Alignment of Storytelling

Back in February I caught a broadcast of NPR’s podcast show Code Switch where the episode was about the music that came out of or was inspired by Japanese internment. Artists like Kishi Bashi and Mike Shinoda of the band Linkin Park are among descendants of internees and wrote music how that impacted their family, especially in terms of the silence that was maintained about the experience.

The story particularly resonated with me because our local art museum had just closed a show of Ansel Adams photos taken at the Manzanar War Relocation Center during the internment as well as a show in another gallery depicting life at Granada Relocation Center, here in CO, better known as Amache. The museum apparently didn’t know at the time the show opened that President Biden would sign an act creating the Amache National Historic Site a couple weeks before that show ended.

In 1944, while the war was still going on, Adams displayed the photos he took in a controversial show titled “Born Free and Equal,” referring to the fact that most of those interned had been born in the US, perhaps generations prior.

The show here in town had a significant impact in the greater community. Attendance was at some of the highest rates the museum has experienced. I happened by the front doors one day and a family exited in silence until one of the parents said, “Well that was something. What did you think of that?” A man who had been interned at one of the camps as a child traveled some distance with his family and brought a book he made of his drawings and remembrances he created while there. He presented a copy to the museum director and one to the curator.

While I was listening to the Code Switch episode, I wished they had run it a few weeks earlier to align with the shows at the museum so they could have expanded the story they told about the relevance of the shows.

I also wondered why there seemed to be such an alignment of information about the Japanese internment recently. The hosts of the radio story mentioned that the US government had issued an apology some years ago and paid out reparations to internees and their families. Those people in turn have donated money to organizations who promote Japanese culture and history in the US, including increasing awareness about the internment.

 

Intended Customers Aren’t The Only Targets Of Customer-Centric Efforts

I wanted to brag a bit on my staff today. For about a year now I have been talking about making our promotional materials and operational habits focused more toward attendees rather than inwardly focused. As a result, staff has helped collect images of audiences enjoying themselves and gather stories about what engages and interests them both about our venue and programming, but also the greater community.

One of my staff members took this to heart and expanded on the concept to include our volunteers. For me this reinforced the concept that the target of customer-centric efforts aren’t just the people we hope will show up. More about that later.

One of the things our staff member does is conduct “Let’s Make A Deal” style quizzes about safety procedures before every performance. If a volunteer answers correctly, they get to choose a box with prizes under them. Some are fun white elephant type prizes.

For a recent training sessions we held for all volunteers, she sent out a Raiders of the Lost Ark themed invitation that invited volunteers to submit stories and pictures about current and past adventures, share something they are proud of, funny stories and their favorite thing about volunteering. They were also asked if they wanted to bring in an artifact to share.

About half of the 40 people who attended submitted stories, images and artifacts which we put on display across three walls of a lobby alcove.

She carried the same Raiders of the Lost Ark theme through the training Powerpoint with images from the movies which were spot on with the topic.

You can probably see the obvious link between volunteers feeling engaged with an organization and the willingness and energy they can bring to helping audiences feel welcomed. Who is in the lobby greeting people as they arrive is just as important as the faces and stories that appear on stage or on the walls/display in the space.

The customers in a customer centered approach aren’t just the primary targets of your efforts, whether it as a paid or unpaid attendance environment, volunteers and other constituencies, including infrequent or non-attendees are part of the mix. The impression everyone in the greater community has about your organization and the experience you offer gets communicated to a greater or lesser extent. Volunteers are definitely a primary point of contact for audiences, but non-attendees who feel their quality of life is improved by having an entity like yours available have just as big a role to play so having them feel engaged, if only in a tangential manner, is valuable.

Helping People Persuade Themselves

Seth Godin made a post recently suggesting that the most effective persuasion occurs when we persuade ourselves.

The purpose of the memo or the table or the graph or the presentation is to create the conditions for someone to make up their own minds. Because it’s almost impossible to make up their mind for them.

This post seems to dovetail pretty well with the “Jobs to Be Done” theory Ruth Hartt espouses for arts marketing. This is the idea that people purchase things that they feel will solve problems they face. These needs are more complicated than just food, shelter, clothes, etc. The statement the food, shelter, clothes, etc., make about you and make you feel about yourself may factor in. So in that regard it may not be a product or service people purchase, but time spent with others, spent recharging, spent improving knowledge and expertise, etc.

As Godin says, the approach and tools you use to communicate with people has to facilitate them convincing themselves that what you offer will meet a need, solve a problem, complete a job to be done.

Ruth made a mock up video along those lines a couple years ago.  Some of the things Godin identifies as being barriers to self-persuasion are similar to issues Ruth has identified in arts marketing. They all have to do with mistakes people make when telling their story.

Godin writes:

Sometimes, we are entranced by our own insight, or impressed with our communication tools. We let facts, formatting and filigree get in the way of a good story.

And sometimes, we’re afraid of our power, so we bury the lede too far, letting ourselves off the hook by not influencing someone else.

Once in a while, we do the opposite. We say what we mean so clearly and so directly that the story disappears and the facts bounce off the inertia and self esteem of the person encountering them.

 

Mind Blowing How Much Close Family And Friends Add To Attendance Experience

Some pretty compelling evidence that we should be encouraging people to participate in arts and cultural activities with family and friends. Colleen Dilenschneider and the folks at IMPACT released some data about whether school group visits to exhibit and performance based experiences translate into visitation as adults. (subscription required)

The answer is pretty shocking (my emphasis):

People who visited as children with their families generally do find cultural organizations to be welcoming, while folks who visited with groups are somewhat on the fence when considered as a collective.

Perhaps the most jarring finding is the lack of significant difference in welcoming perceptions among those who visited with school groups (or other groups) and those who did not visit as children at all. Visiting a cultural organization with a group generally did not impact attitude affinities as an adult.

They break out this data across a number of graphs in terms of household income and exhibit vs. performance based experiences and the results are consistent. Similarly, responses to intent to visit and the extremely important willingness to recommend to others followed similar trends. People who attended with family and friends had more positive responses than those who attended with groups or never attended.

It is important to note this data doesn’t separate out those who participate in longer term experiences like camps, residencies, classes, outreach programs.

The folks at IMPACTS have some theories about why there is so little difference between those that only have experiences with groups and those that have never visited as children. I encourage people to take a look at the article to learn more about this. They probably wrote 2000+ words on the topic and include a number of charts. I am just reaching 250 words here–including what I have quoted.

Thinking back about my own experiences as a child, I suspect that the modeling behavior of adults has a big impact on children. There are things I assumed about my life arc based on my perceptions of my parents and those of my peers when I was a child that I was surprised to learn were erroneous when I grew up due to the expectations they stated and modeled.

In the context of this data, it seems even more important to reflect on how we can make it easier for families to make the decision to attend. Really, I suspect that if you did the same research on 30-50 year olds who said the friends they made in college helped get them in the attendance habit, you would probably find a similar level of willingness to attend in the future or recommend to others. You might not find the same raw numbers as those whose parents/grandparents/neighbors took them, but socialization will probably still be a factor.

Facilitating the ease of decision making requires examining every aspect of the experience from programming, promotion, ticketing experience, parking, the welcome, concessions, and the departure.