also prevent you from letting the minority of your customers divert time and resources more constructively spent on the bulk of your customer base.

Distinguishing Yourself With Your Own Best Practices

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One of the big focuses on college campuses today is tracking student success. It is important that students both earn their degree in a timely manner and have developed appropriate mastery. Classes are scrutinized and numbers crunched to insure quality is being maintained but that instruction is not delivered in a manner that inhibits student success.

The students need to master the material, but the way the material is delivered may need to be changed to facilitate the learning process. As you might imagine, there are a lot of conversations about whether standards are being compromised along the way.

I hadn’t really seen many connections with the arts until I read an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education this week one of the early sections struck a chord.

1) Institutions should improve student success by focusing on practices within their control instead of blaming external factors.

When asked about the challenges they face in helping more students graduate, higher-education leaders tend to list external forces, such as budget cuts and poor academic preparation. Yet regardless of whether states or the federal government restore needed support, or our K-12 system produces better-prepared graduates, institutions can do more with mechanisms directly within their control to help the students they enroll.

Research has shown that institutional practices make a big difference in student success. Similar institutions (of comparable size, selectivity, and student composition) vary more significantly in their completion rates and success with underrepresented populations within segments than they do between segments—with high performers outpacing low performers by as much as 40 percentage points.

The same complaints are made by arts organizations- funding cuts, lack of arts exposure/involvement and other external pressures. The article goes on to mention that the profile of students diverges from traditional in some way and that they “swirl,” attending more than one institution, sometimes simultaneously.

Certainly the arts face the same thing with audience composition changing and splitting their arts and entertainment activities between many choices. Arts organizations struggle with the expectations their audiences bring to the experience in much the same way as colleges struggle to meet student expectations that their credits will transfer from other institutions.

Yes, even if you are adept at handling them, external forces impact your organization immensely and can not be ignored. But there are still many things within in the scope of your control which can positively impact audience experiences.

Unfortunately, unlike college, the arts are not seen as critical to life long success. Where colleges can answer the problem of poor K-12 preparation by offering more remediation and earning money by the effort, there isn’t as much money to be made from filling in the gaps in people’s cultural education.

Which is not to say educational programs can’t be successful for an individual organization, the necessity of bolstering one’s creativity and arts knowledge just isn’t as widespread a cultural value driving people to our doors. I suspect that this is where the second paragraph I quoted applies. Internal institutional practices can probably likewise make a difference in successful audience/community engagement and set one organization apart from similar organizations.

If you read as many articles and blogs as I do in the pursuit of improving your practices (and creating content for your blog) you may be intimidated by the long list of things you are supposed to be doing to improve your organization. I think one of the things that doesn’t get emphasized enough is to make sure your internal practices are playing to your particular organizations strengths rather than trying to replicate/adopt what you read other people are doing.

Using social media may help raise your organizational profile immensely, but the tone and frequency of your interactions should be your own and not mirror that of the big organization you wish you were. The same with your website, the people answering your phone, your ushering staff, curtain speech, lobby decorations, press releases. It should all play to your strengths rather than reflect industry best practices.

You would think all this would be a given, but think a moment and if your like me you can think of a few encounters you have had that ran contrary to the general environment and screamed “industry best practice.” (And if you think a little harder and honestly, you can probably identify some you have perpetuated.)

Granted, some times it is difficult to separate what you value about yourself from the actual organizational strength. For example, a farmer may view his expertise at growing a certain crop as a strength, overlooking the assets of the quality of the soil that can allow him to grow other crops now in demand.

This is a rather simplistic example, but in a similar way arts organizations can define themselves by their performances only, overlooking the asset of their production studios which can meet a burgeoning demand.

Should Arts Organizations Sanction Electronic Devices

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Let me just preface this entry by saying I am pretty much old school when it comes to attending performances. I don’t have any problem sitting passively in a dark room watching a performance. I don’t have any problem standing in a dark room and moving around as required for site specific performances. Sure, I get a little uncomfortable when performers in elephant masks sit on my lap and put their arms around me, but I am pretty much open to whatever experience the performers are offering me.

But as a person who programs and administers a performing arts facility, my job requires me to acknowledge that not everyone seeks the same experiences I do and I have to pay attention and be open to making changes.

When you go to the movies, you can’t bring in your own food. Not because the theatres don’t allow food, but because they want to control the environment their spaces–namely the food is purchased from them.

I wonder if the same situation exists in relation to the performing arts. There was an article in the Wall Street Journal this weekend about why you shouldn’t text while in the theatre. I actually agree with the points about wasting money, annoying other people, maybe you are the one that is boring, you aren’t in the moment, you wouldn’t text while your lawyer is advising you and you are interacting with machine instead of humans.

But what is the difference between using a cell phone and Concert Companion? Many of those same points can apply, except Concert Companion is developed and supported by arts organizations and foundations. While I am not sure Concert Companion is still active, the most recent article I can find on it is seven years old, it shows that nearly a decade ago orchestras were already thinking of introducing hand held electronic devices people could reference throughout a concert into the performance hall.

Perhaps they didn’t recognize the problems this might cause, including giving license to others in the audience to pull out their own devices for other purposes. My question is, would these devices be welcomed if they were serving the arts organization? If audiences, especially new audiences, showed an interest in using their iPhones to access information about a performance and told the performing arts organization that it really enhanced the experience, would there be more tolerance for the glowing screens?

There was recently a story about Quebecois artist, Olivier Choinière, who as part of his performance piece arranged for people to attend a performance of Moliere’s School for Wives at Théâtre du Nouveau Monde. The 80 people in his “audience” were instructed to hide their headphones until the lights went down and then start listening to a podcast.

“What the audience within a larger audience was then treated to was Choinière’s indignant but humorous real-time commentary, in which he questioned whether the metatheatrical production lived up to the claims, in the promotional material, that the director had found “terrible resonances with our society” (for instance, regarding pornography and pedophilia) in Molière’s 1662 play about a misogynist named Arnolphe who raises a young girl to be the perfect wife.”

I don’t really agree with Choinière’s event and would agree that it was somewhat closer to being parasitical than a performance. Yet, I think it is an interesting concept and I am sure many of you do as well. I can easily imagine arts organizations doing something similar to help guide audience members through a performance. Provided people keep the volume down so their neighbors can’t hear, ear buds are a far less obtrusive alternative to the glowing screens of Concert Companion type guides.

Though I suspect once people starting using the guides, I suspect they wouldn’t be satisfied with just listening and might crave the accompaniment of visual information as well.

So is it okay for people to listen to podcast commentary or look at supporting materials as long as it supports the show, but a invasive practice if someone is criticizing and lampooning the performance? Will ushers back away quietly when they see an approved image of John Cage on a hand held screen, but swoop down if they see someone texting about their physics homework?

Again, to my mind all these devices are extraneous and intrusive. However, I realize many people didn’t have parents and schools that exposed them to the arts (ah, memories of my sister shouting “Mommy, they are naked,” in reaction to dancers in body stockings.) Right now we see the presence of these devices as detrimental to the experience, but there is a fair possibility that if people start developing performance related content, they will viewed as useful tools for educating and enhancing the experience in the near future.

It would be great if audiences eventually got to the point where they could wean themselves off using devices, but once people start, they may expect/seek material to supplement a performance. No guarantee that the material will always be complimentary or under the arts organization’s control.

While it is easy to criticize, to do a good job providing a running criticism, you would have to know the material about as well as you would to provide a running educational commentary. If there are people like Choinière who have enough motivation to create a criticism, there are probably those just as motivated to create a helpful guide. Tough part might be identifying them so you can partner with them (or point audiences toward their material). It might make sense to seek these people out now (or task your education department to generate the material) before you find yourself scrambling to do so in reaction to a Choinière.

As I sit here writing this, I am thinking, “God, do I really want to create an environment in my theatre that encourages people to use mobile devices?” Yes, people are already doing so against our wishes, but do we really want to sanction that activity by providing content for it? If you think there is a good chance someone else might eventually create negative content, it would probably be good to at least start having hypothetical conversations about how you might implement your own program or otherwise constructively react.

——-
Reader Challenge- In addition to sanction and cleave, are there other words in the English language that have opposite meanings? I seem to remember at least one more.

Charm Offensive (Minus The Offensive)

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I was reading the Western Arts Alliance (WAA) Spring Newsletter today and there was a letter from Alliance President John Haynes (page 2) giving his view of what audience engagement is really about.

He tells a story of his time as a programming executive at CBS TV when he pretty much had an unlimited expense account and could do just about anything that struck his fancy. He would regularly order pizza delivered to his apartment and he could hear its approach long before it got to the door thanks to the singing of the Neapolitan deliveryman. At one point the delivery man confessed he was having a hard time saving his money because he was attending the opera a few times a week. Haynes confessed in turn that he had never attended the opera, a fact that flabbergasted the delivery man.

“He was shocked. Here I was, living the good life in a doorman high‐rise on West End Avenue, three blocks from Lincoln Center, but bereft of the most glorious creations of mankind. He sang longer and with more feeling that night than ever before. Neighbors I’d never met came out of their apartments. He sang his way to the elevator and was still singing when the door closed.”

The next time Haynes ordered pizza, the delivery guy showed up at the door with two tickets to the opera. Haynes attended his first opera, Carmen, with the pizza deliveryman. He says that he has seen his role as an arts administrator to do for others what the pizza deliveryman did for him; expanding the scope of his experience. “And that’s how I came to conceive of my role as an “arts leader. I’m just the pizza delivery man. ‘Wanna see something cool?'”

The pizza deliveryman was an apt model for the arts community. He was clearly passionate about a segment of the arts. Even though he couldn’t believe Haynes did not go to the opera, much less love it, he managed to express it in a humble rather than condescending way. (And like the arts, he was poor and funded his passion through donations/Haynes’ large tips.)

Of course the challenge we face today is that unlike Haynes, audiences aren’t necessarily won over after one exposure. And many of us are expending great effort in the direction of audiences who are not CBS executives with unlimited expense accounts. Regardless, we do have the same opportunity the pizza man had. We can unabashedly share our passion where ever we go and maybe after repeated exposure, people will start to open up to the possibility of sharing whatever it is that makes us (metaphorically) sing. (Keeping in mind that constantly singing songs from Wicked, either literally or figuratively, is going to make people want to throttle you.)

I realize that since this is filtered through Haynes’ recollection, the pizza deliveryman sounds very charming. Someone else might have perceived him as pushy and elitist. Though I have to think he was indeed as earnest as Haynes portrays him.

The pizza man has had his victory. For the rest of us, another challenge is to be charming as we talk about our passions and avoid making people’s eyes glaze over as we yammer on–or worse, harden as they feel alienated by the tone and direction of the conversation.

Most everyone in the arts seems to be invested in this shared goal, but there are few clear tips circulating about how to accomplish it. Perhaps it is as easy as the “be yourself” advice dispensed about dating. But if that were effective, there wouldn’t be 1,000 new dating articles on newsstands and the internet every week.

I’d suggest more practical and specific advice about diminishing the appearance of elitism might be what the arts needs. But like I said, advice on any sort of relationship doesn’t seem to provide much clarity or instill confidence.

Dear Thespis-

There is a woman at the supermarket I would really like to get to know better as an audience member. However, she seems to think I am elitist snob even though the resale value on her five year old SUV is still more than I made last year. How do I get her to even consider looking my way?

With 10,000 Friends Like These, You Don’t Need Enemies

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One of the things that makes me cringe uneasily is seeing non-profits running social media “follow me” campaigns where they make the push for the next multiple of 5000 milestone looming a few hundred followers away. Maybe they simply want the appearance of being as cool as all the other kids on the block and show off how popular they are. But to my mind, and perhaps I am erroneously attributing motivations, it appears to be the social media version of “if only they get exposed to our work once, they will fall in love with us forever.”

I should be clear that while I often talk about the “get them in the door and they will won over” reasoning in relation to the arts, I am seeing this practice across the non-profit sector. If the motivation is reaching more people via raw numbers, I think it suffers the same flaw as buying huge mailing lists or extending special offers/programs to get more people through the door. Unless you are making an effort to provide an experience/materials that is relevant to the new people, the effort isn’t productive.

Non-profit organizations are advised to move away from the shotgun approach in their physical advertising and most agree because of cost and recipient resentment over being spammed by snail and email. But social media is both inexpensive and people are choosing to follow you rather than you pushing your material on them. In my view, regardless of how inexpensive a channel of communication is, the goal should always be to have a your information be of interest to a high percentage of those being reached rather than reaching the highest number of people.

Yes it is cheap to greatly augment those numbers of virtual followers, but why are you even making the effort if you have no follow up plans? That’s worse than creating a social media presence just because everyone else is. At least you aren’t actively trying to convince people to buy in to an experience you have no intention of enhancing.

Many of the organizations I follow provide information that is interesting to me as an arts professional, but unless they have 10,000 arts professionals/admirers following them, I doubt most of their followers are as engaged as I. The quality and quantity of one organization’s feed actually dropped significantly after their big push. (Though I suspect the feed was initially created by an intern who left or a staff person who got pulled off the detail because the tone also became decidedly less strident and partisan.)

The other problem is that these “follow us” campaigns encourage existing sincere followers to leverage their relationships with others to bolster your followers. This is akin to asking board members to open their address books to solicit donations from their friends, albeit less intrusive and garnering even less personal investment.

Ask people to evangelize for your organization, by all means. But if you are flogging them everyday to help you reach a specific goal, the number 10,000 has as much relevance to the well-being of your organization as January 1, 2000 had to the end of the world.

If you know most of your followers aren’t going to pay attention and decide not to write to their interests, why the heck did you make so much ado updating the countdown every couple hours for two weeks? If your social media site wasn’t envisioned as a tool to provide information to interested parties and strengthen your relationship with them why does it exist?

I will be the first to admit that I am not using my organization social media sites as often and effectively as I would like. But when I do issue updates, it is to celebrate the success of partner organizations/artists, make followers aware of grant opportunities, national issues with the arts and artists with whom they may be unfamiliar. Yes, when we have a show coming up, I am linking to videos and online stories about the artist, but we aren’t having a show every week of the year.

I know that a large segment of those following are positively inclined toward the arts as both consumers and practitioners. Many are not make the decision to attend a show, but their knowledge and general attitude toward the arts can be positively influenced by all the information we post.

iPad Will Make Your Performance…Forgettable

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One option for preserving the performing arts is often mentioned is a greater use of multi-media either in a performance or as a medium to transmit the performance. However, reading an article on Time magazine’s website (h/t Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution) about how it is more difficult to remember things you read in electronic format versus paper format, I wondered if moving to electronic media might be a disservice to the arts.

Second, the book readers seemed to digest the material more fully. Garland explains that when you recall something, you either “know” it and it just “comes to you” — without necessarily consciously recalling the context in which you learned it — or you “remember” it by cuing yourself about that context and then arriving at the answer. “Knowing” is better because you can recall the important facts faster and seemingly effortlessly.

“What we found was that people on paper started to ‘know’ the material more quickly over the passage of time,” says Garland. “It took longer and [required] more repeated testing to get into that knowing state [with the computer reading, but] eventually the people who did it on the computer caught up with the people who [were reading] on paper.”

The thought is that spatial context is very valuable in helping us to remember things. We recall where places are physically located based on landmarks. Though it may seem hard to believe it can be that significant a factor, we are better able remember information because we have a sense of where it appeared on a page. E-books don’t have that sort of physical context.

In addition, apparently size matters as well.

“He says that studies show that smaller screens also make material less memorable. “The bigger the screen, the more people can remember and the smaller, the less they can remember,” he says. “The most dramatic example is reading from mobile phones. [You] lose almost all context.”

Based on these findings I wondered if the arts might actually seem less relevant if digital media was the only way to access it. While a performance obviously loses its impact when it is not seen live, it may quite literally be less memorable when viewed on a smaller screen as well.

I would be interested to learn if there are studies comparing the experiences of people who watched a movie in a theatre vs. on a television vs. a small screen. (I am sure movies watched on airplane seatback screens will be memorable or forgettable due to myriad factors other than screen size 😉 )

Will movies seen on a very small screen be less memorable because the distances between people and things are so compacted? Desperate lunges to save someone may make less of an impression when reduced to fractions of an inch. Panoramic shots of gorgeous landscapes may pass by unnoticed in small scale.

Digital media may increase your reach by giving you access to a larger distribution channel, but if the scale makes it difficult to distinguish your product from thousands of others, you may have to question its worth.

You may basically be in the position you are now with YouTube where everyone posts something in the hopes it goes viral. I am sure YouTube won’t always be the standard, but if you can use it to test things now. Watch a video on the largest computer screen you can find and then watch the same one on a cell phone screen and judge the effectiveness. Better yet, watch the smaller version first and then watch the larger and see how much you may have missed just in terms of emotional expression.

Info You Can Use: Short Term Space Naming

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I apologize for not making an entry as usual last Wednesday. I was deeply involved with a fund raiser that evening. So far we have seen some positive results which I would attribute to a combination of our approach and the environment we created that evening. I thought I would relate some of what we did and maybe some of you might find elements you can use.

As I believe I have mentioned before, we are planning a renovation of our theatre facility. Our development officer was thinking about naming rights for some of the spaces and had an interesting idea.

It is often very difficult for someone to get enough money together to name a space in perpetuity. However, they might be interested in naming a space for five years at a fraction of the cost of a life time naming. Once they had committed to that, they might be more open to the idea of a permanent naming via an estate gift or other method. The arrangement is that the 5 year will go into our donation account for us to use in the short term and the permanent naming will go into an endowment.

After discussing this idea with our leadership, she had lunch with a long time supporter of the theatre to run the idea by him. He was very receptive of the idea.

Our next step was to invite people to a lunch brain storming session about the renovation and how we might support it. Our concept was to float this naming idea but also see if anyone had suggestions to refine it or even replace it with a better idea. Although only a fraction of those invited attended the meeting, those that responded with regrets expressed some excitement for the possible renovation and gratitude at being invited. Those who did attend expressed a fair amount of enthusiasm about our plan.

Next we sent out a letter to the same mailing list telling everyone we had held the meeting, came up with some new ideas and would be holding a campaign kick off event so watch for the invite. We sent off the invite a few weeks later.

We designed the kick off party to play to our strengths. We held the event on the stage which most of our audience and supporter had never been on. We had artist renderings of the renovation and a sample theatre seat for people to sit in. (The people at the brainstorming session actually got to provide feedback on a number of seat samples before the architect had to send them back.)

The musicians were located on the orchestra pit which had been raised to the stage level. To watch the musicians, the audience had to look out toward the empty seating area. In effect, the roles were reversed with the artists in the physical position the audience usually occupied and the audience was on stage which the artists usually occupied.

About a half hour in, at the end of a particular song, a flash mob which had slowly been infiltrating the party started to perform, stomping, singing, banging objects, etc. They moved downstage to perform a song and physically advanced on the audience so that they would move clear from an area of the stage where we intended to perform. (We also instructed the caterers not to circulate with food below that line so that people wouldn’t linger there.)

Some child performers were introduced and got the whole audience (supplemented by some of our flash mob) involved in a call and response. Then they launched into a wild performance singing a rap while fabric was dropped from the ceiling and three aerialists came running out, climbed up and performed. Near the end of the piece, confetti was dropped so it swirled around the aerialists and down on the audience. Staring up at the aerialists, the audience got to witness the use of some theatrical mechanics and techniques they had never seen before.

Then while the energy was up, we talked about the theatre, the renovation and the short term naming plan. We already had a person lined up to sponsor our Green Room for 5 years so we had him speak and presented him with the plaque that will be mounted outside the Green Room.

After that, we distributed information about the naming opportunities and I gave tours of the facility to those who hadn’t really ever seen it. Unfortunately, like a groom at his wedding, I didn’t get to eat any of the food I paid to have served.

However, our efforts have already seen some additional successes. One woman called back to our development officer that evening after she left the party to express interest in sponsoring our lighting booth. Another contacted the development officer this week about the women’s dressing room. I have to credit these events to the donor who sponsored our Green Room as much as anything we did. I don’t doubt that his generosity provided a catalyst for the others.

These short term naming opportunities aren’t really going to be enough to help us with the renovation efforts. Though they can cover buying lobby and green room furniture and various appliances we might need. Not to mention it adds a little to our operating funds. While there is a lot of good energy and interest surrounding the program, my guess is that we will probably need to see a renovation start within the next five years to sustain people’s enthusiasm.

What If I Had Only….

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One of the perennial challenges arts organizations face is attracting a younger audience and the tendency of audiences to commit so late that you wonder if there will be one for your event at all. According to a recent blog post by Priya Parker (which includes her talk at TEDxCambridge on the same subject), this is a result of a paralysis millennials feel when faced with so many choices. There is a fear of missing out on a better option.

Parker has conducted many interviews during her research in which respondents discuss the paralysis they feel at the prospect of making the wrong choice.

“Am I setting up my adult life to be the way that it could optimally be?” one of my subjects asked aloud, speaking of her general approach to life decisions. This subject explained how FOMO could even invade the pursuit of a spouse: “On the personal side, there’s this fear of ‘Am I committing to the right person?’”

More and more, particularly among those who have yet to make those big life decisions (whom to marry, what kind of job to commit to, where to live), FOMO and FOBO – the “fear of better options” – are causing these young leaders to stand still rather than act. “The way I think about it metaphorically is choosing one door to walk through means all the other doors close, and there’s no ability to return back to that path,” one subject told me. “And so rather than actually go through any doorway, it’s better to stand in the atrium and gaze.”

Those with the most options in this generation have a tendency to choose the option that keeps the most options open. Wrap your head around that for a second.

[…]

Many of us watch the choices of our peers and predecessors with a blend of admiration and anxiety. What seems to afflict this cohort – more than the political strivings or existential angst that defined earlier generations of elites – is a persistent anxiety about their might-have-been lives, about the ones that got away.”

I don’t think it is much consolation for art organizations to know this is something of a personal problem because ultimately, your audience’s problem is your problem. But once you have created an appealing work, communicated the information through appropriate channels and made it easy for those last minute decision makers to gain admission to your event, there may not be a heck of a lot left to do but watch and wait.

Obviously, this also has some implications about the development of creativity, a quality that seems to be receiving greater amounts of attention. It was apparently the a cover story of this weekend’s Wall Street Journal Weekend Review. Cultivating creative ability requires a lot of trial and error, especially the error part. You get better by learning from your mistakes. If Millennial are risk-averse, they may be too reluctant to commit themselves fully enough to make great creative strides.

In fact, in her TEDxCambridge talk, Parker mentions a number of related practices that inhibit creativity. One in particular was valuing success over mastery where when given the choice of spending two hours networking over coffee or two hours working on honing their artistic abilities, “they will always choose the coffee.”

Granted, every generation has been accused of being less accomplished than the generation before. Though that is usually by the preceding generation, Parker is speaking about her own generation. In the context of so many sources saying creativity is important, it will be worth paying attention to whether this approach to life will ultimately be a problem for the Millennial generation.

Big Data May Be En Vogue, Little Data Still Has Plenty To Offer

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Apropos of my post yesterday about using big data to customize information to the interests of individuals in your community, I happened to come across an interview with Jamie Bennett who is chief of staff at the National Endowment for the Arts. (Or maybe it wasn’t coincidence and Big Data Big Brother conspired to bring it to my attention based on yesterday’s post!!!)

The interview is on a website without permalinks to its content so you may have to scroll down to February 27, 2012 or search for Jamie Bennett to find it.

One thing I realized upon reading Bennett’s interview is that I may not have been clear it is already possible to offer sophisticated interactions with patrons without access to Big Data. I had forgotten that Nicholas Hynter has the membership staff at the National Theatre in London email patrons and suggest that based on what the theatre has observed about them, the patron may want to skip the next show. Obviously, you need to have the staffing and resources to do this sort of thing, but it is certainly within reach.

Another emerging option is sites like Culture Craver, the site upon which Bennett’s interview appears. Only available in NYC at the moment and still in beta stages, Culture Craver, aims to do for arts and culture what Pandora does for music and suggest events that you might like based on comparing your history and stated preferences with those of others with similar tastes.

While the interview would naturally be oriented toward the types of situations in which services like Culture Craver might be useful, I have to admit to being surprised by an anecdote Bennett related about how self-segregating audiences can be. He mentioned that RoseLee Goldberg who runs the visual and performance art oriented Performa festival often features the same artists who appear at the theatre oriented Under the Radar festival.

(text broken into two blocks for reading ease)

She was asked to speak at the Public Theater about some of the artists that she had presented who were also Public Theater folks, and she did a poll of the audience, and said, “Who here is a visual arts person?” And there was nobody. And if you asked that same question about those artists at a Performa audience, it would be all visual arts people and there wouldn’t be any theater people. They’re consuming the same thing, and yet the audiences don’t cross-pollinate….

I’ve begun asking myself, “Why have we drawn that circle? Does it have meaning? Is there something that the arts all have in common with each other? Is painting part of the same cohort as theater? Is dance the same cohort as music?” I believe it is. I’m still working it out in my mind — to have a well-spoken philosophical rationale for this, but I believe it is something. I think creating a real community within that, and not saying, I’m a contemporary dance company and I have nothing to do with classical dance, let alone a museum, I think harms us, and if we saw ourselves as a larger community and worked together that way, I think we’d all benefit tremendously from it. So, figuring out a way to conceive of ourselves as a sector and operate as a sector and realize that more is more. If somebody comes to see something at another theater, that’s ultimately good for my theater, because it’s creating a new audience, it’s building an audience, it’s building an informed community.

Bennett doesn’t lay all the blame on audiences for not being more adventurous. Arts organizations are responsible for propagating these distinctions and communicating them to patrons in various ways. With all the surveys I have read about arts attendance, I don’t recall any findings that definitively observed a significant degree of inter-and intra-disciplinary self-segregation among arts organizations, but it doesn’t mean it isn’t happening or at least that audiences aren’t moving in this direction.

If it is the case, then services like Culture Craver, perhaps in the form of smart phone apps, might become increasingly valuable for arts organizations. Something that says, “hey you trusted us for 25 theatre performances, trust us when we say you’re likely to enjoy this dance piece” can help diversify audiences if they aren’t.

I am just thinking back to the post I did early last month about how members of Gen Y trust the online opinions of total strangers over that of family and friends when I wonder if this isn’t an area to which we should pay close attention.

You’re Sharing Too Much Information About Me With Me

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We are planning a reception next month so a few weeks ago we were checking the website of a printer we often use for postcards to get pricing for invitations. The next day I got a call from an account representative saying he saw we had accessed the website and wondered if there was anything he could help us with.

Now it happened that I had been frustrated by the fact they only printed in batches of 500. We needed about 650 and I didn’t want to be in the position of having to throw out 350 invitations. He was able to arrange for a print run of 650. By paying attention to the activity on their website, his company was able to meet my needs and get my business.

But I tell you, I was a little creeped out. In the future I will probably be mindful of how I visit that website because I know they are watching. Maybe in 5-10 years this sort of response will be so prevalent I won’t think anything of it, but right now it makes me uneasy to know that my visits are being so carefully monitored.

Forbes just had a piece about a similar situation with Target. The store monitors its customer’s purchases and is able to customize the coupons it mails to their homes. As a result, they were able to figure out a teen age girl was pregnant before her parents knew. The store got an indignant call from the girl’s father who later apologized when he discovered the truth.

Target is now more circumspect about how they print their coupon books. Forbes quotes an interview given to the NY Times,

“Then we started mixing in all these ads for things we knew pregnant women would never buy, so the baby ads looked random. We’d put an ad for a lawn mower next to diapers. We’d put a coupon for wineglasses next to infant clothes. That way, it looked like all the products were chosen by chance.

“And we found out that as long as a pregnant woman thinks she hasn’t been spied on, she’ll use the coupons. She just assumes that everyone else on her block got the same mailer for diapers and cribs. As long as we don’t spook her, it works.”

I am sure Target isn’t the only ones doing this leaving me to be paranoid about whether a promotion that resonates with my interests is a coincidence or a calculated insertion by a company.

Thomas Cott recently linked to a McKinsey Quarterly article (registration required) about how in the era of Big Data, arts organizations are lagging behind. I am sure the main reason is lack of funds to collect and process the huge amount of information required to create a profile of the local community/audience. I am also sure that it won’t be long before it becomes affordable to purchase the services/information from a company.

The thing I wonder is, now that arts organizations have started to realize how important it is to engage with their community, will they settle for a tool that allows them to create the illusion of engagement? I want to be high minded and idealistic, but my guess, given the style of marketing most of us currently or recently have engaged in, is yes.

We all know that it is a lot easier to send out materials we hope will appeal to people than to take the time to interact with them individually. If the opportunity to deliver content which data analysis says is highly likely to appeal to people is more affordable and less labor intensive than direct engagement, aren’t you going to take it?

Of course, to retain people as patron/volunteer/participant, you will have to engage them as a distinct individual. Otherwise people are going to realize that while it seemed as if you understood what they liked from the information they received, it is clear from the experience provided that is not the case.

While the budget administrator side of me hopes that day comes really quickly, the idealist side of me hopes it takes a long time for the price of Big Data services to become affordable so that we are forced to engage with our communities.

The practical side of me wonders what the hell the idealist is thinking. Why should the non-profit arts sector hold itself to such a high standard and intentionally take the road less traveled when all the companies competing for our communities’ time and attention aren’t the least concerned about such things.

Arts Funding and Diversity in Oregon

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The Oregonian reported this weekend that the city of Portland would start to tie arts funding to the diversity of the art organization’s board, staff and ultimately audiences.

Specifically, arts groups will be asked to increase the ethnic makeup of their staff, boards and contractors. Their audiences, too, may become more diverse through marketing and outreach. Organizations will also be expected to spend more of their budget — 30 percent being the ideal — on communities of color.

It appears the hope is that by shifting the composition of the board and employees, the type of programming will shift to be more inclusive. Though I think there is some potential for problems, I appreciate the intention behind the plan. Change the culture of your city through its arts and cultural institutions. The arts and culture community is probably a good place to start with such efforts because they are likely to regard the goal as a worthy one.

There are some practical problems as mentioned in the article. First, federal law prohibits making hiring decisions based on race.

Another problem noted is the lack of resources arts organizations have to perform the assessments and programs to which the money is tied. That said, the article notes there are plans for a new levy to fund arts organizations and arts education in the schools. This is encouraging because it acknowledges that the arts require a more supportive environment in which to operate and pursue these programs.

One thing I am most concerned about is that the programs offered to communities of color be appropriate to those communities and not simply extensions of activities which appeal primarily to Caucasian audiences. While some programs may be equally well received by all audiences and it is just a matter of making them more widely accessible, we already know that the demographics who have traditionally comprised arts audiences don’t view traditional arts programs has having relevance to them. There is a good chance that people outside of those demographics will perceive the programs as even less relevant to them.

Designing a program that is meaningful to different communities is possible. It just takes additional time and resources, two things arts organizations have in short supply. It is much easier to use a similar approach in all instances. Is there enough funding being offered by the city of Portland to make it worthwhile to customize programming?

However, since many arts organizations currently have no choice but to change their approach to their audiences and communities if they wish to continue operating, perhaps this is the most suitable time to implement this policy. If you are struggling to discover how best to engage your community, you might be open to considering expanding the definition of your community.

Do you think Portland’s plan can succeed? Not all the guidelines have been set, but do you think this is the correct approach.

One last thing to ponder. In the article Mayor Sam Adams is quote talking about the criteria they will use.

“Adams says organizations shouldn’t be intimidated by the measures. Increasing racial diversity on staff and boards and spending more money on communities of color will be just two of several factors that determine public funding. And when they are used, they’ll be interpreted flexibly. Different groups face different challenges, he says. “

I felt a little relief knowing there wouldn’t be a hard benchmark for funding. I think there has to be flexibility. On the other hand, I am a little concerned about how flexibly the criteria will be interpreted. It is one thing for private foundations to favor the same organizations with large amounts of funding. But there needs to be a higher degree of equity and transparency in the process of disbursing public funding.

Better to have clear guidelines from the outset about the type of outcomes are valued by the funding program than to sanction loose interpretations which allow the rationalization why an organization should be funded.

My perception is that this is the toughest part of funding. How do you allow for both a small organization that works with the same 20 people once a week for 9 months and a large organization that reaches 20,000 people once in the same time frame? Which is valued?

Now throw issues of race/ethnicity in as a factor and it becomes more complicated. (Yes, I am aware that diversity encompasses more than just race, but race is generally the most volatile aspect and is one of the stated criteria.) The stakes become a lot higher when you say racial composition matters and people can see where the money is going. If a medium size organization increases diversity by three on their board of ten and a large organization only increases their diversity by one on a board of 25 and the latter gets more funding in proportion to their budget, what will people think?

Does it matter that the one person on the larger board is more influential than the three on the smaller board and will potentially increase the reach and effectiveness of the organization? Well, I guess it depends on the way the funding criteria is written.

And as I said, with race as a measure, the criteria needs to be very clearly written as do the awards panel’s justifications. Leave too much ambiguity in the rules or the funding justifications and you open the whole process to accusations of racism, raising tensions rather than alleviating them. Funding for the arts is enough of a political issue as it is.

You Don’t Tell Me What To Give, Don’t Tell Me What To Say

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An interesting question was posed to Kelly Kleiman, the Nonprofiteer, about the practice of suggesting donors increase their giving from the previous year. The writer was offended at being told what to give the next year. Kleiman attributes the origins of the practice to universities who, anticipating the increased fortunes of their graduates as the moved along in their careers, asked for slightly greater amounts as the years progressed.

This seems like a great thing and, in fact, is the reason individual giving is such an important source of funds to organizations: while foundations often won’t continue their support unless you do something new and different for every grant, most individuals will just keep on giving unless you affirmatively offend them.

But what you’re saying is that the request for elevated support is just such an affirmative offense.

The problem is that the cost of everything continues to go up, and unless the monetary inflow goes up at the same time the agencies you support will find themselves seriously behind the 8-ball. Perhaps the agencies requesting your increased support would do better if they reminded you of that—”We haven’t been able to give our actors a raise for five years while their rents and grocery bills just keep on rising”—rather than beginning with a flat-out demand that you do more.

I thought the question and answer gave some interesting insight into the whole practice of “upselling” donors from year to year as well providing some guidance about how make the request a little more graciously.

What made me cringe was the second part of the writer’s question/complaint.

“And this year, when, as a board member, I was given the fundraising “ask” letters that were going out under my name to my personal contacts, I felt especially irritated to see the request for a specific additional amount. I would certainly never have written my friends directly with this request.”

Kleiman responds that the writer is within their rights to feel upset that such a request was going out under their name. It put me in mind of a piece from the Non-Profit Quarterly I wrote on this summer. The author, Simone Joyaux, referred to the practice of having board members solicit donations from family and friends ,as trespassing. She claims it leverages personal relationships rather than an interest in a cause and ends up alienating both the board member and their friends.

Joyaux noted that giving based on trespassing is generally shallow and not likely to persist after the board member has transitioned away from the organization. Unless, of course, the person solicited is genuinely interested in the organization’s cause. In which case it is better to have conversations and identify that interest initially rather than blindly solicit everyone in a board member’s address book.

This post title inspired by Lesley Gore

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zaw1ibwVbPI&w=640&h=360]

Who Is More Important? The Event Or Organization?

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I had a small disagreement about marketing with one of the people partnering on a show with us that raised the question about what is more important, the artist or the organization.

The disagreement was pretty simple. We had designed an ad to promote a show. Between the sponsor and creator logos/credits and the general design of the ad, there wasn’t a lot of room left. To maintain a clean, attractive look for the show, I suggested that we omit the three names of the presenters. We would have the name of the theatre, but not “presented by X, Y, Z groups, each of which were fairly long.

My feeling was that the show was what would attract the audience. If we credited the three of us, it would look cluttered and the pertinent information would be lost. If we reduced the font size to the point the ad didn’t look cluttered, it would be too small to be of value and not worth including.

Since we had already advertised the show via brochures, posters, postcards and email blasts, most of those who associated our names with quality already knew we were involved with the show. Those whom we would be reaching with the ad would be making decisions based on the show, not who was presenting it. Therefore, our names were not as important in this particular communication channel.

My partners disagreed with my point of view (though they praised the ad image as much better than the brochure and poster images which was gratifying) and we included our names in pretty small type.

It got me to thinking, is there ever a time when the event is more important than the organization taking credit? Choosing to cede space in favor of a funder might be done out of a concrete sense of obligation (or lack thereof, I am aware of some organizations that choose to omit funder recognition.) Valuing the event/artist above the organization is a bit more theoretical and nebulous a decision.

I don’t know that it should be a default organizational policy where you decide the artist always comes first and people will have to work to find out whose efforts were responsible for their experience. There are some cases where people won’t be familiar with a work where the organizational reputation for quality will provide the confidence an audience needs.

In some cases, you may want to take credit for an experience but get very little recognition because the artist’s reputation will eclipse your own. We recently presented Ben Vereen and it was clear from the phone conversations we were having with patrons that our involvement played no part in the decision to attend.

Both Elton John and Neil Diamond are performing in town in January and February and I couldn’t tell you who the promoters are. I could make an educated guess of 3-4 different people. That is probably the best rationale for making sure your name is associated with your productions. Get a reputation for quality and people will attribute great experiences with which you had no involvement to you.

Surveys show that audiences don’t have much awareness of the tax status of the organization providing their nights’ entertainment. If people aren’t discerning between profit and non profit organizations, how aware are they of whether a show is being presented by me or someone who is renting our facility? There are times of the year that bring especially high numbers of calls from people expecting us to resolve problems with tickets they didn’t purchase from us, so I know some people aren’t aware of the distinction.

Knowing that people may not be making as great a distinction between you and everyone else as you might hope, are there situations where the event is more important than your organization? I am not talking about simply leaving your name off marketing material for the sake of aesthetics. I am asking if there is some program you have or dream of having where it doesn’t matter if anyone knows you did it?

Is it possible for a non-profit to get to that place? Do the producers of a Broadway show care if they have high personal/business name recognition if the show is profitable? Can a non-profit be that blasé as dependent as they are on attracting funders who want assurances their support is making a difference?

I don’t know the full answer to these questions because I have just started considering them and it is a complicated matter.

I don’t think the inability to subsume the organization name to that of an artist necessarily has a direct correlation to the situation Diane Ragsdale discussed in November about low pay for artists. As I note, there are many important reasons to keep name awareness high. However, the organization’s perception of artists certainly is going to factor into the question.

With all the instances recounted by Inside the Arts blogfather, Drew McManus, of orchestra boards answering the question pretty decisively in their own favor, it may be a question that needs to be asked more frequently.

Stuff To Ponder: Active Interpretation of Culture

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Participating in the Lead or Follow discussion over at Artsjournal.com, Lynne Conner writes the following about audience participation/engagement in performances (my emphasis).

Inviting audiences to interpret the art works we present (make, produce, critique) is not pandering. I wish we would stop this disingenuous habit of conflating an audience member’s inherent desire and cultural right to interpret the meaning or value of a work of art with choosing the agenda for artists or arts organizations. Sports fans engage in some of the most active interpretation in our culture (and as a result experience real satisfaction and pleasure), but that doesn’t mean they choose the plays or create the roster. I mean, come on.

This got me to thinking in a slightly different direction. There are numerous television stations, radio shows and newspaper columns featuring people with high levels of expertise talking about sports, yet thousands of people feel no reservation about expressing a contrary opinion loudly in public places and in blog posts. They can hold opposite opinions about games and players from those of their close friends and still remain close. They are not intimidated by those with greater expertise or by the prospect of hurting their personal relationships.

But have you ever been afraid to express your opinion about an artist or arts experience you have had for fear of either appearing elitist to the people around you, even close friends? Or on the other side of the coin, been afraid of appearing insufficiently knowledgeable? Why is that? Feeling unable to discuss these topics, of course, creates a vicious cycle where people continue to feel they can’t discuss these things.

But can the image problem the arts have be fixed by having more people talking a lot more? Maybe, but it will require a lot of people doing a lot of talking.

It is interesting to me that when a person goes shopping, a large number of choices can paralyze someone and result in no choice being made. However, in the face of hundreds of different opinions to select from, sports fans don’t seem to have a problem sifting through them and generating their own view of things. They don’t worry if they don’t agree with the guys at ESPN despite all the computers, statisticians and analysts the network has in their employ.

When it comes to the arts, people get concerned if they don’t agree with the single person writing the review/preview. Either something is wrong with the reviewer or with them. Sports fans can dismiss a single writer as a bum and find another source of information that more closely agrees with them. It doesn’t matter if it is a wholly unsubstantiated view. The fact it confirms their view can make them more comfortable and confident with their ability to evaluate their favorite sport.

That isn’t so easy to achieve in relation to the arts and is becoming less so as media outlets cut back their coverage.

Its funny because it is so much easier to dismiss the opinion of a single poorly funded person over a corporate television station with the resources to analyze something to death based on a thousand different criteria. Yet in the absence of any other easily accessible information about the performance, people don’t feel they know enough to say the reviewer is wrong, even though they may be absolutely right. On the other hand, ESPN’s analysis may be as close to 100% correct as can be, but it doesn’t bother the sports fan in the least that they are completely wrong in disagreeing with the analysis.

Heck, there are sports fans who have been rooting for teams that haven’t been contenders for a championship in decades. They find some pleasure in being wrong year after year rooting for the wrong team.

How many arts organizations get that much slack after rendering a poor performance?

A lot of the devotion a sports fan feels has to do with a feeling of ownership and investment they have in the team, a sense of kinship they feel with other fans and myriad other factors. Many arts patrons feel the exact same things.

Of course, some elements of the sports experience won’t translate over to the arts. Dancers aren’t going to reminisce about how they were berated by audiences at the beginning of the season but won them over with their technique and heart the way a rookie athlete might. Though audiences for those few performing arts companies who retain the same ensemble from year to year can speak about watching artists develop over time.

There isn’t anything insurmountable standing in the way of people engaging in active interpretation of their arts or cultural experience in the same manner as they do with sports–except that they aren’t doing it. There isn’t an arts and culture police running around enforcing standards on conversations. The only impediments are those largely tacit ones we enforce upon ourselves and each other.

I am going to stop short of suggesting what we must do because I don’t think it is as simple as more arts coverage in the media, more arts in schools, more arts bloggers, more outreaches, more free performances. These may all help, but there are a lot chicken and egg factors to the arts environment in the United States. These things are useless of themselves if no one is receptive to them. How do you create that receptive environment?

At the Arts Presenters conference earlier this month, Braddock, PA Mayor John Fetterman quoted a lesson from Sen. Alan Simpson that any significant change takes seven years. I wonder how long it might take to change the culture of a community to the point where people felt free to engage in active interpretation of arts and culture.

Stuff To Ponder: Curtain Speeches

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I was reading an entry on the Creativity Post by Thomas Mark about how important audience attentiveness is in live performance. It was interesting, but I wasn’t intending to post on it…until I read the last paragraph.

A crucial moment for establishing the relationship of audience and performer is immediately before the performance begins. Let me explain. People arrive, find their seats, and begin to turn their thoughts from daily affairs to the performance ahead. At last, the house lights go down. Everyone falls silent. That is the magic moment, the short period of greatest attention and receptivity and anticipation,… At any rate, that’s what should happen. Unfortunately, what actually does happen far too often,… Instead of allowing the performance to begin, the chairman of the board or the executive director or someone appears with a microphone and makes a fatuous speech. “Welcome ladies and gentlemen . . . blah blah blah . . . [insert a lame joke here] . . .blah blah blah . . . CDs available in the lobby . . . blah blah blah . . . The annual patron’s reception . . . blah blah blah . . . Our gratitude to our sponsors . . . blah blah blah . . . Turn off your cell phones . . . blah blah blah . . . Thank you, and enjoy the performance.” Not so easy, any more. Anticipation, attention, and receptivity have given way to irritation and impatience. The magic moment has been irretrievably shattered, leaving performers and audience to pick up the pieces as best they can. This kind of disregard for the conditions of artistic performance by the very people who organize the event is unpardonable. When it happens audiences and performers are entitled to complain vigorously.

Now, as someone who does deliver a curtain speech, I felt the need to take up the subject. I will concede that the curtain speech, poorly done can add a sour note to an evening. In light of all the interruptions that occur during a performance, the incessant ringing at Avery Fischer Hall being the most publicized recent example, such announcements are certainly appropriate, if not always effective.

Many locales require fire and emergency announcements be made and doing these in person rather than by recording is usually most effective. I saw a performance in NYC earlier this month and the fire/cell phone/recording prohibition announcement was made via a recording. While the volume and clarity was excellent, people were still standing and chatting while it was going on.

Having someone make the announcement does help to transition the audience from the arrival phase of the experience to the performance experience. I would agree that delivering the announcement after lowering the lights does interrupt the audiences experience since the lights also signal a transition. I generally go out while the house lighting is still at full. Though some times we bring them down to 3/4 or 1/2 to signal my arrival.

Obviously, there are other ways to provide the same information. The artistic design of some shows precludes my appearance and the salient points are delivered by an audio or video recording or even a performer.

Overall, I think a personal welcome to the audience is helpful to the organization, especially if well-considered. I generally talk very briefly about the show and why we chose to present it as a way to prepare people for the experience.

A lot of work is invested in performances and performance venues have many guidelines for the behavior of the front of house staff in order to provide a good attendance experience for audiences. But often very little effort has gone into the preparation and delivery of the curtain speech. Given that the attention of everyone is on the speaker at the same moment, it is most assuredly contributes to the experience.

Content matters. I actually start thinking about what I am going to say the day before the show, make notes and pare it down to 2-3 minutes max. I am not always successful in making silky smooth transitions into the show, but I do keep it brief and get off the stage.

Very rarely do I mention the next show and only solicit donations obliquely by thanking the audience and expressing my hope that they will continue to support our programs. Maybe I would get more donations if I was more direct and I think I can still find some good phrases to use that will indicate our need for donations without being overtly pushy. Honestly though, I don’t really know that making a general appeal before a performance is terribly effective as a fundraising technique.

In the moments before a performance, I think the focus should be on the immediate experience and not on future concerns. I have posters and a television screen and ushers with brochures in my lobby to push my future shows. In the 2 minutes before the show starts, the audience should be guided toward why the experience will be enjoyable. I am sure I am not the only one who has found themselves slightly disappointed by the movie they are watching after seeing preview trailers for the exciting movies coming the next summer.

People certainly don’t want to be thinking about your financial woes just as they are about to see a performance (though the curtain speech may be a good time to address them if the situation is widely known by the public.)

Many audience members can’t discern between for-profit and non-profit organizations and their respective performances. It’s great that people don’t feel the quality of non-profits are lacking, but it also means they may not particularly feel their lives would be worse should the non-profit disappear. We certainly don’t want to have people identifying long boring, speeches and appeals for money as a distinguishing characteristic of non-profit events.

I would be interested to know what other people think. Is there a better way to do curtain speeches? What things should be left out or are better accomplished in some other manner? What things not typically found in curtain speeches should be included?

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Butts In The Seats by Joe Patti is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License.
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