Working In The Arts

#NotMyMetric

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Carter Gillies shared the unabridged version of a piece he wrote for the Arts Professional UK on his website this weekend.  As Carter is wont to do, he examined statements about quantifying and measuring the value of the arts made by Simon Mellor, the deputy chief executive for arts and culture at Arts Council England.

I was particularly drawn to Carter’s second entry where he addresses this statement by Mellor (my emphasis):

“At its heart, the Quality Metrics system is about enabling arts and cultural organisations to enter a structured conversation with audience members and peers about the quality of the work they are presenting. It allows them to capture valuable data that they can use to understand how their intentions for the work are aligning with the experiences of their audiences and peers and, hopefully, to use that information to plan future programmes and improve the quality of their work. It will also enable those organisations to provide more evidence to current and future funders about the quality of their work.

Let me first state that I don’t believe these metrics will really have any ability to measure the quality of the work done by the arts organisations. If you have read any of my previous posts on the matter you probably knew that already.

I was taken by the idea expressed in the bolded sentence above. One of the biggest challenges facing arts organizations in the last few years is the recognition that what they are doing might not align with the interests of the community. In surveys like Culture Track, people say they aren’t attending arts events because they don’t see themselves or their stories depicted on the stages, walls, and spaces. They don’t preceive what is happening in arts spaces to be relevant to them.  Nina Simon wrote a whole book about making experiences relevant for people.

So if the Arts Council of England could actually deliver some real insight into how to make the experience more relevant for people, that would be a pretty valuable service.

However, as Carter points out later in that second entry, there are many examples of artists whose work was initially rejected before being lauded. Some died before others began to recognize the value in the work they missed before. We see this sort of thing happen all the time in our lives. Movies and shows that did poorly both critically and economically suddenly become cult classics.

The Rocky Horror Picture Show became immensely popular after it initially flopped. But it is also a good example of something whose value exploded after people were able to participate and take ownership of the experience.

Even if it is an accurate reflection of how people are receiving something, the research is only going to be valuable to a point.

The problem, however, with creating a metric is that often that metric becomes fetishized as the measure of value rather than one element among many that can help us understand how an art work and the experience surrounding it is received.

As Carter notes, quoting Oscar Wilde, even when we talk about a metric someone else is using, the meaning of that metric may not be shared by both parties. Thus the #NotMyMetric title of this post.

(my emphasis)

There is a reason bean counting number crunchers have so much authority in the arts, and mainly it is for the good. The arts are a business and need to function as such. But it is also important to not let that world view overreach itself. We need to be careful in not putting the cart before the horse. In many ways the arts are the exact opposite of what the counters are, and see, and value.

The ever impish and ironical Oscar Wilde understood this predicament:

“When Bankers get together for dinner, they discuss Art. When Artists get together for dinner, they discuss Money.”

There is a mutual interest, in other words, but neither does it mean a banker thinks of art as an artist does, values it for the same things in the same way, and equally true of artists’ attitude towards money, but especially that this does not mean they should be left in charge of one another’s concerns. A ‘dinner table’ acquaintance is insufficient for the real work that needs to be done.

Some Last Thoughts On Conferences For Awhile (Probably)

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I know I have been harping a lot on conferences of late, but you know, ’tis the season!

Because I had been in the process of moving to a new job, I just caught up with my blog feed this weekend and read Barry Hessenius’ piece on effectively exploiting the conference experience for people at different stages in their careers. Which he wrote a few weeks before my first post on the topic, proving once again that he is at the forefront of arts management theory.

Don’t misread my previous posts about how to improve the conference attendance experience as disgruntled criticisms of any conferences I have attended or contributed to. I was approaching the topic in the same spirit as I approach arts attendance experiences: questioning what it is that conferences, like the arts orgs they serve, need to do in order to provide participants with a valuable experience.

Hessenius’ post is especially useful for first time attendees because their conference experience is going to be all about networking. He identifies common features of arts conferences and provides advice about how to exploit these dynamics to best effect.

For example, regarding the plenary luncheons:

I never sit at just any table, nor am I the first one to seat myself. I wait until the tables begin to fill, quickly identify a table occupied by people I might want to talk to and those I might want to get to know. Even if your seat mates are serendipitously determined, that’s ok, because often times you end up meeting someone who will make an excellent contact. Note too that keynote speakers are often inspiring and motivating, but few keynotes will offer you much practical advice that you can use, and thus the before, and during conversations with those at your table may be more valuable to you in the long run.

The one bit of advice I felt was valuable for people of any level of conference attendance experience was in regard to preparation:

One final piece of advice:  there is a lot of talking that goes on at conferences.  Learn to listen and listen well.  And please, if there are recommended reading materials and / or research available before the conference for a session you might want to attend, don’t put that off until you are on the plane.  Do your homework, if there is any, beforehand.  If you give yourself more time to think about the subject, you’ll get more out of the presentation, and you’ll be able to formulate good questions to raise.  Relax on the plane.

If there is one phrase I have heard at conferences over the last decade or so it is along those lines. People say they meant to review a text in advance or they downloaded the book planning to read it on the plane or listen to the audio content as they drove but didn’t get to it.

I understand that. For a whole lot of people attending a conference means cramming all the work you aren’t going to be around to do into the last few days before the conference. There is even less time than usual available to preview conference content.

But as Hessenius implies, you are carving out time to attend a conference to help yourself be better at your job. If you only have a precious few days in which to do that, it is worthwhile to prepare the soil in which this valuable content can thrive and grow.

Whew, Who Knew Finding Your Passion Was Such Hard Work?

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Back in July there was an interesting piece in The Atlantic examining the value of the claim “find your passion and you will never have to work a day in your life.”

As I was reading the article, I saw that this concept had a lot in common with the idea that artistic achievement is the result of inspiration or genius rather than the result of a long period of practice, experimentation and experience. I have written about this idea often in the distant and recent past.  The study reported on in The Atlantic piece continues to extend and add evidence to my thinking on this topic by suggesting you develop your passion rather than being struck by it in a momentary flash.

Another reason not to buy into the fixed theory is that it can cause people to give up too easily. If something becomes difficult, it’s easy to assume that it simply must not have been your passion, after all. In one portion of this study, the students who thought interests were fixed were also less likely to think that pursuing a passion would be difficult at times. Instead, they thought it would provide “endless motivation.”

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People who have a growth mind-set about their own intelligence tend to be less afraid of failure, according to her research, because they believe smarts are cultivated, not inherent. Interests are related to, but distinct from, abilities, the study authors told me: You can be interested in something but not very good at it. “I’ve been playing guitar for 25 years, but I can’t say that my abilities have gotten that much better in the past 10 years,” O’Keefe said.

Dweck told me that “find your passion” has a laudable history. “Before that, people were saying, ‘Find your genius,’ and that was so intimidating. It implied that only people who were really brilliant at something could succeed,” she said. “‘Find your passion’ felt more democratic. Everybody can have an interest.” But this study suggests that even the idea of finding your “true” interest can intimidate people and keep them from digging further into a field.

I was particularly interested by this idea that “find your passion” developed out of a desire remove the intimidation factor inherent in “find your genius.” It seems like something of an admonition to pay attention to the inherent implications of any new phrases that crop up to replace “find your passion.”

More Tales From The Crammed Conference Luncheon Table

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I have suspected it before, but now I really am convinced that Seth Godin is reading my mind. Right after I made my post about perceived value of conference professional development sessions last week, Godin posts a retrospective of past posts where he talked about how to make conferences more valuable for attendees. (He drills down to ideas for meetings between two people so they are worth a read.)

Of the four posts he links to, I think my favorite is the skewering of the 10 person banquet table.  He says those tables are ideal for the catering manager, but counterproductive for forging relationships with other conference attendees which is the whole reason for spending so much money to show up in person.

If you have ever been crammed at a table with 9 other people I need not enumerate the disadvantages of this set up.

In my experience–I’m sharing a hugely valuable secret here–you score a big win when you put five people at tables for four instead. Five people, that magical prime number, pushes everyone to talk to everyone. The close proximity makes it more difficult to find a place for the bread basket, but far, far easier for people to actually do what they came to do, which is connect with one another.

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If you want to let the banquet manager run your next event, by all means, feel free. Just understand that his goals are different from yours.

Another one I liked was his post on how to organize a retreat. In it, he lists all sorts of atypical activities for people to engage in. He hooked me with his prohibition on having people go around the room and name their favorite vegetable.

Instead, a week ahead of time, give each person an assignment for a presentation at the event. It might be the answer to a question like, “what are you working on,” or “what’s bothering you,” or “what can you teach us.” Each person gets 300 seconds, that’s it.

Have 11 people present their five minutes in an hour. Never do more than an hour in a row.

This idea was from a 2010 before the pecha kucha became a fixture at conferences. I think the concept of using it in the place of going around the room asking people to make off the cuff statements is a much more constructive approach.

Some other ideas from that post:

  • Solve problems. Get into small groups and have the groups build something, analyze something, create something totally irrelevant to what the organization does. The purpose is to put people in close proximity with just enough pressure to allow them to drop their shields.
  • Challenge attendees to describe a favorite film scene to you before the event. Pick a few and show them, then discuss.
  • Serve delicious food, weird food, vegan food, funky food. Just because you can.

In a third post, he deals more directly with the physical setting and technology employed in a conference. Some of his suggestions like not forcing people to listen to a speaker in the same room they eat a meal because, “No one ever heard a speech that changed their lives when sitting around a round table having just eaten a lousy lunch,” probably will please a lot of people.

Other suggestions like holding sessions in too small a room and forcing people to stand in order to ratchet up the energy level probably needs to be applied with a degree of caution lest you face a mutiny.