State of the Arts

Right People, Not Right Product Make A Great Company

by

So as something of a follow up to my post earlier this week asking if foundation boards embrace non-profit values, I wanted to point to an article about what private enterprises can learn from non-profits.

The five points the article emphasizes are connecting with the community, understanding what motivates your employees, creating long term value, valuing people over the program or product and improvising.

Many of these points are representative of what the arts can bring to private businesses. While I don’t think the arts are exemplary in the diversity of employees and audiences it serves, improving that situation is a major topic of conversation and can help lead others to the questions they should be asking about themselves.

Likewise, while it may seem that non-profits don’t have a sterling record in respect to overworking employees, they do understand what motivates people to dedicate themselves to a cause in return for little material reward.

Lately one subject that seems to come up frequently is the idea that private companies have an unhealthy focus on short term gains at the expense of creating long term value. Many companies are starting to see that focusing on corporate social responsibility (CSR) is crucial for doing business.

It almost seems that if the non-profit sector can come up with an effective program to engender even a partial shift toward a longer view, a great service will be rendered.

The one point I especially liked in the article was that great people have more value to a company than great products and services. I think it can be easy to forget that when you are being evaluated based on the numbers you achieve (which is especially the case for non-profits’ administrative cost ratios)

4. The right people (not the right product or program) make for a great organization (Chris Pullenayagem, Director, Christian Reformed Church)

Many private (for profit) organizations rely on products or processes or programs to be successful in their business. For those that do, this seems to be an inverted way of pursuing excellence. People bring vision, passion and creativity to their work as evidenced in non-profit organizations. If the right people are hired, every organization will move towards excellence in achieving its vision and what it was mandated to do. Any organization can show results, but only this type of organization will thrive with excellence.

Manholes As Destination Tourism (Seriously)

by

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

Still More On Crowdfunding Start Up Arts Orgs

by

If you have been reading my blog regularly over the last few months, you know I have been keeping an eye on the possibility of the crowd funding elements of the recently passed JOBS Act replacing non profit status as a viable method of creating and sustaining an arts organization.

If you haven’t been reading that long, well harken back to my original musings on the subject as well as some more recent musings with links to information on the implications of the law as passed.

Hat tip to Charity Lawyer Blog’s Ellis Carter (whom I have previously incorrectly identified as male. Sorry about that Ellis) for her link to a piece on Startup Company Law Blog about the problems with the law.

Author Joe Wallin confirms many of the general suspicions I had about the costs of compliance probably being overly burdensome given the $1 million limit.

One thing that surprised me was that the law actually prohibits start ups from the “do it yourself” approach which I have always assumed to be a hallmark of start ups.

3) The Law Forces Companies To Use Intermediaries

The law forces startups to use intermediaries to raise the funds. This is fundamentally different from what typically happens with startups. Most startups raise funds without the help of intermediaries. In fact, this is the prevailing norm for startup companies. The typical advice to a startup is–don’t use an intermediary! Founders, do it yourself!

 But here the law forces companies into the arms of either registered broker-dealers or registered funding portals. These entities are subject to numerous requirements, and their compliance with those requirements will make the process much more difficult and costly for companies.

Maybe arts organizations with their bare bones mentality about providing a product might make it work within the restriction, but the whole point of pursuing an alternative to the non profit business model is to adopt an alternative approach and mindset about providing cultural experiences. (a.k.a. ramen isn’t a default food group for artists.) Though it will probably bring it own attendant problems, success might be measured by how diversely arts and cultural organizations manifest after phasing away from non-profit status.

At the end of his post, Wallin suggests Congress go back and make some changes to the law to allow start ups to proliferate more easily. I am sure there is still plenty of opportunity for successful crowd funded start ups within the law. If it isn’t changed before that, perhaps the successes will lend credence to the idea this can be a viable path for entrepreneurs, moreso with a few changes.

Be Here, With Me

by

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