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New Year’s Resolution Moment of Zen

January 1, 2018

by:

Joe Patti

For those of you looking to make resolutions in the new year, (or just appreciate good illustrations of concepts), I offer Edgar Allan Poe’s thoughts on Procrastination as illustrated on Zen Pencils.

Along the same lines are sentiments expressed by Won Hyo, an influential Buddhist thinker from Korea.

“As evening draws near, you regret that you did not practice early in the morning. The worldly pleasure which you enjoy now becomes suffering in the future. Why then are you attached to this pleasure? One moment of practice becomes lasting pleasure. Why then do you not practice?”
– Won Hyo

While he was likely speaking directly about practices like meditation, he probably recognized it can be applied to any activity in life from artistic practice to learning a new skill to exercising patience with children.

I don’t usually put a lot of stock in the worldwide inventory of words of wisdom, aphorisms, and pity sayings but this one has stuck with me for nearly 15 years. Perhaps it is because it only requires the investment of a moment.

Certainly I am going to invest more than a moment of effort in something that will provide future benefit. There is something in the psychology involved with only needing to give up a moment of current pleasure that isn’t present in Lao Tzu aphorism, “A journey of 1,000 li begins with the first step,” even though the underlying sentiment is the same.

Who likes to be faced with a 1,000 li journey? How about 360 miles? That is what 1,000 li measures out to be. Just shows how much perception factors into our decisions. That is actually the basis of Won Hyo’s enlightenment experience.

Supposedly he and a friend took shelter in an earthen structure during a rain storm one night. Once he was safe inside, he found a bowl full of refreshing water which he drained. It wasn’t until the next morning that they discovered they took shelter in a crypt and Won Hyo drank brackish water from a human skull. Nothing changed in the facts of the situation from night to day, but his perception of reality impacted his acceptance and enjoyment of the experience.

More to consider than I originally intended to lay on you my faithful readers, but there you are.

Best wishes for a happy, prosperous and thoughtful New Year.

General Musings

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Piped Music Vs Paying The Piper

December 27, 2017

by:

Joe Patti

CityLab recently had an article that resurrected the subject of a debate I have been having internally and with others going on two decades now.

The article is about efforts people are making in England and the US to limit piped music in public places. The plethora of Christmas carols being played everywhere make it a timely subject.

The specific part of the article that reinvigorated questions for me was the following:

“My goal is no music in public places, unless it’s live music,” Hunter said. “Let’s keep music special. Music is not special when it’s part of the wallpaper.”

My issue is that often even live music in public places can end up part of the wallpaper because it doesn’t register on people’s awareness. But due to the prevalence of piped music, when it is live then there is a better chance for it to be noticed. More live music means people will become increasingly inured to its presence over time.

I don’t begrudge musicians an opportunity to make money in the least. My concern would be that if music in public places was banned unless it was live, there would be an increase in unpaid “opportunities for exposure.” Licensing piped music is cheaper than needing to pay licensing and someone to perform it.

Though I could see a scenario where more musicians do end up being paid even as the increase in live performances reduces the overall percentage of musicians being paid.

So what are your thoughts, dear reader? Will removing piped music make live music more special?

As you answer, consider that if you are involve with music performance, you may have a bias toward paying attention to any live music out of professional courtesy. At the same time you may be completely blind to the presence of visual works of art. Visual artists may orient on those works while being unaware if music is live or piped, if they consciously register its presence at all.

Something else to consider. If people saw more live music under the imprimatur of a mall, cafe, or other business, even if the performer wasn’t being properly compensated, would that repetition reinforce the value of live music in one’s life?

Or are all these questions moot as people increasingly plug headphones into their phones and select a soundtrack by which to experience the world?

Audience Relations, creativity, State of the Arts, Working In The Arts

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Good Partners Start Planning For Christmas In August

December 26, 2017

by:

Joe Patti

Community engagement is a common topic in the arts and culture industry. We talk about how important it is. We talk about successful programs that have been executed.

However, there is rarely a discussion about all the time, effort, trial and error involved in executing these programs well. By the time you hear about a program after the fact, you are left to assume that an organization is staffed with brilliant people who effortlessly bask in the adoring gazes of fulfilled participants.

That is why I was pleased to read Rebecca Noon’s account on that Americans for the Arts blog of Trinity Rep’s efforts to involve different community groups in their production of A Christmas Carol.

While it sounds like the participants directed a lot of adoring gazes Trinity Rep’s way, there was a lot of work involved in getting those participants in the room.

The directors of A Christmas Carol had the idea of involving non-profits they admired in the production. They viewed Scrooge as a man who cut himself off from the community and then decides to reconnect with it again. Involving area non-profits was a great way of reinforcing this concept.

Even though they only planned to have two rehearsals with each group, there was a lot of effort involved in making it happen. And not only on the part of the Trinity Rep staff. Part of their planning recognized that the staff and volunteers of non-profit organizations aren’t just sitting around waiting to be asked to participate in something.

While many people were thrilled to perform in such an iconic show, some people couldn’t afford the time it would take to organize. Even for the 18 groups who decided to participate, there was sacrifice that we, as the larger institution, needed to acknowledge and address, and so we got to work addressing them. We allocated small travel and food stipends from the Community Engagement budget; our development department offered trade they have with the parking garage; the education director stepped in as Assistant Director to help rehearse the community groups; we negotiated a limited number of comp tickets with the marketing department; and throughout the run, actors in the show self-organized to provide snacks for the community group’s dressing room. All summer and fall, we worked on this one aspect of A Christmas Carol as a team of artists and administrators, ensuring that our institution could live up to our community’s needs 100% of the time.

Perhaps most importantly, the staff established a context for extending the invitations and addressing expectations before asking the first group to participate:

Invitations would be simple, honest, and transparent, clearly defining what we needed and what we had to offer. Angela would listen closely to what the community groups needed, in order to understand why they were saying yes or no. If we could offer what they needed, then we would. If we couldn’t, we’d tell them why, and end the partnership as friends. No false promises, no agreements that felt like compromises on either side.

This seems to me to be a good set of general guidelines to employ for similar projects. There is a sense of reciprocity. Each group is seen as providing something of value to the other in this opportunity. There isn’t a sense that one group is doing another a favor by providing them with exposure and they would be foolish to turn it down. There is an effort being made to understand barriers and work around them, but no umbrage taken if it doesn’t work out.

Audience Relations, creativity, Leadership, Working In The Arts

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If They Can Be A Successful Non-Profit, Why Can’t You?

December 20, 2017

by:

Joe Patti

If you feel like you don’t have a clue how to run a successful non-profit and are just winging it, you probably know that you are in good company.

If you are wishing there was a book someone could give you for Christmas that explained the process to you, according to a recent piece on The Conversation, such a book doesn’t exist because no one really knows the answer.

The reason why it doesn’t exist is due to the way the successes of non-profits are studied. The author of the piece, Fredrik O. Andersson, basically blames human nature and biases for this.

When people want to know what works, they tend to focus on the successes which means they learn very little about what contributes to failures. This is known as selection bias, the most famous example being Abraham Wald’s counter intuitive suggestion to armor the parts of WWII bombers without bullet holes since presumably that is where the planes that did not return got hit.

Or as Andersson writes:

Imagine that researchers want to investigate and isolate the factors that make gamblers successful. If they study only the gamblers who win all the time, they would reach the obviously false conclusion that gambling is always profitable

Carter Gillies who frequently comments on the blog has often brought up selection bias as a problem in the mindset and approach to non-profit problems. Now here I am writing about it, validating the point he has long held. I hate it when he is right so often and identified these issues so far in advance.

Except, Carter would point out this is an example of selection bias and one of the other problems Andersson identifies- flawed memory. I am only focusing on those times Carter was right and only remembering those times because I have later come across someone else reinforcing his view.

Andersson notes that any research performed directly on non-profits only provides a snapshot view of what is making them successful (or not) at this moment of time and doesn’t really provide insight into the process leading to that success. The researchers are left to ask the non-profit board and staff to relate what factors lead to their current state. The problem is, their memories of how things evolved is often very flawed.

This is a huge issue because everyone from founders to donors and other funders are likely to look at successful examples and determine that is the path to success that should be followed either by themselves or those they fund.

Andersson writes about working with non-profit entrepreneurs where he asked them a series of questions and then followed up 6-14 months later and asked them to recall their answers. (my emphasis)

I asked participants in the workshop about three things: why they wanted to start a new nonprofit, where they anticipated getting funding and how likely they believed it would be that they might actually launch a new organization.

[…]

Three out of 10 recalled having a different reason for wanting to start a new nonprofit than they asserted in the first survey. And both of those reasons, of course, could not be accurate.

Nearly half incorrectly recalled the source of funding they had anticipated. The expected chances of a successful launch also differed. The people who did launch a new nonprofit were somewhat more likely to say they had anticipated this success during their second interview. The people who failed to get a new nonprofit up and running were nearly 20 percent less likely to say they expected to succeed during their later interview.

[…]

Since stories are malleable, the best way to reduce the risk of hindsight bias is to observe startups from the very beginning and follow them over time.

Some people forget, others get the details mixed up and others ascribe a rationale they didn’t have in mind at the time when they’re asked about events that have already transpired.

While his sample size is admittedly small, I suspect that this general trend would be observable with larger numbers. I have written about this general issue before with artists mis-remembering the amount of work that went into their first success and attributing a big break to luck rather than effort.

Business Models, Fundraising, General Musings, State of the Arts

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