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Whose Theater Is It Anyway?

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I have written about stakeholder revolts where people in the community force non-profit boards to reconstitute themselves, usually in reaction to a planned closing of the organization.   In other places, board are revising their membership in order to better embrace their governance role and diversifying to better reflect community demographics.

It isn’t often that you hear the staff of an organization demand that the board resign and reform. Howard Sherman related the contentious and confusing situation at Theatre Puget Sound in a recent post on the Arts Integrity Initiative.  The theatre staff made an “either you go, or we do” ultimatum in a no-confidence letter to the board.

Unfortunately, this drama is playing out in a very public way according to Sherman because the executive director,

….sent the request for the board’s resignation to a wide cross section of the Seattle community, including the media, leaders of other arts organizations, community philanthropists and more, and even included a pair of internal e-mails by the board.

I second Sherman’s suggestion that the situation isn’t well served by rehashing all the gory details.

…The Stranger is on the case for those who want more information, and for future study by arts management educators and students. However, the bird’s eye view of the contretemps should serve as a reminder for boards and executive and senior leadership of arts organizations to examine their practices and policies, because while the situation is rare, it demonstrates how a rapid cascade of events can put an arts organization at risk.

Given the context of recent stakeholder revolts and other actions, this situation does bear watching for glimpses of larger trends that may be emerging in the non-profit world that may impact the arts.

The very question of who owns a non-profit organization is clear in theory, but muddied by practice. Especially when the founder is closely involved and identified with the organization. (which, to be clear, is not the case here.)

This episode could prove to be a challenge to the concept of organizational ownership depending on how it develops. Many of the deadlines the involved parties set expire at the end of this week, May 5-7, if you want to monitor things as they occur.

Though given the heated passions involved, it may be better to wait and revisit things later, allowing time to provide some insulation.

If Everybody Sings, We Can’t Be The Best

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In a recent article on Salon, music professor Steven Demorest, talks about the way music education in schools can create anxiety in people about singing.

He cites a scene from the Oscar winning Hungarian movie Sing where a child is told to mouth the words in choir class.

The movie goes on to reveal that Zsófi isn’t the only choir member who has been given these hurtful instructions. The choir teacher’s defense is, “If everybody sings we can’t be the best.”

I have been a professor of music education for the past 28 years, and I wish I could say that the story of a music teacher asking a student not to sing is unusual. Unfortunately, I have heard the story many times.

The article goes on to talk about the negative associations that have become attached to singing and other forms of self expression.

But I also took a look at a study conducted at the University of Calgary that he linked to. The study, which looked at the cultural influences on non-participation in singing, only had 12 participants so we can’t really draw broad conclusions from it.

However, the group met eight times over the course of five months so the researchers had some time to get the subjects to open up about the experiences which lead them to believe they had no singing ability. The ways their anxiety about singing manifested itself was interesting.

For example:

Cathie was so aware that she needed to reach a certain cultural standard to sing that even though she would sing privately in her car, she would place her cellular headset over her ear when singing. This way it would look to the other drivers like she was simply talking on the phone when she was actually singing. She was so conscious of her singing that even to a stranger in the car next to her, she had to send a culturally appropriate message.

What was fascinating was that even with their anxieties about singing, (and in one person’s case it was based in defiance of his mother), they hoped the research process would help them improve their skills.

When they did sing during the sessions, not only were they seeking a certain standard, but they were also expecting progress towards that goal with every session. This expectation of improvement is the second cultural assumption that the participants brought to the sessions. There was an underlying expectation that each individual would improve his/her musical skill during our time together. As the researcher, I had not articulated such expectations, but had inadvertently perpetuated such a view by continually adding on new musical concepts at each session. The desire to improve, eliminate mistakes, and reach perfection was strong in the participants.

Unfortunately, for some of the participants, this added to their anxiety. Some thought that the researchers would be displeased if their singing didn’t improve by the end of the study.

There was something of a suggestion that since singing and dancing are things we naturally do as children before we are taught to censor ourselves, we may have an innate desire to sing that never goes away. In that sense, the study participants were yearning to unlock their ability to a socially acceptable level.

There certainly seems to be a cultural component to this anxiety. The study authors note that in Canada, the media rarely presents images common citizens singing, perpetuating the idea that only trained professionals should be engaged in public singing.

One of the study subjects was from Guatemala where she said music is shared between generations and everyone sings throughout the day, regardless of their ability, even if it is only humming along.

I asked her if she thought she would be a non-singer if her family had remained in this Latin American culture. She laughed and said:

No. Because there is so much, you don’t even call it music performance. It is part of the culture. Everyone sings or plays something and you practice outside. You have people dancing and playing outside. They haven’t yet isolated the performer from day to day life …Even going to a concert, it doesn’t feel the same way as here. There isn’t a gap like the performer, the sole proprietor of the music and we can’t do it. It is just like someone is showing us something, sharing something that they can do and is really good. You can take part and enjoy. Rather than a showing.

Quite a bit there to think about. Where we are now may not all be entirely attributable to the oft mentioned impact of Wagner turning down the lights and expecting everyone to sit quietly and watch.

The authors of the study suggest the fact that both Roman Catholic and Protestant denominations reserved singing as something that should only be done in religious settings and only by a specific set of highly trained people might have also had an influence. Whether this is accurate or not, it is probably just as valid a theory as putting the blame squarely on Wagner’s shoulders.

I mean, there is evidence that parents in King Arthur’s time were dissuading their kids from singing.

So I Joined A Cult

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Do you have a few moments so I can share some information about a cult I joined?

No, wait, wait, before you run away. This is not that type of cult. In fact, this cult demands much less in the way of slavish devotion than most arts people willingly surrender to the groups they work with.

This cult emerged from the process we all idealize when we envision the result of arts education. You can read the origin story on their website, but I wanted to give my take on it.

Four guys took a class on the creative process and were so inspired by the teacher, they looked for a way to extend what they learned after the class ended. They started rooming together. They had a couple art shows of their own and entered those sponsored by others. They started a lifestyle clothing line called C*MAR which stood for Creative Minds Are Rare.

I liked their ambition and energy so at a point between their first and second art show, I approached them about helping to launch and promote a semi-annual “After Dark” art event to showcase the talent of the visual artists in the community.

Then they started a cult.

The Creative Cult to be exact. They decided they wanted to teach others the creative process. On a monthly basis, they began holding hourly events in different places around town getting the 40-50 attendees to engage in and talk about the creative process.

I have mentioned some of these events before. There are images from each of the events on their website. Don’t feel obligated to look too closely for me.

As with all cults, there was an obligatory bloody sacrifice. In this case, the guys killed off their identity as C*MAR. They realized the activities of the creative cult and their ambitions for it had eclipsed that of the lifestyle clothing company.

Also, after some conversations, they realized the name Creative Minds Are Rare is entirely contrary to their heartfelt mission, “We teach people our creative process, so that artists and ‘non-artists’ alike may develop their own.”

Now they are in talks to start Creative Cult chapters in other places. I tell them that at this point in their development, any self-respecting cult would have robes and kool-aid, but to no avail. There was a cult meeting in a candle-lit damp basement so I can hope.

I often talk about the movement to Build Public Will For Arts and Culture (so much so, you probably assumed that was the cult I joined). I really see these guys achieving this naturally by instinct whereas so many other arts entities will have to work to shift their approaches and mindset.

Which is not to say the organizers don’t work hard putting these events together and trying to learn more about the creative process. I send them literature that impresses me and they send some back. I know a couple of them are in the daily habit of creating for a few hours every morning outside of their regular work. They show up at poetry readings around town to get feedback.

My organization partnered with two other organizations to conduct an “arts listening tour” in the community and at least one of the cult organizers was at every session taking notes about people’s perceptions of the arts and culture opportunities in the area. They are committed to always doing a better job.

Yesterday I wrote about how it would be a mistake for other classical musicians to try to emulate pianist Alpin Hong’s personality in order to connect with audiences. I would say the same thing about the “inner circle” of the cult.

As young guys, they have a certain cachet with exactly the target demographic most arts organizations want to reach. It would be a disaster of comedic proportions if most of the established arts organizations in the area tried to adopt their approach. However, I think we all ultimately benefit from the work they do because it potentially opens people up to the idea of participating in other activities in town.

In turn, I have been talking them up in the circles in which I travel on the local, state, regional and national level. While we can’t replicate the exact dynamics of the Creative Cult’s relationship with each other, it is still a good example of the type of things that can be done.

Classical Composers Were The Rock Stars Of Their Day. Would They Be Allowed To Be Rock Stars Today?

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I don’t often advocate for specific performers here on Butts in the Seats. I get enough requests to review things on my blog and hundreds of emails from artists at my day job that I don’t want to encourage more solicitations.

However pianist Alpin Hong really impressed me when he was performing his Chasing Chopin show here last week. He did a session with 75 third graders that had the teachers and my board member in charge of outreach raving on social media.

He spoke to the students in our BFA Musical Theater program about arts careers and they loved him as well. I told him if he ever decided to move away from touring as a classical pianist, he should be a motivational speaker. I don’t mean in the mode of “energize your potential!” He has an enthusiasm and sincerity that is compelling, but grounded. He does a great job of integrating his playing into the conversation.

The only problem, I told him, is that a piano playing motivational speaker is a little outside the norm and might be a difficult sell.

But he aims to be outside the norm. He repeatedly said there are thousands of kids learning to play the piano with technical perfection so you need something to distinguish yourself.

One of the things that apparently distinguishes him is that he is physically demonstrative when he plays. He is nowhere near Jerry Lee Lewis, but as he says in Chasing Chopin, there was a time when he played to win competitions but in the face of personal tragedy, he recognized the truth in Chopin’s comment, “It is dreadful when something weighs on your mind, not to have a soul to unburden yourself to. You know what I mean. I tell my piano the things I used to tell you.” Now the music inhabits his body to some extent when he plays.

One of his missions is to break the stereotype of classical musicians spending hours practicing alone in dark rooms without any other interests or ambitions. He talks about wanting to be a ninja when he grew up. He is an incredible video game/table top game fanatic.

When we were waiting our turn for a radio interview, he got into a long discussion about Magic: The Gathering and Warhammer 40000 tabletop gaming with one of the other guests. I felt obligated to pull out my history with Dungeons and Dragons in order to maintain a little cred in their company.

When people try to make the music seem relevant, they cite how classical composers were the rock stars of their day. Alpin is pretty much embodying that, though not in a gratuitous way. His charisma is a sincere, natural extension of his extroverted personality. Classical music is not going to be saved by more people trying to emulate his style and method in order to appear more accessible. It will come off forced and false.

He mentioned that sometimes people comment that he is too animated when he plays and distracts from the music. I thought it was appropriate with neither dramatic flourishes or feigned seriousness. When someone is playing alone I think that is an opportunity to reveal a little bit of their personality. Only in a classical music setting could you make this complaint about his movements.

Which got me thinking—everyone references classical composers as rock stars, but do they really want those type of effusive performances? How can we tell potential audience members that the composers and musicians of yore were regarded as celebrities and then insist that both the audience and artist move as little as possible? What rock concerts have you been attending?

To be clear, despite his demeanor he is serious about his profession. He sets high standards for anyone looking to enter the performing arts because he knows what a difficult life it is. There was a pretty nice sized group of high school students in the lobby wanting to get selfies with him after the evening show. When they mentioned they were in chorus together, he made them sing for him. When they demurred, he said that this far into the semester, they should have something under their belt and ready to go. And they did.

It wasn’t a polished performance, nor did he expect one from them. He just wanted to reinforce that an artist always has to be prepared and thinking about opportunities. Even if you don’t see it as a career path, don’t shy away from exercising your creative side and showing where your effort has been going.

When he spoke to the BFA Musical Theatre students earlier that afternoon he urged them not to think of career cultivation as something that happened with other people at conferences, auditions or after graduation. He said you never know who is going to be in a position to provide you an opportunity later in life. People’s careers take unexpected directions. You need to show your classmates, professors and coaches what type of person you are right now.

Alpin’s own career arc did not follow an expected path. There were a number of years away from the piano before he decided to audition for Julliard. He has some theories about why they decided to take a chance on him, but no definitive answers.

We had many conversations across the two days (concluding with a 10 pm-12:30 am discussion in the hotel bar, so technically three days I guess). There is a lot I am not mentioning here. When I think about all the problems facing the arts and classical music in particular, I see his philosophy, approach and dedication as contributing to the solution.

Is Creativity Really The Best Aphrodisiac?

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Well I am glad I mentioned yesterday how fulfilling I found all the creative projects I have been involved with over the course of my career. Today in The Atlantic, they had a story about three studies that found average looking men are judged more attractive if they are perceived as creative.

Now that I know this, I have some posts planned for upcoming weeks that should make me as appealing as the ever dapper Drew McManus.

Well, maybe I am over selling that point. According to the study,

Though the subjects always thought the physically more handsome men were more attractive, the more creative men seemed more attractive than the uncreative ones.

[…]

To Christopher Watkins, a professor of psychology at Scotland’s Abertay University and the author of the study, the results show that creativity can help boost the romantic and social prospects of average-looking men. Creativity, Watkins says, is a proxy for intelligence, and it signals the ability of your potential future mate or friend to solve tricky problems.

Unfortunately, there was a WTF moment in regard to creativity and women. In two of the three studies, being viewed as creative did not enhance attractiveness for females.

For women, two of the three experiments demonstrated that facial attractiveness enhanced their overall attractiveness to a greater extent than creativity (written expression and creative thinking) enhanced their overall attractiveness. Indeed, across these experiments, creativity weakened the appeal of women with less attractive faces and did not benefit their attractiveness when displayed by women with attractive faces.

However, the third trial using the same methodology contradicted the first two.

To Watkins, the fact that the third trial contradicted the first two helped him come to the “general conclusion” that creativity enhances all peoples’ attractiveness, “especially if they do not have an especially attractive face.” Though, as he writes in the study, further research is needed to firm up the gender effects.

Something I think important to note about these trials is that the creativity or lack thereof was presented in a very static way. People were shown pictures of men and women and then pictures or lists of things these people supposedly thought up. Those participating in the study made their judgements based on these elements.

There were no pictures of people actively doing something creative: acting, dancing, painting, writing, singing, reading etc. I have to think that at least half the appeal of creativity is observing or participating in the action. That probably doesn’t translate over well to making abstract connections between an image of a person and an image of results.

I am not discounting the article’s suggestion that there is an unfortunate bias against women you see as smarter, funnier or more successful than yourself. The act of imagining someone as creative probably does reveal personal biases. (Primarily, a lack of imagination) But I don’t think it is a good indication of how appealing you will be perceived when you are actually in the act of doing something creative.

Wherein I Muse About The Value of Self Investment

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Recently I have been thinking back about different projects I have participated in over the last 10-15 years that I really found fulfilling. I invested a lot of time in those projects and didn’t really begrudge all the extra hours I put into those activities.

Since there certainly have been times that I resented the work I had to do on a project and all the extra hours they required, I thought maybe it was that I have matured in my outlook over time.

While it may be true that I am more mature now, I also realized that the common element in the projects I found fulfilling were ones that I had a hand in organizing.

The more I thought about my own experience, the more I recognized that the projects I most hated being involved in were those where someone else made the decisions, wrote the grants, decided on the execution, set the deadlines, determined who would be invited to participate, made me responsible for overseeing and running it all and then walked away until the opening ceremonies.

When you are low on the chain of command, you aren’t always in a position to have ownership on every aspect of decision making and much scope of control over the process. That is just the reality of entry level positions. Some of my bad experiences were a result of having a task re-delegated downward by someone else who was feeling just as dis-invested in the process as me. Sometimes the annoying program is caused by uncomfortable political pressure or board fiat.

Recalling these episodes in my career has just reinforced the importance of involving the people who will be handling the practical execution in the initial planning and decision making stages. Which is not to say that no action should be taken in the absence of full concurrence. People with the most accountability do need to make difficult policy and strategic decisions that may not meet with unified approval of the organization.

When it comes to the conversations about how it is going to be done and who is going to be involved, the people who are going to get their hands dirty need to be at the table. All the better if the people at the top who made the initial decision about direction are prepared to put their hands on the project, too.

Okay, so it is not news that you have to get buy-in from your team before undertaking a major initiative. It is one thing to hear or read advice on good organizational dynamics and another to recognize how they have manifested in your life.

It is just as bad to have a situation where someone is saying, well we wrote we would do it like this in the grant, so we have to do it this way. The grant should be written based on how the project team says it will all unfold.

Obviously, something similar applies for statements like “that is the way we have always done it,” and “that is industry standard.” Arts and cultural organizations need to employ a flexible approach in their processes. Call it the tail wagging the dog or the map is not the territory, you can’t let the customary procedures dictate the program.

Now on the flip side, I gotta acknowledge in the arts there is no lack of self-investment. People will pour a lot of themselves into a project for little or no reward, doing it for the love. If you hesitate, then maybe someone questions your investment. Maybe it is you. Are you really part of the team or are you just pretending?

Enough has been written on that subject that I don’t need to add more to it except to say that sort of (self)manipulation shouldn’t dictate the program either. You need to acknowledge your lack of investment and consider stepping away or saying no to begin with.

Well-Established, Innovative, Accredited, Untested Terminology Does Not Have Generation Specific Appeal

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Back in February, Seth Godin made a post about “The two vocabularies (because there are two audiences),” discussing how the vocabulary that appeals to people who consider themselves early adopters differs from those who see themselves as part of the mass market.

So for example, early adopters of electric cars may want to consider themselves on the leading edge of technology and preserving the environment and are attracted by language that reflects that.

Whereas people in the mass market want assurances that they won’t be stranded in the middle of the desert by a depleted charge and won’t even look in the direction of an electric car in the mall parking lot if marketing doesn’t evoke dependability.

He offers a list of words for both categories. For early adopters, terms like: “New, Innovative, Breakthrough, Controversial, Brave, Untested, Slice/Dominate/Win, Dangerous.”

For mass market, terms like: “Tested, Established, Proven, Industry-leading, Widespread, Easy, Experienced, Certified, Highest-rated.

When I first saw this list in February, my initial thought was that the early adopter language would appeal to younger audiences and the mass market language to older audiences. Assuming you could describe the experience you were offering accurately using both sets of terms, these lists were good starting points for separate parallel marketing campaigns.

I couldn’t see trying to use both sets of vocabulary effectively in the same campaigns. Either you would turn one or both segments off with too edgy/boring language or the event would appear to occupy a wishy-washy middle ground of no particular appeal. (Or in the case of this post title, make you wonder, what the hell?)

I sort of skimmed over Godin’s statement that:

“It’s worth noting here that you’re only an early adopter sometimes, when you want to be. And you’re only in the mass market by choice as well. It’s an attitude,”

and made my own assumptions about people.

However….

Since February I have read/written about how younger audiences are concerned about mitigating the risk of having a bad experience.  An edgy, novel experience is great at times, but the assurance of a little mass market language probably won’t be misplaced at others. Especially in the absence of a group of peers to accompany one.

Cosette Before and After

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I bookmarked this story years ago and I don’t know why I never wrote about it. Back in 2015, the Toronto Globe and Mail did an 8 part story on the rehearsal and performance process of a high school production of Les Miserables.

And before I continue, lets just acknowledge that a major newspaper doing an 8 part story on a high school production is news worthy enough that I could just stop writing right now and we would all be excited.

The thing I thought was kinda cool was the way they presented the before/after shots of the students in and out of costume.  I figured everyone would be using something similar to that  slider technology everywhere shortly thereafter but I have never seen it again.  (Maybe I just don’t travel the right social media sites)

It doesn’t seem like it would be that difficult to do given some of the common web design elements I have seen lately, but maybe the simplicity is deceiving.

It struck me as an interesting method of presenting performers so that they were more relatable and the production more appealing. Productions using more sophisticated and intricate make up could really showcase the metamorphosis that occurs for the actor as people advanced and reversed the image.

Has anyone seen this sort of thing done elsewhere for performances to good effect?

Breeze It, Buzz It, Easy Does It

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This week Jonathan Mandell addressed an issue that has been troubling me for a few years. I have noticed more and more frequently that actors don’t seem to be taking the time to decompress and disassociate themselves from the characters they have been portraying.

Often the actors are in the lobby before the audience is and have formed up in a receiving line. It makes me wonder if the social media age has turned this into an expectation. I can’t say whether it is a chicken or egg problem. Are actors zipping out quickly because they want the recognition or because the audience expects to see them?

Probably the most egregious example I have seen in the last five years was when I attended a piece in a blackbox space. I was seated near the door so I was the first one out of the room. As I exited, one of the actors shot by me clearly still living as the cruel bastard he just finished portraying.

The fact that these emotions were still roiling inside him was a bigger issue than wondering how the heck he got from the stage, out the back of the room and traversed two hallways in the time it took me to take 10 steps.  It isn’t really healthy to remain connected with those negative aspects or try to suppress them so you can conduct social interactions for longer than necessary.

Mandell cites NYU professor Erin Mee who is making an effort to include “cooling down” as part of actor training.

She has launched something of a campaign to convince actors, acting teachers, artistic directors, and entire theatres to see cooling down as an integral part of the artistic process. Her campaign is starting small: In the Spring, she will teach a workshop at Tisch on cooling down.

“It is something that is mostly ignored in actor training in the United States,” Mee says. “And I think that’s a problem for actors. It affects their health. It may also affect their acting; if you are afraid you may never be able to get out of character or let go of the character, you may resist getting fully into character. I think we do our actors a disservice if we don’t train them to cool down as much as we train them to warm up.”

I was surprised to read that this sort of training isn’t taught as part of the process. It was something that I was taught when I was an undergraduate so many years ago. I was associated with two productions of the play, Extremities, where the cooling down process for the male actor included a reconciliation process with the woman in the cast.

I was interested to read that there is researching being done to determine if performers experience physical, psychological and emotional harm over the long term.

“The Germans are looking at what actors and dancers actually do, cognitively and physically, to transform themselves when they perform on stage.  The next step will be to do some longitudinal studies – stage acting, dancing, and singing over time – to discover how this work alters the brains of performers,” McConachie says. “There’s no doubt that actors’ brains differ in important ways from the brains of accountants, cab drivers, and neurosurgeons, but exactly how and why, no one knows yet.  Is this a good thing or psychologically harmful?  I suppose it depends on your point of view.  I think we can say that most actors do not become serial killers” (notwithstanding “the occasional John Wilkes Booth.”) At the same time, McConachie says, “it’s not hard to imagine that some characters could draw some actors into situations, thoughts, and emotions that could be temporarily dangerous and even harmful to them over the long term.”

This topic bears keeping an eye in the future just to discover how you can live a slightly healthier, sane life as an artist.

Blog title is from the iconic “Cool” from West Side Story. The scene from the movie actually does a great job illustrating the emotions just bubbling under the surface.

Unbiased Hiring Practices Have Been Around For A Long Time (Just Not Around Here)

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Drew McManus has been discussing diversity in programming for the last week or so on Adaptistration.  With those thoughts bopping around my cranium, it was probably only natural that a post on Center for the Future of Museums blog caught my eye on my Twitter feed.

They are looking for museums to participate in the first cohort to test a process for removing bias in hiring.

Participants will work with GapJumpers to tailor a challenge-based hiring experience to their own staffing needs. We are accepting applications for the first cohort of participants through Friday, April 21, 2017. The project will run from May 1 through September 1, 2017. Participating museums will share their experiences with the field through blog posts and testimonials.

How does it work?

Together with the individual museum, GapJumpers will craft a Blind Skills Audition, part of their proprietary process that replaces the resume with examples of their job skills. Instead of submitting resumes, applicants submit their responses to a specific challenge assignment. The individual challenges are designed by GapJumpers with the input of the museum using natural language processing software. Applicants submit their answers in a digital format and are assessed by GapJumpers according to a rubric developed in partnership with the museum’s hiring manager. The hiring manager only receives an applicant pool comprised of persons who have met the standards of the assessment for review.

If this sounds interesting, read the post and contact the author Nicole Ivy.

One of the things Ivy mentions is the Boston Symphony Orchestra’s use of identity blind auditions in 1952. You may wonder why these type of hiring practices aren’t more prevalent in the arts after 60+ years

I recently learned that back in mid-10th century China, the Song Dynasty instituted a policy of anonymizing imperial examinations. By the early 11th century, they decided removing the names wasn’t enough and started having the examinations recopied by clerks because the quality of the test taker’s calligraphy could reveal something about their social standing. Nearly 400,000 people took the triennial examination by the end of the Song Dynasty so that is pretty serious commitment to making the tests fair.  (During some dynasties, you could buy status at lower levels, but not at the imperial level.)

The imperial examinations for government service were held long before the Song Dynasty and ended in the late 19th century. They weren’t always inclusive and free from corruption, but a lot of effort was invested into making them so over long periods of time.

With the example of a centuries long practice like that, it is somewhat puzzling that a more equitable, unbiased hiring process hasn’t emerged.  I am not necessarily talking about a complete adaptation of practices from China as much as even a similar process that developed separately and independently.

Perhaps the distinguishing factor we have to face up to is the lack of will to create a hiring process that has sought to minimize opportunities for bias.

I think it is worth paying attention to the tools and processes the Center for the Future of Museums develops. From the description it doesn’t appear to be anything wholly exclusive to museums that can’t be adapted to other disciplines.

Toward De-gamification of Job Interviews

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This week Barry Hessenius wrote about the process of interviewing someone for a job.  One of his points was not to use other people’s interview questions/generic questions you pull off the Internet. Just like borrowing another organization’s bylaws to create your own, those questions don’t suit the specific needs of your organization.

The other point he spent a lot of time on was trying to be clever or tricky with the questions you ask rather asking questions about things you need to know.

 To the extent we are trying to “game” the process with clever questions, the candidates will likewise try to game the process with answers they think fit our line of questioning.  We don’t want the interview to be a contest of gaming each other.  We want it to be a frank, candid interchange between us; honest, transparent and fair to all.

Our obsession with everybody in the entire field needing to be a leader; our preoccupation with educational benchmarks in the form of degrees, which we equate with automatically being able to do the best job); and our laser like focus on where an applicant worked before – all color our thinking when we determine what we should ask of our finalists.

The two things he says you need to know are 1) whether the person can do the job well regardless of where they worked before. You are interviewing them for  future performance, not the past. 2) Are they a good organizational fit.

I have been going back and forth in my mind about whether there aren’t more than these two things you need to know. I haven’t decided yet, but I do agree that his plea for simple, directness makes sense.

He also seems to strongly lean toward taking responsibility for the whole process yourself rather than engaging a consultant for the same reason you don’t use other people’s questions–their priorities are not aligned with yours.

He advocated for a process that is a discussion rather than a one sided Q&A. That brought up a memory of an interview I was invited to observe and provide feedback on. One of the opening questions was “What do you understand the job of X to entail?”

What I liked about this question is that it addressed whether the candidate had done research on the job and organization. In this particular case, the person being interviewed expressed questions they had about certain aspects. (I read about X program, I was wondering if that means you do…”) This seemed to lead to a more conversational dynamic.

The interviewers did have specific questions that they were keeping track of, but by the time they started to run through them, they were able to acknowledge that at least a half dozen had already been covered already. I appreciated that approach because I have seen interviews where interviewers apologize for the obligation to ask questions that have already been answered.

I was also thinking, even if “What do you understand the job of X to entail,” strikes people as falling in the “trying to be clever..” category, it can still be useful for determining if you wrote a good job description. It could be smart to ask a couple people from the community who aren’t intimately aware of what your vacant position does to review the job description and even do research on the organization as best they can. Then ask them what they understand the job to entail.

If a person who lives in your community and participates in some of your activities can’t answer that in a manner that hits on all the things you want a candidate to notice about your organization, it is probably prudent to make some rewrites.

If your test candidates as a group seem to orient on the parts of the position that are low priority, again you may want to either rewrite or review what if website and promotional materials are inadvertently drawing focus away from those things that are really important.

Given that many arts and culture non-profits may not have the budget to have a human resources person on staff, running a couple questions and a job description by outside members of the community to gain these sort of perspectives may not be a bad idea.

Especially if they ask, “can one person do all things things?” or “wow, a job with this much responsibility must pay $80,000” when you are paying $40,000.

All The Boring Moments Of The Creative Process

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I have been paying attention to what people do as part of their creative process lately. So I was happy to read George Saunders’ piece in The Guardian from last month, “What writers really do when they write.”

I think there is often a tendency for people to attribute artists with amazing insight and skill that they don’t feel they possess  themselves.  In the past I have written about how even artists themselves seem to overlook all the effort that goes into creating new content and credit flashes of genius for the success of works.

What I liked about Saunders’ article was that is emphasized that both multiple mundane revisions and aesthetic judgement often contribute to the final product, with the emphasis on mundane and multiple revision. (my emphasis)

Stan acquires a small hobo, places him under a plastic railroad bridge, near that fake campfire, then notices he’s arranged his hobo into a certain posture – the hobo seems to be gazing back at the town. Why is he looking over there? At that little blue Victorian house? Stan notes a plastic woman in the window, then turns her a little, so she’s gazing out. Over at the railroad bridge, actually. Huh. Suddenly, Stan has made a love story. Oh, why can’t they be together? If only “Little Jack” would just go home. To his wife. To Linda.

What did Stan (the artist) just do? Well, first, surveying his little domain, he noticed which way his hobo was looking. Then he chose to change that little universe, by turning the plastic woman. Now, Stan didn’t exactly decide to turn her. It might be more accurate to say that it occurred to him to do so; in a split-second, with no accompanying language, except maybe a very quiet internal “Yes.”

He just liked it better that way, for reasons he couldn’t articulate, and before he’d had the time or inclination to articulate them.

An artist works outside the realm of strict logic. Simply knowing one’s intention and then executing it does not make good art. Artists know this.

And also this anecdote:

When I write, “Bob was an asshole,” and then, feeling this perhaps somewhat lacking in specificity, revise it to read, “Bob snapped impatiently at the barista,” then ask myself, seeking yet more specificity, why Bob might have done that, and revise to, “Bob snapped impatiently at the young barista, who reminded him of his dead wife,” and then pause and add, “who he missed so much, especially now, at Christmas,” – I didn’t make that series of changes because I wanted the story to be more compassionate. I did it because I wanted it to be less lame.

But it is more compassionate. Bob has gone from “pure asshole” to “grieving widower, so overcome with grief that he has behaved ungraciously to a young person, to whom, normally, he would have been nice”. Bob has changed. He started out a cartoon, on which we could heap scorn, but now he is closer to “me, on a different day”.

Making multiple incremental improvements until something feels right or is less lame are both valid paths in the creative process, along with dozens of others. There isn’t any lightning strike of inspiration that produces a finished product after one iteration. Thinking that is what should happen results in a lot of staring into the sky waiting for that lightning bolt and afraid it will never come.

The creative process is different for everyone. Sometimes the process is different for the same person at different times. Sometimes staring at the sky works.

It is important for people who don’t think they are creative to understand that there isn’t something special going on in terms of some ineffable magic that some people can tap into and they can’t.  Mostly it is boring process.  You don’t always create something others think is great by adjusting plastic figurines and making a character less of an asshole.

What seems magical about the process is expressed by the sentence I bolded above. Working outside the realm of strict logic can be an uncomfortable prospect. But that feeling is pretty normal, even for people who have been doing it a long time.

Arts Council Director Who Discovered He Was An Artist

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For two-three years now I have regularly revisited the situation where generally people have an easier time identifying themselves as a participant in a sport than as an artist.

Earlier this month, I came across an interview with the retiring executive director of the Perry (PA) County Council of the Arts who explicitly says he didn’t view himself as an artist until he had served as executive director for awhile.

Nine years ago, Roger Smith didn’t consider himself an artist when he became executive director of the Perry County Council of the Arts (PCCA). He had been a businessman and nonprofit executive in his former careers, but never saw his hobby as art.

When people would ask him about his experience, he’d say he wasn’t an artist, but he was a woodworker. He couldn’t connect the two things in the abstract, Smith said.

Being immersed in the local arts community over the years changed his perception.  “I’ve developed an affinity for the creative process, and PCCA honors creativity in all its forms.”

While my first impulse was to shake my head and sigh about how much work needs to be done if even the director of an arts council doesn’t view themselves as creative, I do remember that it wasn’t long ago that the “is it art or craft?” conversation was pretty common. (Maybe it still is and I am not on the distribution list.) I never saw or heard a discussion that made a definitive distinction.

As the manufacture and design of things moves toward greater degrees of autonomous automation, I wonder if it isn’t time to open the clubhouse doors to anyone who employs varying intent and judgement in their expressive process and forget about labels.

(Basically, I tried to find a definition that excludes mass production while allowing for the use of identically mass produced pieces configured in some intentional way. If you have a better approach, fire away.)

The other thing is, no leader of an arts council is likely to have comprehensive knowledge of all possible modes of creativity. Ideally, learning new things about arts and culture will enrich their tenure in the position. It would have really been an issue if the retiring executive director still didn’t consider himself to be creative after 9 years on the job.

This is not to say we shouldn’t endeavor to have every person who stands up to talk about creative expression do so with the foreknowledge that they, and everyone they are addressing, have the capacity to be creative/artistic.  I am actually pretty encouraged to see that the newspaper reporter opened the article on this idea.

People Like You Read A Blog Post Like This

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Even though it often feels like promoting arts and culture as a non-profit entity requires inventing entirely new methods wholecloth because our emphasis and motivations are not driven by a profit motive, I am encouraged when I see commonalities in research findings and advice. We are, after all, dealing with the same set of human beings.

Seth Godin recently had a post about getting people to shift to a new product. While his example revolves around getting someone to switch brands of motorcycle, I saw a few familiar lessons peeking out between the Harleys and BMWs.

If you are marketing to people who will have to switch to engage with you, do it with intention. Your pitch of, “this is very very good” is insufficient. Your pitch of, “you need something in this category” makes no sense, because I’m already buying in that category. Instead, you must spend the time, the effort and the money to teach me new information that allows me to make a new decision. Not that I was wrong before, but that I was under-informed.

This caught my attention for two reasons. First, it reinforces that providing a high quality performance is not enough if people already feel they are having quality experiences with their current choices. (Which could be everything from other experiences to entertainment delivery platforms.)

Second, it reiterates the importance of having sufficient information about the unfamiliar that I wrote about on Monday and last month.

And then there is this from Godin:

Ignore the tribal links at your peril. Without a doubt, “people like us do things like this,” is the most powerful marketing mantra available. Make it true, then share the news.

While this idea is most often emphasized in relation to getting millennial involved in what you are doing, (the study I cited on Monday being a prime example), participating in activities and associating with things that reinforce your self image is a fundamental element of our society, regardless of age.

(And I am really curious, how many people didn’t pass over this post because of the title? That would really prove a point despite being so blatantly click-baity)

Cultural Intellectual Property Rights

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A few years back I had organized a panel on presenting the work of contemporary indigenous artists at the Association of Performing Arts Presenters conference. We were fortunate to have Moss Patterson of New Zealand’s Atamira Dance Company on the panel.  Prior to the panel we had a good discussion about various issues facing artists who were representing their cultural practices. It is a really complicated, but interesting subject.

One of the things Moss kept mentioning was that treaty and law guaranteed the Maori cultural expressions belonged to them. I wasn’t entirely clear to me at the time why this was important because it seemed obvious that a culture could lay claim to its traditional expressions.

Okay, in my defense, the APAP conference is a really busy environment and not exactly conducive to contemplation.

It wasn’t until Andrew Taylor tweeted about Maya weavers in Guatemala who are advocating for collective intellectual property protection for their textiles that I made the connection with Moss’ comments.

The bill has two objectives. First, it calls for a recognition of a definition of collective intellectual property, which is linked to the right of Indigenous Peoples to administer and manage their heritage. Second, it asks that indigenous nations be recognized as authors, in which case they would automatically benefit from intellectual property law. Recognizing indigenous nations as authors just like individuals or companies means that corporations that benefit from the export of Maya hand-woven goods will have to pay royalties to the communities who are the authors of huipiles.

Based on this, I did a little research on intellectual property law and Maori culture and found a heavily annotated summary on the Library of Congress page. The article provides a more detailed understanding of the factors.

…issues include the use of Māori symbols or language in trademarks and inappropriate use of customary knowledge and expressions in products, advertising, and for other commercial purposes. In general, Māori consider that they are unable to exercise control of the trade of their culture in any real or comprehensive sense under the traditional intellectual property framework, and that they are also not reaping the benefits of this trade, whether nationally or internationally.

The fact that certain knowledge or cultural expressions may be seen from a non-Māori or “Western” perspective as having entered the “public domain” is important in considering the type and level of protection that can be achieved. This concept is not necessarily recognized by Māori and other indigenous peoples for whom the cultural knowledge forms an integral part of their history and identity as both individuals and as a group

[…]

The Ka Mate haka “has become a symbol, not only of the All Blacks, but of New Zealand and all its people.”…it has also been used, satirically or otherwise, in foreign advertisements for Italian cars, Scottish whisky, and for a British employment website.Māori people, and particularly the Ngāti Toa tribe of the warrior chief Te Rauparaha, who authored the haka in 1821, have taken offense and expressed their anger at the inappropriate use of the words and actions,…

The recent anger caused by the Halloween costume of the Polynesian demi-god Maui from Disney’s Moana movie may provide a relateable example of the type of things that cause concern for Maori (among other Polynesian cultures in which Maui plays a part).

My goal here isn’t get make statements about the evils of cultural appropriation, just to provide an expanded context and history of the topic from different perspectives.

For Maori, these rights extend back to 1840 and have been the basis of many laws, initiatives, debates and legal proceedings since then. On the other hand, there are emerging efforts to secure intellectual property rights in other places around the world like Guatemala. I wouldn’t be surprised if similar efforts emerged in the United States as digital media make appropriation easier and corporate efforts to perpetuate IP rights for long periods of time continue.

It’s That They Think Ticket Prices Are Too High

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A little while ago I came across a presentation by the Wallace Foundation that seeks to aggregate a number of studies to provide insight for building millennial audiences.

If you have been following the research about performing arts audiences for any length of time, there probably won’t be much in the presentation that will surprise you. The barriers to participation, for example, are familiar: cost, no one to go with and the variety of available choices.

However, if you are new to the topic or just seeking a review, the presentation is a good tool. The visuals are easy to navigate and provide some useful insights.

Of particular interest was the topic of cost and younger audiences. In response to the objection that the cost is too high, I have often heard colleagues note that young people will easily drop more money at a bar on a week night than a ticket would cost.

As it so often is, cost is just an excuse for something else. In this case, it is the assurance that one will enjoy the experience.

Among the responses quoted in the Wallace presentation are the following:

“It’s not about the cost or whether I have the money, but just about the investment and the risk.”

and

“I can see myself paying $100 for a show I’ve wanted to see for a long time, but not more than $50-60 for a normal show, and really more like $20 to 30 if I can.”

What was most interesting was that millennials tended to overestimate the cost of the ticket by a significant margin. Check out this chart.

One of the suggestions in the presentation is obviously to find a more effective way to communicate the pricing.

As I looked through the findings, I realized there was a lot in common with the recent survey findings communicated by Ballet Austin which noted audiences were open to experimenting with unfamiliar works if they were provided with information that assured an enjoyable experience.

I subsequently realized the Wallace Foundation funded Ballet Austin’s research so the common elements are to be expected. (And explains why I was experiencing deja vu reading some of the survey quotes.) The Ballet Austin results are worth a read for the detail not mentioned in the presentation document.

One other image I wanted to share, especially for those who may not take my advice to view the full presentation, is this handy chart on experiences millenials in general seek from different performance disciplines. (As they say, your mileage may vary.)

Everyone Wants Creativity, But Don’t Want To Flirt With Failure

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Now and again I have cited the 2010 IBM study where CEOs worldwide ranked creativity as the most relevant and important skill their employees needed to take their companies in the future.  According to a piece by Larry Robertson on Creativity Post, similar studies by consultants and multi-national companies like Price Waterhouse Coopers, Boston Consulting Group,  Ernst & Young and Adobe have all arrived at the same answer.

Robertson expounds on seven general themes that emerge from the studies. (I am just providing a simple list.)

Creativity clearly surfaces as:

1. A Key Quality…

2. Relevant at Every Level…

3. Critical in Every Sector…

4. A Motivator and Value Maker…

5. One of the Few Things You Can Actually Control…

6. The Telltale Sign of an Effective Leader…

7. A Greater Social Need…

And yet, even with all the agreement and evidence, a substantial gap still exists between what we want, value, and believe creativity’s importance to be and what we actually do to encourage and fuel it.

Few organizations hire, train, or create environments that promote and prioritize creativity. Few leaders set an example beyond their declarations of creativity’s strategic importance. And the few exceptions? Not surprisingly, they are the leaders viewed by their industries, the market, their employees, and their customers as having the highest likelihood of thriving in a disruptive world.

One leader, in a single organization, could read this and seek change. That would be good, but the need is far greater. Collectively, as human beings, we need to bridge the gap between “perceived need and actual use” when it comes to creativity…

I think we probably all realize that creativity isn’t supported in practice because it involves risk. No one wants to be the one blamed when something goes wrong. When TV shows and movies depict a creative risk taker, it is often a father (is it ever the mother?) who has relegated himself and his family to near poverty due to the failed inventions he has sunk resources into. If something works, everyone is surprised and it is usually to save the day.

If someone is successful at plying their creativity in a scientific way, it is usually as a vehicle for some adventure. If it is depicted in association with the arts, it is a rags to riches story that often involves the recognition of hubris that grounds them.

Rarely are creative abilities depicted as part of a successful character’s normal background that isn’t the basis of moving the story forward or some character flaw/quirk. Creativity is either the reason why someone’s life is held back or it enables them to lead an amazing life of opportunity. Sometimes it is a combination of both– the broke, but zany person who finds meaning in the simple pleasures of life and helps the main character change their life. Rarely is creativity associated with a solid, normal life.

Think about how many characters have been successful doctors, lawyers and business people who didn’t seem to have to do much in these areas to be successful. How many characters have a comparable life in a creative profession? (Mike Brady from the Brady Bunch? Can you think of more?)

Granted, most people get into a creative field because provides interesting opportunities and elevates your day above the mundane. They don’t necessarily want their story to be completely normal.

My point is that creativity is often depicted on the extremes, either part of resounding success or abject failure. With that context lurking in the collective subconscious, I wouldn’t necessarily blame businesses if they viewed cultivating and employing increased creativity with some apprehension.

Talking To Your Neighbors About Saving The NEA

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Margy Waller’s piece about How To Talk About Saving the NEA has been making the rounds these last couple weeks. You should take a look at it if you haven’t already.  Her piece isn’t so much about how to convince your legislator that the NEA is worth saving as much as it is about making the case to your neighbors.  While there is a lot of immediacy about preserving the NEA, Waller’s piece integrates the longer, broader encompassing view that aligns with the agenda of building public will for arts and culture.

She addresses the common objections about supporting the arts: arts are entertainment and a private experience; they are a commodity; they are a passive experience; and a low priority.

The response she proposed advocates for support based on the ripple effect arts have (my emphasis):

A thriving arts sector creates ripple effects of benefits throughout our community, even for those who don’t attend.

These are broad-based benefits that people already believe are real—and that they value:

A vibrant, thriving place: Neighborhoods are livelier, communities are strengthened, tourists and residents are attracted to the area, etc. Note that this goes well beyond the usual dollars-and-cents economic argument and is about creating and sustaining an environment that is memorable and a place where people want to live, visit, and work.
[…]
This organizing idea shapes the subsequent conversation in important ways. It moves people away from thinking about private concerns and personal interests (me) and toward thinking about public concerns and communal benefits (we).

Importantly, people who hear this message often shift from thinking of themselves as passive recipients of consumer goods, and begin to see their role as active citizens interested in addressing the public good.

Now obviously, this shift in perception can’t happen in a vacuum. There actually has to be artistic and cultural activity occurring that resonates with people as contributing to the public good.

She notes that “While it’s true that some decision-makers expect to see this economic impact data, our research reveals that it is not persuasive to the public and is not useful to build broad support for public funding.”

She provides a check list to help keep messaging focused. The following is only an excerpt so be sure to check out the whole thing.

[..]

✓ Vibrancy/Connectedness: Does the example include benefits that could be seen as examples of vibrancy/vitality or increased connectedness?

✓ Benefits to All: Does the example point out potential benefits to people who are not participating in the specific event?

✓ Behind the scenes: Does the discussion also remind people that this doesn’t happen by accident but requires investment, etc.?

✓ One of Many: When possible, it is helpful to mention additional examples in the discussion, which helps audiences focus on the broader point that a strong arts sector creates a range of benefits.

[…]

We can’t say the sky is falling—that undermines our efforts because most people won’t agree with us. We should advocate for good policy on immigration and health care, etc. because these changes could be incredibly devastating to the arts, artists and the communities where they live. It’s not responsible to fight only for the NEA budget in the face of other damaging proposals.

The first point on her check list was “Arts Organization: Are the benefits created by an organization/event/institution that NEA supported?” An important distinction to emphasize if you are talking to people about this is that while many smaller arts organizations, especially in rural locales, may not receive support directly from the NEA, there is a good chance that they do receive a fair amount of funding through their state arts agency, which in turn is strongly supported by the NEA. Since there is likely to be a dearth of private funders, arts organizations in more rural locales potentially have the most to lose even receiving indirect NEA funding.

It can be important to emphasize these indirect relationships to NEA funding because it can be easy to disregard the relevance otherwise.

As someone pointed out to me yesterday, even if you don’t ultimately see a significant impact to your finances, the fact that another organization has to scale back can mean fewer great opportunities for your organization when a group decides not to tour.  Perhaps fewer venues participating in touring means the routing doesn’t work out for your location for a performance or visual arts show. Indirect impacts can have the most significant repercussions but can be the hardest to anticipate.

Real Men Draw Superheroes

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An interesting article in Pacific Standard came across my feed in the last few weeks. It suggests that male disinterest in the arts is a result of social pressure to conform during the early teen years.

Author Tom Jacobs was reporting on a study involving 5227 students in Belgium, which found:

The results: “We found that the more typical a male adolescent considers himself to be, the lower his interest in highbrow culture,” the researchers report. “The more gender congruent a female adolescent is, the higher her interest in highbrow cultural activities.”

Perhaps more importantly, they found “the more pressure for gender conformity a young man experiences, the lower his interest in highbrow culture.”

Young women under similar conformist pressure were more interested in cultural activities, but only to a small degree. This difference reflects the fact “it is more difficult for young men to like an activity perceived as feminine than it is for young women to dislike a feminine activity,” the researchers write.

If you are like me, you may have caught the repetition of the term “high brow culture,” and wondered if perhaps the results would have been different if they changed their definition of art.

The categories they surveyed on were “making music, studying drama, painting or drawing, attending plays or dance performances, using the library, visiting an art museum, and reading.” While these don’t seem inherently highbrow I wondered if the Dutch terms they used had certain highbrow connotations.

One of the article commenters, Ginnie Lupi, (who, on closer inspection, I see is the Director of the NH State Council on the Arts), said much the same thing:

“I agree with the study designers in the need to focus “on topics that are closer to young men’s interests.” We’re going to keep getting these kind of results if we continue to cleave to an outdated definition of the arts. Maybe some of the questions should have involved video games, reading comics and drawing superheroes?”

Drawing superheroes especially resonated with me. My friends and I used to draw all sorts of sci-fi and superhero battles as kids. If you had asked me if I had any desire to hone my skill to become better, I would have said no.

However, if you were able to draw me out into a conversation and asked me why I liked to draw these scenes, I might not have been the most erudite, but I would have given you a sense of how it helped me connect with my imagination and with my classmates who were doing the same thing.  That could have provided the basis of further conversation.

Now granted, I went into the arts so I probably didn’t need that further conversation, but discussions like that can provide good opportunities.

We Accidentally Built An Arts And Community Space

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This really great story on the Americans for the Arts blog caught my eye that I would label as unintentional placemaking. Though I could think of other apt terms.

Douglas Sorocco writes about how Oklahoma City law firm Dunlap Codding built an arts and community space as part of the construction of their offices.

Except,

…to be completely honest, “decided to build” is a bit misleading. We didn’t expressly set out to build an arts and community space. Like most creative endeavors, the concept evolved over time and in response to observations of our community’s needs. Our original blueprints called for a full kitchen/breakroom. An imposing commercial overhead garage door existed in the area and, thinking ourselves clever, we decided to replace it with a glass door to allow for natural light and fresh breezes. Of course, we didn’t want to look out the door at a parking lot filled with concrete—so an urban green space was necessary…In the end, we created a kitchen and indoor event center that opened to the outdoors—complete with modular tables and reconfigurable seating.

Having initially designed the infrastructure for our staff’s use, we soon realized that it would be empty 99.9999997% of the time—OK, maybe only a slight exaggeration. It seemed wasteful to create such an inviting space and leave it fallow…An off-hand comment made by a young creative resonated with us: “While community doesn’t need a space, it doesn’t hurt to have one.” We decided to make our space available. Rather than saying “no,” we simply said, “why not?”

Use of the space is free for community groups and $20/hr for private events. Sorocco says they initially had to coax people into using the space, but since then there have been over 1200 events, including a music series which they have underwrote.

The reason why I wanted to call attention to this wasn’t just simply because they were generous enough to open up a space intended for staff to the community, but because it even entered their minds at all.

I saw it as a positive sign that their mindset was attuned to the possibility employing the space to this purpose. Typically, a business that was inclined to support cultural and community events might make donations, advocate for their staff to volunteer their time, participate in a 5k walk/run, etc., People will laud them for their generosity.

No one is going to reproach a business for keeping their awesome employee lounge to themselves. It takes some flexibility and creativity to look at employee lounge, decide it is being under utilized, see the opportunities, and make the effort to share with others.

Don’t Deny Your Creativity!

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Earlier this month, Kathryn Haydon addressed the insidious personal belief that one is not creative.  I use the term insidious because I view the belief as something that undermines something essential about a person. While belief that one does not draw well may be erroneous because you haven’t given yourself time to develop the skill, denying you have the capacity to be creative denies something that one possesses almost naturally at birth.

While you may have to work at getting better at a certain set of skills as you get older, Haydon cites studies conducted with the same subjects over a period of decades that almost seems to show people work at being less creative.

Basically she says people perceive themselves as being less creative for two reasons- they compare themselves to those held up as examples of creativity and they fear judgment for being wrong.

It just might be that the main reason you think you’re not creative is because you compare yourself to others who are famous for their creativity (Steve Jobs, Pablo Picasso, and Lady Gaga) or to people in your own life who are known for their creativity.

When you’re in a comparison mindset, you inadvertently diminish your own creative ability. You envision Picasso and your highly divergent friends on a pedestal that you cannot possibly ascend.

[…]

Society has perpetuated the myth that creativity has to be comparative, and if comparative, mutually exclusive: “If Picasso is creative then I am not.”  This reasoning is incorrect.

and later,

…fear is the only thing standing in the way of training it back. (Fear can also come in the form of saying, “I’m not creative” to protect yourself from risk. You now know that this is false, so if you keep using this line it is heretofore a cop-out. Everybody is creative.)

It is no mystery that society and our educational system emphasize discovering the right solution rather than discovering the creative solution which stacks the decks against creativity.

In order to get back in touch with your creative ability, she suggests some exercises like “Try thinking like someone else: an alien, a rock, a stray cat, a high school math teacher.” She cautions against deciding to go all-in, 100% on creativity in one shot like a resolution to start a diet on Monday.

In other words, don’t let the first risk you ever take be taking out a second mortgage on your house to try a new business idea. Start instead by doing something that gives you slight discomfort, like driving a new route to the grocery store or sharing an unconventional insight in your next meeting. As you practice taking small risks you will become more comfortable sharing the fresh perspectives that you have gained by practicing your creative thinking.

For people in the arts, talking a new route to work may seem a little elementary a step, but for some people it might be a significant step. It could be a version of “failing fast,” especially if they turn off the GPS while taking an unfamiliar route.

The strategies for cultivating creativity are all just on a relative scale of risk taking and potential failure. For an arts organization it might be new programs. For an individual, it is looking at something with a new perspective.

This Isn’t Your Grandpa’s Retirement

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I guess I should have waited a few more days before making last week’s post about today’s graying audiences not being the same graying audiences of two decades ago. Toward the end of last week I saw that Jimmy Buffet is launching Margaritaville branded and themed retirement communities.

Even if you view this as a cynical way to capitalize on the name, you have to admit that the Margaritaville name defines a lifestyle. There is a specific demographic who identify with this lifestyle and most of them weren’t retiring 20 years ago.

This reinforces the point I made last week that while the proportion of gray heads in the audience may seem to have remained constant for the last two decades, the current cohort that comprises your older audiences have distinct characteristics and interests.  Their parents wouldn’t want to live in a Margaritaville retirement village in significant numbers, nor would their grandchildren. (Their kids, maybe.)

Ultimately, the differences between the Margaritaville communities and those already being built by the company Buffett is partnering with may be superficial. It might be the same ground plans with different color schemes, furniture and soundtrack, but the company is telling retirees that they understand they have different expectations of their retirement experience than previous generations.

More to think about, eh?

Where Have All The Hunters Gone?

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I am pretty open about admitting when I made a wrong call. While I consistently counsel against investing too many resources into the hottest fad, even I have to admit that the Pokemon Go! craze and the associated suggestions about how businesses could tap into it to attract customers faded out a lot faster than I would have predicted.

Back in July, I wrote about the swarms of people running around near our building and anticipated the opportunities that might emerge as the game features were developed. There were tons of articles like this one about how people were strategizing about how to use the game to connect with a new, larger segment of people.

Yes, there are still bunches of people playing the game. Its keeping people more active than they normally would be. And they are wandering into places that others would prefer they not be.

But even places that are paying to partner and attract people to their locations don’t appear to be getting many visits from their participation.

For me this just reinforces my sense that it is prudent to watch a fad and evaluate it as it matures to see if it still appears to be relevant to your goals.

These Aren’t Your Grandpa’s Old People

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For the last 20-25 years, audiences have been getting grayer and dying off.

We have all heard that statement multiple times in our careers. We have probably made that statement multiple times in our careers.

But have we really thought about the logical implications of that statement as we repeat it?

Last week I was on a conference call planning next year’s Arts Midwest conference when someone made a comment that was head smackingly obvious. If you break down that initial statement you realize over the last 20-25 years, people who didn’t have gray hair now do. And a lot of people have indeed died off.

So right now we are interacting with an almost entirely new generation of people we describe as “older audience.”

What the person said was essentially that the gray haired people today were a lot more rock n’ roll than the previous gray haired crowd. The tongue-in-cheek comment was that the new old people aren’t like the old old people.

Observations have been made that often people age into an appreciation of classical arts and culture- orchestra, opera, ballet etc., but let’s not forget that they aren’t necessarily aging out of the experiences and interests they had when they were younger. If the icons of their youth are still able to rock, they are ready to rock along with them.

While you may be well aware of all this, ask yourself if you aren’t viewing older audiences’ tastes today through pretty much the same lens as you did with older audiences 20 years ago. It can be easy to do because some members of that older crowd from 20 years ago are still around. They have been loyal to you for 20 years so you want to meet their expectations and keep them around.

But if we aren’t supposed to treat millennials as a monolithic group, we can’t treat older audiences as one either.

The bulk of your current loyal audience is not the same as the loyal audience of the past. It is likely that the current audience’s loyalty manifests in a different way. They may not be subscribing to the full season, for instance, but they still feel invested in your work and tell their friends.

The comment about the “new old people” wasn’t made in connection with a proposed conference topic, but the concept caused a little discussion. I would be interested to see if it got developed into something. It is one of those ideas that immediately strikes one as relevant, but creating a productive conversation around it that doesn’t subscribe to old assumptions or condescending stereotypes is another thing.

Cross-Sector Training, So Hard To Get Instructed By You

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Last Fall Grantmakers in the Arts published a summary of key findings from a study about community arts training. The study focused on the increasing focus of local arts agencies into cross-sector partnerships/efforts.

What I found encouraging was the expanding view among local arts agencies about their roles and the constituencies they serve. (my emphasis)

2. Cross-sector arts partnerships are becoming a core activity for increasing numbers of local arts agencies. So, the question arises: Is this just a new funding fad that is likely to dissipate as soon as its national champions switch channels? Here are a few reasons why we think this is not the case:

74 percent agreed that cross-sector arts partnerships are central to their mission.
85 percent identified organizations from other community sectors (e.g., human services, public safety, health care, community development) as a key constituency, and 75 percent were actively partnering with them.
75 percent said their recent strategic planning process addressed “broadening the impact of the arts beyond traditional arts activities and venues” as a priority.
78 percent agreed with the statement, “we see ourselves as a change agent in our community.”

From our perspective it would be a mistake to interpret this level of collaboration and commitment outside the bounds of the typical local arts agency mission as solely opportunistic. In fact, we see this as a possible indication that some local arts agencies are shifting their mission focus from “arts-centric” to community-centric. Specific evidence of this showed up when we asked respondents what they regarded as the most critical issues facing their community. Most responses reflected problems and concerns affecting the broader community as well as (but much more than) those relevant solely to their arts constituencies.

The article notes that demand for training outstrips supply. They found that 79% of respondents were interested in receiving training in effectively working cross-sector, but only 18% of organizations were supplying that training. The report itself noted that rural respondents especially felt underserved, finding training was “…generally inaccessible, due to time, money and travel…”

If you are interested in finding training in this area, there is a list of programs of all types from page 13-42 of the study.

Something not in the study that I was pleased to see in the Grantmakers in the Arts piece was an “Implications for Funders” section.  They advocate for patience and funding for training over the long term and emphasize the need for infrastructure investment beyond just training.

One paragraph really struck me as an important lesson for arts organizations as well as funders, namely involving the community to whom you hope to bring benefits in the plan. (my emphasis)

Vague nomenclature is potentially damaging. By definition community arts practice advances the notion that the work is going to affect people’s lives. As such, the fusion of art making and community development is often a morally and ethically complex enterprise. In our work at the Center we have found that when the institutions supporting the work are vague or ambiguous about their intentions or definitions of success, this lack of clarity can migrate to the work itself and harm the communities involved. Here is one reason why. Labels like social practice, placemaking, and community cultural development all imply community involvement of some kind. In too many instances we have found that scant attention is being paid to what this means exactly. At a minimum funders and practitioners alike should be considering some critical ethical questions as a part of their basic practice. How are the people who will bear the consequences of a project’s success or failure going to be engaged? If some public benefit is part of the deal, is there any accountability built in? And when the curtain closes, who will be there to either sustain the good work — or pick up the pieces?

Post title inspired by Jimi Hendrix’s “Cross Town Traffic” Couldn’t find a video that wasn’t a cover.

Music Majors, Special Forces of the Arts

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Going back to the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project special report I referenced yesterday, there were findings in another area that grabbed my interest.  The following chart breaks down responses to questions about brainstorming and risk taking being encouraged in artist training programs.

Keep in mind that all these results are based on alumni perceptions of their training program. The report authors note the outlier status of Music when it comes to graduates who responded “that brainstorming and risk taking without fear of penalty were present to a “Some” or “Very Much” degree as part of their coursework.

Alumni from all but one major overwhelmingly reported their curriculum emphasized generating new ideas or brainstorming. The outlier in this dimension was music majors—only 79% of whom  reported their curriculum emphasized generating ideas or brainstorming.

There was a 23% range in responses by major when comparing coursework emphasis on taking risks without fear of penalty. Architecture majors and creative writing majors (89% and 88%, respectively) were the most likely to indicate curricula focused on this area, while music majors were the least likely (66%).

Music majors (70%) indicated the lowest level of coursework emphasis on inventing methods to arrive at unconventional solutions while architecture majors (92%) indicated the highest.

My initial assumption is that because music programs often emphasize technical proficiency, there isn’t a lot of room for risk taking, brainstorming and inventing unconventional methods. My second assumption is that the programs are designed this way due to the high demands of orchestral auditioning.

Now the million dollar question: Is this approach beneficial or detrimental to students?

On one hand, not only are the number of orchestral performing positions shrinking, the relations between management and musicians in contract negotiations are frequently hostile.

On the other hand, preparing students to perform at a highest level of excellence in the most hostile scenario could be viewed as an ideal path in the context of “if you can survive this…” It would sort of make them the elite special forces of the arts world.

But who really wishes that for their students? Since the majority of graduates won’t end up working in an orchestral environment, don’t they need to acquire practice in brainstorming, risk taking in a low stakes environment and pursuing unconventional paths? (And note that brainstorming, risk taking and employing unconventional means are also traits valued in special forces.)

What do people who focused on studying music think? Any validity to my assumptions? Other forces at work? Do these numbers reflect something else? Is the current process good/bad for graduates?

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Resilient and Adaptable, Arts Grads Could Still Use More Career Training

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The Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP) just released a special report that focused on how alumni of creative arts programs across different graduate cohorts felt about the education they received.  Since I am interested in the conversation about artist as entrepreneur and career preparation, I gravitated toward those findings.

All cohorts from pre-1985 through 2015 felt they could have used more education in career preparation.

In the module, alumni are asked whether they would have benefited from more knowledge on:

a. developing a three- to five-year strategic plan to realize their goals;
b. marketing and promoting their work and talents;
c. communicating through and about their art through engaging with the community, speaking in public, and receiving feedback;
d. managing finances through things like developing budgets, raising money for projects, and saving for the future;
e. and monitoring legal and tax issues like copyright, trademarks, sales, and income tax.

Most alumni agreed they could have benefited from more knowledge in all of these areas (Table 3), with at least 80% of all alumni cohorts saying they would have benefited from more knowledge in each area.

Furthermore, alumni in each cohort reported about the same level of agreement (“Somewhat” or “Strongly”) when asked whether their education prepared them for work in many different jobs and roles. These reports ranged from a low of 65% in the 2006–2010 cohort to a high of 69% for the earliest two cohorts, leaving about one third of alumni in each cohort feeling their education did not prepare them for work in many different jobs and roles.

What really brought the perceived lack of preparation by alumni into focus was this next chart which reflects the degree to which career preparation was integrated into their education. Exposure to a network of professionals is relatively high. However, other aspects of career development and discussion of careers outside the arts are depressingly low for some disciplines.

The SNAAP report observes:

Institutions may need to further explore ways to provide career services across different major fields in the arts. Solitary fields, where art is less likely to be created or performed in groups, may not be getting the same quality of exposure.

Long time readers may recall that when I attended the Society for Arts Entrepreneurship Education conference last October, there was discussion about how university career services weren’t really well calibrated for arts careers.

One more chart I wanted to point out. After the reading the other content in this post, it probably won’t surprise you to see only 18% of respondents Strongly Agreed they were confident about financially managing their career. Also not surprising, confidence went down the more debt a person was carrying.

However, I was really encouraged by the resilience, adaptability and opportunity recognition numbers. Even if people don’t necessarily feel like got enough education in career planning, feeling capable in these three ability areas ain’t nothing to sneeze at. I am really curious about how those numbers compare to graduates from other degree disciplines.

Stuff To Ponder: Familiarity As A Proxy For Certainty

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Two years into a six year research project, Ballet Austin has started learning things about their audiences that run contrary to their assumptions. While the audiences in every community are different, what they have learned provides a lesson that you may not know your audiences as well as you think you do.

One of the biggest assumptions Ballet Austin made was that audiences became more open to new works as they became more familiar with them and thus followed a roughly linear progression of attendance. What they learned was that people were open to a cross-section of genres and the biggest determinant was how confident people were that they would enjoy the experience.

In other words, the market research suggested that encouraging people to attend the ballet more often was less about increasing their familiarity with productions and more about bridging an uncertainty gap. “Familiarity is about information,” notes Martin, “whereas uncertainty about how an experience will feel is much more personal. You can give somebody a lot of information but that’s not necessarily going to reassure them that they’re going to belong in that audience.”

[…]

Audience uncertainty partly grew out of how Ballet Austin was presenting information about its productions. The research showed that images as well as the language used in promotional pieces, ads and even program titles, often created a disconnect. “What we thought we were saying was not what people were hearing,” Martin says.

The problem was especially glaring for abstract productions. Based on the promotional materials in some cases, prospective audience members simply couldn’t fathom what they would be seeing. An ad for a recent program, “To China With Love,” featured an image of two dancers seeming to float among clouds, which many found ambiguous. One person mistook it for a mattress ad. The confusion made Loignon wonder if Ballet Austin should consider cutting back on print ads for abstract ballets and investing more in online videos that show the work itself.

The fact they were considering focusing more of their resources on having video representations and eschewing print was interesting to me. If you have ever read Trevor O’Donnell’s thoughts on the imagery used in print marketing by arts organizations, you know that he is pretty solidly against depictions like that of the two dancers floating in the clouds for the very reason Ballet Austin discovered.

Ultimately though, I was encouraged by the recognition that familiarity was a proxy for certainty. Audiences can be open to adventure if they receive help in feeling confident about their choices.

If you read the whole piece you can learn about the various tactics Ballet Austin has employed in an attempt to close the uncertainty gap for audiences.

Another process I was interested to read about was how they created social interaction experiences. There is often a lot of talk about the need to create social situations to attract millennials. Ballet Austin’s experience doing this really illustrates the importance of constantly tweaking and perhaps defining success by quality of experience rather than quantity.

Though it has taken various forms, an event known as Ballet Bash! is meant to facilitate social gatherings before a performance and during intermission. One time, Bash! included a DJ for a pre-performance party with refreshments. The cost outweighed the benefits, however, so Ballet Austin cut the DJ and instead offered carefully selected music in an area at the Long Center with spectacular views of Austin’s expanding skyline. That iteration was modestly attended. For a later production, Ballet Bash! was replaced by a social lounge in a smaller, more intimate wing of the Long Center’s mezzanine. At recent performances, around 15 people were sitting in small groups during the hour before the performance and intermission, which Ballet Austin considered a promising start.

There are other imaginative social and interactive experiences Ballet Austin created for their audiences that attracted larger numbers. I wanted to include the paragraph above in order to ask the obvious question about whether your organization would consider the participation of 15 people a promising start. From the context of the paragraph, I would assume this approach balanced their goals for cost with desired outcomes.

As a cross-reference to this research, you can also check out California Symphony’s Orchestra X blog and this post in particular about what their research discovered. In short, it was nearly every other element of the experience except the programming that was an impediment to audience enjoyment. Ceci Dadisman provides some perspective on this on ArtHacker today.

You Took My Joy And I Want It Back

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If you found yourself agreeing with the thesis of my post yesterday about claiming someone is selling out or is dumbing down art is an attempt to exclude those people in order to save Art, I have something else challenging to suggest.

We don’t get to dictate who is allowed to enjoy art.

While you might immediately agree that this should be so, remember there was an effort to organize an art strike during the recent presidential inauguration. Artists have disavowed works they sold to Ivanka Trump and asked her to remove their works from her apartment.

While I can appreciate the various motivations which move artists to make these statements, I don’t think it is constructive in the long run to be sending a message that art is for you as long as the art makers approve of you. In fact, as soon as I wrote that sentence I realized how much it sounded like the rationale people make when refusing to provide services for same-sex weddings.

This is not like being upset because a political campaign is using a song without permission.  They paid the asking price, and for the most part the work appears as the background of their lives as a statement of their taste rather than to imply tacit approval.

The bigger and long term issue is that there is a contradictory message in saying art is everywhere, everyone has the potential for creative expression and engages in it more often than they realized…and then put out a call for all that to be withdrawn in solidarity.

First of all, since everyone can access some type of creative expression on their phone, they are less likely to notice something is missing than they were when accessibility was tied to a physical place.

Second, if everyone can do it, then everyone has to participate in the art strike, which is damn difficult to pull off.  In these instances you can’t go around saying, Oh no, we are the real owners of real Art, not you, we are hiding it away and you should be concerned.

The constructive thing to do is encourage people to cultivate and employ the abilities they have in the service of expressing what they think about an issue rather than withholding access to something that has no relevance to the issue of concern.

Because lets face it, there are a lot of people out there who have no compunction about expressing their views emphatically and loudly. Investing energy into removing, rather than contributing a new or counter expression, seems counterproductive.

“Makers and Takers” slides too facilely off people’s tongues these days. Let it never be said artists are takers, creativity is all about making.

Ultimately, there can’t be advocacy for universal investment and ownership in creative expression by the individual, education system, foundations and government while also reserving the right to reclaim it all.

Post title is from the lyrics of Lucinda Williams’ “Joy”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aMJ_-5lVw1s

The Club Bylaws We Wrote Are So Stringent, Even We Aren’t Allowed To Be Members

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Last week The Guardian wrote about how the current political climate in a number of countries has brought Arthur Miller’s The Crucible into relevance again.

There are a couple sentences in the article that keep echoing in my mind and I have spent the last week trying to decide about what angle to take in my commentary about them. Ultimately, I decided to just toss it out there and let my readers decide how they are most relevant for them.

In the article Douglas Rintoul writes,

Miller talks about the paradox of a community that has created a society grounded in the idea of “exclusion and prohibition”. Its sole function is to keep the community “together, and to prevent any kind of disunity that might open it to destruction”.

The reason these two sentences kept coming back to me is that they evoked the oft cited comment about assault on Ben Tre during the Vietnam War, “We had to destroy the village in order to save it.”

(The full context apparently should be: “‘It became necessary to destroy the town to save it’, a United States major said today. He was talking about the decision by allied commanders to bomb and shell the town regardless of civilian casualties, to rout the Vietcong.”)

There is definitely a paradox in the idea that in order to keep a community together, you had to expel any element that might drive the community apart.

So….don’t the people pushing for expulsion constitute a divisive force in the community? Who gets to kick them out?

Every community needs ideals that they form around, but it gets a little strange when the ideals are so stringent they can’t tolerate the flaws of the membership. That is almost a corollary of Groucho Marx comment “I don’t care to belong to any club that will have me as a member”

Lets all agree that there are times when you do need to remove destructive and dangerous elements from society.   But the reality on which that standard should be based before applied is pretty high.   The perceived need for removal often demands the standard to be set pretty low. The rationale is easy to make and it is easy to employ fear to shut down opposition.

While this may seem most easily applicable to the current political situation in regard to immigration, it pretty much crops up in a lot of decisions we make and places we frequent and groups with which we associate.

At this point you might be thinking about those other judgmental people you know, but be aware that accusations of “dumbing down” and “selling out” are basically attempts to save Art by excluding from the Arts Community those who are perceived to be cheapening it.

It is really easy to employ this type of thinking and not even recognize it.

You Know The Type, They Only Want One Thing–Your Fund Raising Ability

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If you ever doubted that executive director positions were all about the fundraising and light on requiring artistic vision, the recent news about the firing of Ft. Worth Opera general director will disabuse you of that notion. It was with some dismay that I read about his firing due to lack of creativity when it came to fund raising.

Now I don’t intend to understate the importance of strong fund raising. I probably would have just scanned the Dallas Morning News piece and moved on with my day. While unfortunate, organization leaders get fired or resign fairly frequently.

Except that as I read on it struck me that Woods wasn’t an idler as general director. Every sentence brought accolades for different accomplishments. He brought the opera to greater prominence, navigated challenges with performance facilities, engaged in some innovative programming that appears to have interested a larger segment of the community, and yes, did a respectable job with fund raising against a shortfall.

Just to be sure the Dallas Morning News writer wasn’t personally biased, I sought other reporting on the firing and they seemed to agree on these basic facts. All in all, he didn’t sound like someone you would want to blithely part ways with.

Certainly, there may be some underlying problems that no one is talking about publicly. The comments by the board in all the articles I came across focus so strongly on their desire to find someone who can handle fund raising and business development as Woods’ replacement that it appears that is about all that matters. Artistic and community relationship building skills seem to be such far seconds that I fear all the accomplishments Woods has been praised for will stagnate and perhaps decline.

The opera seeks to hire a leader to “focus more on business and management … to be creative with the fundraising and development aspect,” he said, adding that, “we just didn’t feel Darren could provide us with that leadership from that aspect.”

[…]

Martinez said Woods has brought the opera “to a point where we felt good artistically.” Now, he said, it’s time to move forward with a new general director who can help shape the company’s future, which includes being a good steward of donors’ money.

That last line made me wonder if the board really did approve of Woods’ artistic choices or if there is something going on that isn’t being spoken of.

Over the history of this blog, (holy crap, is it really going to be 13 years on Friday?), I have often cited studies about how fewer people are interested in taking on executive roles in non-profits. Of those energetic people I know who want to assume leadership positions, few to none have a vision that involves fund raising as their primary role. They get excited by the prospect of making an impact and aren’t afraid of getting their hands dirty, but job descriptions like this, (and lets be fair, Ft. Worth Opera is far from the only one emphasizing this skillset), don’t really fire their imaginations.

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A To Preserve Your Culture

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Last month I saw a story in the New Yorker about an attempt to preserve the culture of the Iñupiat of Alaska through the creation of a video game. I initially thought that the game hadn’t come out, but apparently it was released in 2014.

It really is a gorgeous looking game. It takes the player through the challenges of an Iñupiat heroic journey story that had previously only been passed down by oral tradition to the eldest child. The whole concept of using a video game to preserve and disseminate cultural heritage is pretty interesting.

One of the central concerns for the Iñupiat who were involved was that their stories would be subject to adaptation and appropriation as has often been the case. The game company invested a lot of time in an attempt to assuage those concerns.

With any creative project in which a group of privileged Westerners look to recount the tales and customs of an indigenous group, there is a risk of caricature, even amiable racism. “We’ve repeatedly seen our culture and stories appropriated and used without our permission or involvement,” Fredeen said. “People were skeptical that the project would turn out like these other examples, all appropriation and Westernization.” To reassure them, the development team assembled a group of Iñupiat elders, storytellers, and artists to become partners in the game’s development and lend their ideas and voices to the venture. “As it became clear to the community that this project was only going to move forward with their active participation, that hesitancy quickly evaporated,” Fredeen said. “We’ve had everybody from eighty-five-year-old elders who live most of the year in remote villages to kids in Barrow High School involved in the project.”

Even though there are concerns and anxieties about people sitting alone in dark rooms in front of screens among those of us who advocate for live arts experiences, I feel like this video game development process contains some important lessons. One of the primary lessons relates to how to go about engaging communities to tell their stories.

Just because stories are told in video game form doesn’t close the door on the opportunity to provide a live experience. There are numerous examples of video games being adapted into movies, most of the results being unimpressive. With the bar set so low, there isn’t terrible risk in attempting to depict the core stories employing other methods and media.

(If you aren’t up on your video game lore, the post title refers to the Konami Cheat Code)

Viral Needs A Plan

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I came across an interview Daniel Pink did with Derek Thompson, Senior Editor at The Atlantic where Thompson gives The 5 Rules for Making a Hit.

Now I want to say from the outset that the title is a bunch of baloney and I hope we all know enough to be heavily skeptical of anything the purports to offer a simple set of rules/tricks to success.

That said, there are some valuable points made. I wonder if Thompson actually packaged his answer in terms of five simple rules or if that was an editorial decision on behalf of Heleo which presented them.

The parts of the article I found valuable dealt with the tendency to equate economic success and public recognition with quality/talent/wisdom/authenticity/veracity, etc.

Rule #2: Virality is a myth — pay attention to dark broadcasts instead

People want to believe that their best work can go viral, because great ideas are self-distributing. You make something that’s inherently wonderful, and then you’re done! No more work. Just give it to a few people, they’ll pass it on, and eventually it’ll become the biggest thing in the world.

But the evidence from network science suggests that virality as most people understand it is a myth. Practically nothing goes viral, even the things that we call viral. Genius needs a distribution plan.
[…]
I see this sometimes at The Atlantic. When most readers see a video or an article go crazy online, they might say, “that thing went viral.” But our website has technology that can tell us exactly how all this information spreads. When an article has exploded, we can see that what’s often happened is that there has been one, or a series of, blasts sending traffic to the piece. Perhaps it’s hit the front page of Reddit, or Drudge, or lots of people are clicking on the article on our Facebook page. The article is going “viral” because of a broadcast.

You can get similar insight into what might be driving traffic to your website by using Google Analytics. ArtsHacker has a number of articles about how to set Analytics up to measure and report on various criteria. Social media services like Youtube and Facebook have their own analysis tools to provide insights into why a post or video is particularly popular.

While you can’t necessarily control what becomes popular with great consistency, you can gain a better understanding of what channels and methods can be effective for garnering the attention you want.

His other rule is:

Rule #5: Keep swinging

People want to believe that quality is destiny. They conflate “good” and “popular” in both directions. They think if somebody writes a great song, other people will inevitably find it and love it; or if a song becomes extremely popular, that means it was inherently worthy.

[…]

Understanding that hits are probabilistic argues for a gospel for perseverance. Sometimes people talk about luck as if it’s debilitating, that nothing you do matters — but if cultural products are probabilistic, think of it like batting. Even with the best batters, there’s a 30% chance they get a hit in every one at bat. As a result the key is to give yourself as many at bats as possible. There is an antidote to luck, in terms of personal effort. It’s perseverance. It’s the only answer.

This one is a little tricky because I think we can all cite examples where perseverance just isn’t enough and the benefits of connections, synchronicity and a good support network of family and friends make all the difference. On the other hand, there is a case to be made that you can achieve a high degree of success through perseverance but it may not conform to the degree success you believe you should have.

If anything, this is a better argument for the fact that failure is a more frequent occurrence in any endeavor than people want to admit. It is just that satisfaction of infrequent hits tend to drive out the recollection of the misses for everyone.

The Gravity of Culture

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Seth Godin made a post last week about maintaining a commitment to quality in your work. (my emphasis)

When you seek the mass market, there are two paths available:

You can dumb down your message and your expectations, and meet your audience where they stand. You can coarsen your lyrics, offer simpler solutions, ask for less effort, demand less work, promise bigger results…
Or you can smarten it up, and lead despite your goal of mass, not chase it.

The very fact that “dumb down” is an expression and “smarten up” isn’t should give any optimist pause.

Culture is a gravitational force, and it resists your efforts to make things work better.

So what? Persist.

My first impulse was to mentally acknowledge he was right about how the impulse to improve isn’t common enough to bring a term like “smarten up” into common usage. I read his comment about culture resisting efforts to make things work better as an indictment of a society that demands satisfying results that require little of them in return.

However, when I got to thinking about it, those who embrace and define high culture often don’t want practitioners of low/pop culture to transition upward. There are a fair number of examples of pop artists who decide they want to pursue a more rigorous path as they mature. They are criticized for lacking the excellence required or expected of someone who has dedicated decades training in some discipline of high culture.

Certainly, some of these people may lack the seriousness, nuance and general quality of a long time practitioner. There may be valid concerns that in their popularity, they are misleading their fans into believing they represent the higher levels of achievement when a perceptible gap exists.

But for others, after 10-20 years of sincerely trying to “smarten up,” they are probably going to be operating at least at or above a level of 80%-90% of achievable excellence. That puts them on par with a lot of people who, like them, have spent decades solely devoted to the high culture discipline.

Except that the latter group will be labeled an X discipline artist while the former pop artist will forever have a modifier like crossover-X discipline artist. Essentially, you get branded if you try to step out of the original lines drawn around you.

So like Godin says, culture can be a gravitational force. It can feel like you are constantly being pulled to lower your standards, but it can also feel like you are being pushed away from ever being recognized as having achieved your ambitions if you try to become more proficient.

Yes, ideally things could get to a place where people and their efforts could be fairly evaluated but will it ever really be possible to create truly objective evaluations that are free from these sort of judgments?

I frequently cite Jamie Bennett’s comment that people have an easier time viewing themselves on a continuum with famous sports figures than they do with famous artists. As I think about it, I wonder if people are getting a message that they shouldn’t try to see themselves on an arts continuum.

What Are You Saying When You Say Diversity?

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Australia’s ArtsHub site had a valuable piece on “diversity” efforts by arts organizations. I put diversity in quotes because the title of the article is “Diversity is a white word.”

Author Tania Canas expounds on that saying the word,

It seeks to make sense, through the white lens, of difference by creating, curating and demanding palatable definitions of ‘diversity’ but only in relation to what this means in terms of whiteness. Terms such as ‘diversity’, ‘multiculturalism’, and ‘culturally and linguistically diverse’ (CALD) only normalise whiteness as the example of what it means to be and exist in the world. Therefore the diversity discourse within the cultural sector, has only created frames by which diversity is given ‘permission’ to exist under conditional inclusion.

[…]

Just because we exist in a space, doesn’t mean we’ve had autonomy in the process by which the existence has occurred. It is not about ‘giving a voice’, we already have one. It has been systematically silenced.

I should probably acknowledge at this point that anything I write on this topic is likely to flirt with offending someone either with poorly considered statement or condescension. That said, I can see her point that diversity goals and programs are often essentially a statement of intent to include the “not us.”

I found the Ladder of Participation image in the center of the article to be a helpful visual guide on the continuity of program characteristics from citizen participation to tokenism to non-participation.

I saw some truth in Canas’ statement that holding up an artist who has “made it” as an exemplar or creating Ambassador programs or Diversity officers is often a superficial gesture revealing the industry

“…has no clue about how to develop, nurture, support nor fiercely defend artists. The industry wants to ‘highlight voices’ without the responsibility of meaningly supporting them…appointments of a sole diversity officer or diversity ambassador can actually be an indication of the absence of a wider support for diversity throughout the entire institution.”

The constructive approach, she says, is to focus is on building community, not audiences. A good deal of what she wrote reminded me of Ronia Holmes’ “Your organization sucks at “community” and let me tell you why” which I wrote about back in November.

Holmes’ piece is worth reading for its blunt honesty, both in criticizing insufficient and half-hearted attempts to engage marginalized communities, but in its acknowledgment of the financial challenges arts organizations face. Between the two pieces, there is a lot of basis for introspection about organizational diversity and inclusion programs.

First, Accentuate The Positive

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I was reading Peter Drucker’s Managing the Non-Profit Organization. In a chapter near the end of the book he talks about self-renewal through change of perspective using examples like a musician who was asked to sit in the audience for a performance and a hospital administrator who ended up providing care in one of the wards. Each found new purpose and perspective through the experience and in some cases, continued to make it a regular practice.

One suggestion he gave intrigued me. I haven’t put it into practice for a long enough time to say if it yields the results it claims, but I thought I would share and see if anyone had observations one way or another.

“The most effective road to self-renewal is to look for the unexpected success and run with it. Most people brush the evidence of success aside because they are so problem-focused. The reports…are also problem-focused–with a front page that summarizes all the areas in which the organization underperformed…Non-profit executives should make the first page show the areas where the organization overperformed against plan or budget because that is where the first signs of unexpected success begin to appear…The first few times you will brush it aside…Eventually, though a suspicion may begin to surface that some of the problems would work themselves out if we paid more attention to the things that were working exceptionally well.”

One of the first thoughts that I wondered about for arts organizations is whether many board and staff members would have the mental discipline to discern between present success achieved due to highly popular programming and incremental success in the areas of impact and outcomes. The latter may not be financially rewarding in the short term, but might become so after a long term commitment to a shift of focus.

I am not saying the leadership in many arts organizations are so easily seduced that they can’t keep their eyes on the mission. There is the other side of the coin where a program fails by the measure of the project’s financial and attendance goals, but the staff feels something valuable came out of the experience either for themselves in lessons learned or for the participants’ excitement. Yet they also feel it is necessary to report to funders that everything went as planned, all goals were reached and nothing went wrong. This practice can also serve to perpetuate the pursuit of unproductive ends.

Has anyone had experience with Drucker’s suggested approach where you started paying attention to small victories and came to the realization your organization had a huge competence that you weren’t fully exercising?

Thank God I Wasn’t Here When It Was Relevant

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I have served on my county library system board for over half a year now.

They say public libraries aren’t relevant any more but as the title of the post suggests, if this is what the library is like when it is irrelevant, I am glad I wasn’t around when it was relevant. In my short time on the board, we have had to review or construct policies to address things like harassment of staff by visitors, people monopolizing meeting rooms to run their businesses out of them, wages and benefits, and had to chart a course of action upon learning poor building construction lead to mold issues.

Libraries may not be as important a source of reading material as they have been in the past, but they definitely serve a need in the community. For every problem that crops up, there are 500 people who regularly avail themselves of the facilities, programming and services.  I was entirely unaware of the web of relationships the library had with other community organizations, businesses and social groups.

I have served on a number boards before but this is the first one I have been on that has really engaged me so thoroughly in exercising what I preach in terms of conscientious board governance and fiscal oversight. In addition to addressing programming and policies, there is a lot more money running through a six branch library system than you might imagine.

There was a story a year ago about the financial benefits received by the former president of the Queens (NY) Borough Library system (as well as the alleged liberties he took with the finances.)  It left me wondering what sort of financial controls the borough library system had in place given that we on the board are required to authorize the payment of the bills every month. Though our list is pretty long so I imagine it would be easy to slip some personal expenses in there unnoticed.

I have also tried to bring some of the good practices I have written about to the organization. I stress “tried” because just when I was going to note the professional development budget hadn’t really been used during the year and encourage more staff development, the library director requested that staff be allowed to attend an upcoming conference.

Obviously, like most of us that serve on boards outside our own organization, I have brought other valuable insights and practices to the table.  The experience has certainly improved some of the practices in which we engage in my organization.

The point of this post is mostly to encourage people to serve on other non-profit boards if you already aren’t and to really pay attention to how that responsibility can inform the practices in your own organization.

As I wrote this, I remembered one of my earliest encounters with a perceptual barrier to participation: When I was about 11-13 the librarians encouraged me to start using the adult section of the library.  I had passed by the threshold many times, but I was anxious about entering and being told I didn’t belong there.  I can still connect with the emotions of that memory so I can empathize with people who show up to my performance hall for the first time.

Of course, my other purpose in writing this post is to encourage everyone to support their local library!

I Was 15% More Dishonest In 2016, But Can You Prove It?

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In my post yesterday, I quoted Matt Burriesci as he addressed how uncomfortable people feel when it comes to advocating the intangible value of the arts.

We should stop being ashamed to believe in a value that cannot be weighed, measured, cut, or quantified — and to try and convince others to believe it, too.

I’ve floated these ideas to a few of my friends who work in the arts — privately, of course, because one never wants to utter such things in public. Almost all of them have said the same thing, and in the same weary, confused voice: “Well, yeah, Burriesci­­, I mean, I agree — but that’s just idealism.”

This line of thought pretty much illustrates how uncertain the arts community feels when it comes to trying to justify the value of what they do. How do you validate results that are difficult to measure?

Fortuitously, Seth Godin helps to provide an answer in a context we can all understand — the value of soft skills in the workplace.

Now obviously, these same soft skills are valuable outside of the workplace, but so much of what we value as a society is in the context of economic benefits.

Organizations spend a ton of time measuring the vocational skills, because they can. Because there’s a hundred years of history. And mostly, because it’s safe. It’s not personal, it’s business.

We know how to measure typing speed. We have a lot more trouble measuring passion or commitment.

Organizations give feedback on vocational skill output daily, and save the other stuff for the annual review if they measure it at all.

And organizations hire and fire based on vocational skill output all the time, but practically need an act of the Board to get rid of a negative thinker, a bully or a sloth (if he’s good at something measurable).

He likens someone whose poor skills detract from the productivity of the workplace with an employee that walks out the door with a computer under their arm every day. Both are stealing from you in some fashion.

But perhaps most applicable to the argument about the value of liberal & fine arts, culture, creativity, etc is Godin’s assertion that just because they are difficult to teach and measure, doesn’t mean so-called soft skills are not valuable and worth the effort.

We rarely hire for these attributes because we’ve persuaded ourselves that vocational skills are impersonal and easier to measure.

And we fire slowly (and retrain rarely) when these skills are missing, because we’re worried about stepping on toes, being called out for getting personal, or possibly, wasting time on a lost cause.

Which is crazy, because infants aren’t good at any of the soft skills. Of course we learn them. We learn them accidentally, by osmosis, by the collisions we have with teachers, parents, bosses and the world. But just because they’re difficult to measure doesn’t mean we can’t improve them, can’t practice them, can’t change.

Now a slight tangent here– let’s recognize arts and cultural organizations are some of the worst offenders when it comes to hiring for skills and turning a blind eye to poor interpersonal skills because the employee has passion; isn’t getting paid a lot; and there isn’t time or money to train or model proper behavior.

Don’t read Godin’s article and get trapped into thinking about how the arts can help people develop all those soft skills he lists. First, the whole point is to stay away from a utilitarian justification for the value of the arts. Second, as I note, it’s a case of the cobbler’s children having no shoes when it comes to being an exemplar for cultivating those skills in the workplace.

I think the argument to be made is that we can all generally acknowledge that the presence of arts, culture and creativity in our lives enhances society/communities in myriad ways. We can’t measure the benefit specifically or attribute improvements directly and exclusively to the presence of arts & culture. Nor do we want to because creative expression is always going to be one important factor among many (like walkability, public transportation, employment, new initiatives.)

This is important in much the same way as skills like leadership, collaboration, resilience, passion, competitiveness, resourcefulness and hundreds of other factors are important to the success of a business or organization. You can’t set a goal to improve passion by 10% and leadership by 30% next year, but you know you have to work on cultivating both.

You can hire someone based on their sense of humor, honesty and friendliness because you know those factors are important to the effectiveness of your work environment. But no one is hired as the one that fills the humor, honesty and friendliness gap on the team the way they would be for their vocational skills.

Nobody doubts these attributes are important in a business environment even though they can’t be easily measured. In fact, when a young person starts out the are likely to cite these skills in a resume to make up for their lack of experience.

The challenge of the arts and culture community then is to create an environment where the value of the presence, or lack thereof, arts/culture/creativity is acknowledged in much the same way rather than something that can be decanted in discrete amounts.

The Safe Thing Is Not Working

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There has been a lot of conversation recently about what to do in light of the Trump Administration’s stated intent to eliminate the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities.

This past weekend Matt Burriesci had a piece on Salon that took a contrarian stance to the effort to bring pressure on Congress to preserve federal funding for arts and culture.

In Burriesci’s view arguing the economic value of the arts in order to get funding for the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities has failed. He admits he has been complicit in perpetuating that rationale and helped send out the call for arts and culture lovers to contact their representatives every time funding was threatened.

I’ve worked in the arts for 25 years. In all that time, I’ve never met a single artist or cultural leader who has said to me, “You know what I’m really passionate about? Improving math scores, creating exports, advancing health care and helping local merchants.”…

The arts and humanities have value because they make us better human beings. That’s basically it. They teach us history and encourage virtue, they help us debate serious issues in a respectful (or sometimes indirect) manner, they make us appreciate beauty, they make us more empathetic and they challenge our own beliefs. All of this helps ensure a skeptical, human and responsible citizenry. And if you don’t think that has value, well — what rock have you been living under?

A humanistic culture does not select a crazy demagogue to lead it. We are no longer a humanistic culture. One of the reasons we are not is because we, as cultural leaders, have abandoned our charge to create that culture, and do so without shame, apology or equivocation.

He argues for a return to advocating arts for arts sake and is pretty critical of the lobbying efforts of organizations like Americans for the Arts. In his view, they have been more interested in trying to make the arts palatable to legislators rather than advancing the values and interests of the arts and culture community which he feels should be nothing more than the intrinsic value of art.

The main reason you have a lobbyist is to advance your priorities as central to the republic, and to preserve those federal agencies and policies that support those priorities. Americans for the Arts has spent years and tens of millions of dollars advancing this neoliberal defense. Have we seen a steady increase in funding for agencies like the NEA and the NEH?…For too long, arts leaders accepted a foolishly low bar for success: the mere preservation of these agencies has been accepted as victory.

He claims, and at this point it is difficult to contradict him, that those that oppose funding for arts and cultural entities have never really cared about all the charts and graphs and studies. The opposition has only delayed the process of de-funding.

But what he suggests as a course of action is difficult and would take some courage to embrace because it abandons the evidence based arguments for less tangible measures.

We can extricate ourselves from this colossal strategic failure, and return to our true business: rebuilding the culture. We should stop being ashamed to believe in a value that cannot be weighed, measured, cut, or quantified — and to try and convince others to believe it, too.

I’ve floated these ideas to a few of my friends who work in the arts — privately, of course, because one never wants to utter such things in public. Almost all of them have said the same thing, and in the same weary, confused voice: “Well, yeah, Burriesci­­, I mean, I agree — but that’s just idealism.”

Yeah.

That’s all it is.

Now whether you believe that purely arguing the merits of arts, humanities, creative and cultural pursuits for their intrinsic value will be compelling, I think you have to concede the point that the terms and perhaps the very nature of the conversation has to change.

As many of you know, I am proponent of the movement to build public will for arts and culture. One of the reasons I like it is because it freely admits there isn’t one specific answer or approach that is correct for every community and situation. That leads me to believe the approach has within it, the potential to provide a better response in the conversation.

There Isn’t A Template For That

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I was really grateful for Aaron Overton’s very first post on ArtsHacker last week.  Aaron is a programmer with a lot of experience in website development for performing arts organizations. (Disclosure: He did some work on the ticketing integration for my day job website.)

In his ArtsHacker post, he talks about how much work goes into making it easy to keep an arts organization website updated and looking good. I had a conversation about that very subject the day before his post appeared. Had I know his piece was coming out, I would have delayed my meeting a day and used the post to bolster my argument.

Because performing arts organizations have an ever changing cycle of events, it can take a lot of work to keep your website current, attractive and put the most relevant information in front of site visitors’ eyes.   Publishing platforms like WordPress make creation and maintenance of websites much easier than it was even 5 years ago, but there is still A LOT of coding that has to occur to make the process of adding and removing content quick, painless and in many cases, automatic.

The back end of my day job’s website has a nice set of orderly field that I can plug event information and images in to and everything appears in its proper place on the website.  About a year ago, I noticed a less than ideal placement of some information and asked my web guy if he could fix it. I was sitting next to him when he made the fix and even though it was easy to accomplish, I got enough of a look under the hood to realize how much work went into making things so simple.

At the time I even remarked that all those ads for build your own website in minutes services like Wix and Squarespace probably made people underestimate how much work went into making websites work well.  Certainly, those sites provide a great service to people and businesses to help them get up and going. But there may come a time in your personal/professional/organizational development where they won’t be enough.

And I made a similar comment in the meeting I had last week.

If you take a look at the first example in Aaron’s post, he mentions desired features that are likely common to many performing arts organizations:

…display headshots of the cast for an event. The set of headshots might have color-tinted photos with the actor’s name displayed on the bottom and some sort of rollover effect that slides in from the bottom when the user hovers or taps.

The client needs to have a pool of actors and be able to build “teams” that can be attached to events. The headshot photos may have many purposes, so they won’t necessarily have a uniform size or aspect ratio.

But to make that happen, he had to consider the following factors:

  • Provide a way for a site manager to create team member profiles with a large headshot photo.
  • Provide a team builder to group team members into ordered lists and note their roles on that team.
  • Create a way to easily place that team on a page for display, along with a few options to allow for different usages.
  • Crop the provided headshots to the right size and aspect ratio.
  • Style the output to account for converting the photos to tinted grayscale.
  • Accommodate different screen sizes and devices so that the final output looks good whether on a desktop or a mobile device.

These are only some of the tasks. During development, many other tasks have revealed themselves as necessary, most of which may have little to do with the final display seen by the site visitor but are necessary to making sure the feature not only works, but is efficient and doesn’t slow down the user experience.

The purpose of Aaron’s post isn’t to tell people to be prepared to pay a lot for a good website. He provides a number of tips about how to approach the design process and conversations you should have with your programmer early on so that you don’t end up paying too much.

Yes, You Do Understand Art

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Last night I gained some additional assurances that everyone has the capacity to comprehend art at a basic level when they encounter it.

Some recent university grads started a “creative cult” here in town. Every month they have some sort of activity at a different place. The specific activity is never announced in advance, only the basic theme. The first one was the “Induction Ceremony,” the second was “World Building” and last night was “The Definition of Art.” These are quick, fun group activities that run about an hour and attract 40-50 people each time.

Last night attendees were split into three groups, each which assembled near a table full of found objects. We were given a prompt and told not to reveal it to any of the other teams. We were told to brainstorm for 5-10 minutes and write and sketch what that meant to us on large sheets of butcher paper. Then we were set loose to construct something representing our prompt using the objects on the table.

Every table had different supplies. Among the things are on our table were card board, a watering can, a golf club, magazines, Christmas ornaments, bubble wrap, drone bumpers, string, birthday decorations, scissors, tape and glue.

After the assembling period was done, we were given another sheet and told to rotate counter clockwise to the other team tables at set intervals to discuss and write down what we thought their piece represented.

When that phase was done, the teams that didn’t create a piece talked about what they thought it was all about.

Let me just say, given the materials on hand and time available for construction by committee, there wasn’t much opportunity to create realistic depictions of the prompts.  In fact, at one point, we were told that all the materials we were provided needed to appear on our table in context of our piece which probably further muddied the waters.

Not only did the guesses for each piece have commonalities, but some of the options suggested either hit the target exactly or were close enough that game show judges would have accepted the answer.

Not every individual’s initial guess was correct, but as a group walking around and discussing each piece, a reasonable sense of the concept behind it emerged.  Looking at the pieces through the lens of the “wrong” answers often made them more interesting than the correct ones.

The guys who organized the event were really pleased because they weren’t sure that people would be able to accurately discern the source prompts when they created the activity.  I was excited by their excitement over achieving their goal.

Part of their goal was exactly as I suggested earlier — to show people that they had the capacity to comprehend some basic things about an abstract representation.

I would say they also wanted to show people they had the capacity to communicate concepts via abstract representations except the underlying goal of the whole creative cult effort is about empowering people in regard to their creativity.

While obviously not as good as having been there, here is a little bit of video taken of the pieces after the event. I was going to see if readers could guess what the prompts were, but the guys put them in the description.  In order of appearance, Batman, the Lincoln Memorial and Wendy’s 4×4 (we guessed Wendy’s)

Supporting Coverage Of The Cultural Organizations You Support

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Yesterday on ye olde Twitter feed came a story about how two Buffalo, NY area arts & culture funders were helping to establish an arts and culture desk at a local public radio station.

I don’t recall who distributed the link but what drew me to it was the question in the post about whether this might be a new mode of funding for arts coverage.

In case you missed it, both the New York Times and Wall Street Journal announced last year that they were constricting their arts and culture coverage, joining other news and media sources that had made the same decision in the past.

A press release about establishing the news desk says the intent is to cover groups, disciplines and topics that often get overlooked:

…Arts Services Initiative of Western New York Executive Director Tod A. Kniazuk said. “The establishment of this desk means that culturals of all sizes and disciplines, and artists in all mediums and stages of their careers, will have a greater opportunity to get the message out about their work and its impact.”

…explained Stanton H. Hudson, Jr., Executive Director of the TR Site…And, through a dedicated arts and culture news desk at WBFO, artists and cultural organizations will be provided enhanced opportunities for listeners to experience their work, which often address historical and contemporary social, religious, political, and cultural issues and provide a framework for exploring challenging and difficult subjects.”

A column on the Artvoice paper site applauded the decision, citing the importance of coverage for small cultural groups and how they sustained Buffalo through the tough times

This can be a particular threat to the smaller, edgier, scrappier, low budget venues, tucked into warehouse or storefront spaces, hidden in basements or abandoned social halls. These venues depend upon coverage in mainstream media to attract new audiences.

In Buffalo, where small venues have arguably sustained the city through its hard times and fueled its burgeoning renaissance, it is dangerous to neglect or abandon this aspect of a diverse and lively arts scene.

To get back to the question that lead me to the article, is this a sign of things to come? Will community foundations need to support some sort of system of coverage for the arts and cultural organizations in their community?

Will arts and cultural organizations kick in funding to support such coverage? If so, it might be best funneled through an arts council in order to avoid accusations of favoritism to those who paid the most or the emergence of a pay for review system that caused a controversy in Los Angeles.

While I do wonder if reviews are really as important as word of mouth/social media any more, and it might vary by community, I do think general coverage of news, activity and trends can be important for the cultural health of a community. Reviews and stories about specific events only provide a snapshot of an instance. Conversations about long term initiatives, trends and developments can be particularly of value because they communicate overarching information that can be missed when we are so focused on what is immediately in front of us.

I am not saying subsidized coverage of culture shouldn’t call attention to particular groups and events. Just that it is often easier for an organization to catch and engage momentary attention than it is to communicate the arc of progress or illuminate the entire cultural ecology of a community. That is where the real value of coverage by a media organization can lie.

Arts Aren’t Great Because Great Men Say They Are

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Since the news started going around last week that the Trump administration was looking to de-fund the NEA, NEH and PBS, there have been a ton of memes circulating quoting Winston Churchill refusing to defund the arts during the Second World War saying, “…then what are we fighting for?”

Except, as I wrote four years ago, that story is completely apocryphal. He never said that. He said some things close to that and the precursor of the Arts Council of England was formed in 1940 ““to show publicly and unmistakably that the Government cares about the cultural life of the country. This country is supposed to be fighting for civilisation.”

Yes, it may be a little pedantic to call out the error, but given that fake news is a topic of frequent discussion these days, I think accuracy may be the best policy.

As I was re-reading that post of four years ago, I noticed that included a story about how Lincoln insisted on completing the dome of the Capitol during the Civil War so that people could see the government would continue. And how Roosevelt cited that story when he was dedicating the National Gallery. And how Kennedy cited both Lincoln and Roosevelt when asking for public support of the arts saying they,

“‘understood that the life of the arts, far from being an interruption, a distraction, in the life of the nation, is very close to the center of a nation’s purpose- and is a test of the quality of a nation’s civilization.”

I was left hoping that the Lincoln story was true because it was the foundation of rationales made by subsequent presidents.

But the real question is, are the arts only great because important people have said they are? Do the arts become less worthwhile if we can’t find important people to vindicate their value? If Lin-Manuel Miranda decides next week it is all about fly fishing, will arts, culture and creative expression be abandoned in droves? (More likely than not hordes of people would track Miranda down to a stream in Montana and serenade him.)

Famous people can be the focus or public face for will and effort, but they are not the will. Often that famous face is not required. What famous people did all the marches of this past weekend coalesce around?

Creative expression doesn’t need a famous face behind it to matter. It doesn’t need a million people to march before it matters. Though those numbers certainly make a cause compelling and something you ignore at your own peril.

I don’t look at the folder of supportive comments I collect for grant reports and think wistfully it would be great to have a quote from a famous person instead of these 50 comments from nobodies.

I am pretty cynical about this perennial threat of defunding arts and culture. I see it akin to an older kid holding a toy over a toilet bowl and threatening to drop it in. Whether they ultimately drop it in or not, the kid seems to revel in the reaction the threat elicits.

I don’t think an argument accompanying a picture of Winston Churchill is any more compelling to decision makers than a picture of any one of us saying the same thing so we might as well get in the practice of standing behind our own sentiments.

In terms of getting people to act to support the arts, I suspect for a large percentage of people on your social media feed, your picture and statement of support is going to be a lot more compelling than Winston Churchill’s.

Does Creative Placemaking Work? It’s Complicated

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Back in November Slover Linett released the results of a multi-year study on creative placemaking. The study was primarily focused on the impact that music pavilion and band shells that the Levitt Foundation has constructed or renovated across the country.

In the process of discussing the results of the study, the study authors made some very interesting statements about the process and goals of creative placemaking. In particular, they say that measuring the economic impact of creative placemaking is not an accurate measure of the value of creative placemaking in the community.

If you have been reading this blog over the last few months, you probably know that I have been increasingly advocating that the value of the arts should not be measured in terms of impact on economy, education, etc., so these statements were of particular interest to me.

In the executive summary they talk about how assessments of creative placemaking effectiveness have changed:

At first, creative placemaking assessment efforts were focused on developing “indicators” of change and success: new frameworks for bringing together a variety of data points that are related to intended creative placemaking outcomes, which can be tracked over time to gauge the impact of the investment in creative placemaking initiatives. But it has since become clear that the indicators approach has real limitations, especially with respect to connecting changes in the indicators with specific features or activities of any given creative placemaking project

As the authors looked at creative placemaking and the research that has been done in regard to it, they found that there were myriad factors inherent to each neighborhood that contributed to any improvement or lack thereof so it was difficult to credit placemaking for improving conditions. Also no one is consistently gathering data on some other factors that have relevance. (my emphasis)

One objection was that, because data for the indicators is usually collected on a relatively broad geographic level as well as a broad, somewhat abstract conceptual level (based on hard-to-define notions like economic vitality, vibrancy, and livability), it’s virtually impossible to connect any given creative placemaking project with observed change (or lack of change) in the indicators. Another concern was that defining the indicators at such a broad, conceptual level failed to respond to each creative placemaking project’s unique goals, vision, and starting point. [Ian David] Moss argued that there was essentially no mechanism for connecting the Endowment’s investments in Our Town projects to the indicators one sees. A project could be entirely successful on its own terms but fail to move the needle in a meaningful way in its city or neighborhood. Or it could be caught up in a wave of transformation sweeping the entire community, and wrongly attribute that wave to its own efforts. There’s simply no way for us to tell.

Now if this is the case for creative placemaking efforts, it raises a question about whether one could truly draw a connection between construction/renovation/expansion of a facility or introduction of a new program initiative and positive economic outcomes in a city or neighborhood. To some extent these statements seems to suggest that many claims of economic impact by arts entities outside of their direct spending are on shaky ground and may need to be re-evaluated.

On the other hand, a placemaking effort could appear to have had no benefit when measured in terms of economic impact, but had a substantial positive social impact. Of course, a positive economic impact may have a negative social impact as residents are dispossessed by gentrification.

In our view, the indicators systems also often unintentionally favored economic vitality and livability over outcomes related to building a community’s social capital, in large part because there is little or no national, regularly collected data on levels of empowerment, self-efficacy, social bonding, or social bridging—concepts which may be more subjective than economic indicators but are central goals of many creative placemaking efforts and are widely considered critical components of the social health of a place. As a result, some practitioners argued that the indicators-based approach to measuring the impact of creative placemaking could privilege projects that are economically beneficial but may actually diminish the social capital of a community and its members—for instance, by highlighting the economic impact of creative placemaking investments without reckoning with unintended consequences like gentrification on those who might be displaced because of rising property values.

If you think I have been overly idealistic in advocating for a consideration of the intrinsic value of art, here is a little bit of evidence of a shift toward seeing the less easily quantifiable impacts as valid and worthy goals.

As I am sure my frequent interlocutor Carter Gillies would point out, valuing the arts for positive social impact is still something of a prescriptive view of the arts rather than prizing the intrinsic value. But it feels like a step in the right direction to look at the benefits to human relationships over commerce.

I Am Not Really An Artist, But…

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I often talk about the difficulty people have in seeing themselves as creative or as regularly participating in a creative pursuit. I was reminded recently that it can be the off-handed depreciating remarks we make that can reinforce this view.

Yesterday we were meeting with the outside consultant that is going to help us with the arts listening tour we are conducting in our community. The consultant listened to us talk about our goals for the sessions and perceptual, economic and physical barriers people experience that we hoped to learn about.

At a certain point in the conversation she stopped us and said that when she taught class she often gave assignments that required some creative component, in part because reading and grading multi-page papers is pretty burdensome.

She said after listening to us talk, she recognized that when she would give an assignment, she would often preface it by saying, “I’m not an artist….” or “I can’t draw…” She realized that was contrary to the her goal in giving the assignment. In addition, it was giving people permission/excuse not to really try.

She said in the future she would stop using those phrases and instead say, “I don’t have formal training as an artist, but this is how I represent this concept/process visually and it makes sense to me.”

We often say if we can change the life of even one person, we will be content. We haven’t even executed our project and we have already had an impact!

When we comment that we can’t draw, act, dance, sing, etc, it is often to excuse our perceived lack of ability. Or, as is the case in this classroom setting, in an attempt to alleviate any pressure people may feel about needing to produce something of quality on demand.

But it also perpetuates the idea that we are not possessed of any ability whatsoever. That isn’t true. Who hasn’t doodled in their notebook, sung in the shower, lip-synched, danced and pantomimed like no one was watching?

I don’t know if our consultant’s alternative phrasing is the most ideal. I would love to hear other people’s thoughts. But I think it is a start in the right direction.

Perhaps more importantly, her moment of self-reflection forced me to recognize that even as a person who works in the arts, I have probably prefaced an attempt at creative expression by saying “I’m not a…” I am sure I am not the only one either.

Asking Boards What They Think Of Themselves

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A few arts organizations in my community are partnering to conduct an arts listening tour where we will go out into the community and try to get a sense of what the barriers to participation for different groups might be. We met with the outside facilitator today so she could get a sense of what we wanted to do and help us avoid inhibiting honest discussion.

She mentioned that one of her major focuses is non-profit boards and that research on board effectiveness is almost exclusively conducted by talking to the executive officer of the organization rather than the board members. She said if you asked the boards themselves they would probably have a different view about their effectiveness.

She told us this to emphasize the importance of including the people we wanted to know about as listening tour participants rather than asking other groups why they thought people in those demographics weren’t engaged. The need to involve those who were not already engaged in our activities has been at the forefront of our mind since we started planning this project.

Later in the day the facilitator’s anecdote came back to me and lead to me to wonder, how many executive officers ask their board to reflect on their effectiveness. How many boards ask it of themselves? How many discuss the differences and similarities between the directors’ and executive officer’s perceptions?

I know this gets into uncomfortable territory. I actually stumbled into it recently when I mentioned my perception of my board’s decision making process to the board president, citing specific examples. To her credit she thanked me for reflecting something they were too close to see and brought it up at a board meeting.

Not all issues are that easily addressed and not all board dynamics allow for these sort of discussions. Perhaps the first step is to work on changing the dynamics.

If it is true that most of the research about the actions, attitudes and effectiveness of boards of directors is derived from what the organizations’ executive officers say about them, maybe the boards have been unfairly maligned and should be given an opportunity to respond.

(And I know there are a lot of people reading this thinking, no they haven’t and no they shouldn’t, but try to get past that.)

Today being the observation of Martin Luther King, Jr’s birthday, it is appropriate to think about all of our relationships that seem antagonistic to some degree and make us feel uneasy and fearful about acting to resolve. Not all movements need to be large and public impacting thousands. Sometimes they can be small, private and personal impacting a handful.

Theatre of Education

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There is a lot of conversation in the performing arts about potential audiences not seeing themselves or their stories up on stage. If this is something that concerns you, you may want to take some pointers from a New Yorker article about an immersive play experience in Chicago.

Set in an old school, Learning Curve, was created in cooperation with “fifty teen-agers … drawing on their own experiences, and on dozens of interviews with teachers, parents, administrators, and peers” in an attempt to communicate what it is like to attend Chicago city schools.

Similar to other immersive theater pieces like Sleep No More and The Donkey Show, attendee-participants follow a “choose-your-own-adventure” track through the experience.

Each scene lasts just a few minutes but manages, with depth and candor, to make a serious point about the personal and political stew that is public education.

My track that evening brought me to a chaotic advanced Spanish class, where a flustered teacher fought for control of her students while impatiently accommodating a timid new pupil. A real teacher in attendance remarked afterward, “Yup, that’s exactly what school’s like.” Next, I visited a distracted guidance counselor, who informed me that several of my classes were no longer available owing to budget cuts. “You can thank Rahm for that,” he said, referring to Chicago’s mayor. In another intimate scene, I spied a teacher cheating on standardized tests. When caught, she defended herself. “What am I supposed to do? Let the state slap you in the face and call you failures?” Later, I took this same test, frantically filling in bubbles with a No. 2 pencil while tortured by the ticks of an amplified clock. How quickly that very particular brand of panic returns! But then I assisted in a clever prom proposal, in a janitor’s closet, complete with a guitar and a disco ball, and remembered that, for all of high school’s angst, it provides many small moments of wonder.

While the work was intended to illustrate the experiences of the students, whom the article author terms “silent shareholders,” it engendered “sympathy for the elusive authority figures in their lives” among the student creators. Teachers, seeing students depict them, in turn recognized some of their choices contributed to the stresses their students experience.

Looking at the immersive format in this context, it seems obvious (though it hadn’t occurred to me earlier) that it can be used for more than presenting exciting re-imagined tellings of Shakespearean stories and be a tool for dialogue and social change.

Did anyone in the Chicago area happen to see the show and wants to share their own impressions?

Volunteering Ain’t Free

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Somewhat apropos of yesterday’s post, Non-Profit Quarterly had a post about Phoenix Comicon’s recent decision to charge volunteers to work their convention.

I am not sure this is really a scandalous decision given that many outdoor festivals I know have had this policy for going on two decades. The more controversial aspect might be that the Con is a for-profit company that was requiring people to become members of a 501 (c) (7) non-profit for which the Con leadership were officers in order to become volunteers. Many objected that this was a major conflict of interest.

But as the Non Profit Quarterly noted (and as I suggested yesterday), co-ordinating the work of volunteers ain’t cheap:

Finally, for charitable nonprofits, or 501(c)(3) organizations, requesting payment for volunteering is an increasingly popular practice, and one that helps organizations sustain their operations—and, in particular, recruit, manage, and sustain the volunteer workforce they often rely upon. While it can feel counterintuitive for volunteers to pay to serve, the effort required for nonprofits to absorb and deploy a volunteer workforce is significant. As both formal corporate volunteer programs and solo entrepreneurs looking to build up their client base increase, volunteers are a plentiful resource for 501(c)(3) organizations. It’s critical to balance the value these volunteers deliver with the cost it takes to engage them.

Another reason to charge volunteers many event organizers, both for and non-profit, will cite is that it shows investment and provides incentive to actually work their shift. As someone who has run an outdoor music festival, I can attest that there is always a segment of the volunteer base that sign up just to get free admission to the event. According to a re-post of a letter by Phoenix Comic-con’s director, combating no-shows and reining in ballooning staffing was the primary reason for pursuing a pay to volunteer model.  In the last few days, they have re-evaluated their decision to have volunteers register as members of the aligned non-profit.

If You Give Me More Helping Hands, Give Me More Cash

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The idea of mandatory national service gets bandied about a lot, especially during presidential election years. This year it seemed to pop up more frequently due to the proposals for free college tuition being floated by some of the candidates. People were suggesting at the very least those who received free tuition needed to reciprocate in some fashion such as national service in the military, Peace Corps, Americorps, etc.

Last week a discussion held by a local public radio station on the pros and cons of mandatory service came across my social media feed. The host and his guests made a lot of good points about the cons, not the least of which is that people are supportive of the idea for younger people, but when you suggest a mandatory service of even one hour a month for all citizens, there is fierce resistance.

Most of the negative outcomes they mentioned were from the point of view of those who would be providing service. Something they overlooked was the fact that there is expense involved in administering a service program, regardless of whether the participants are being paid or not. This is true whether the service is military or civil. I am going to mostly address it from the civil side, but the basic factors are almost identical. This issue is overlooked pretty much everywhere I could find a national service discussion online.

Supervisory infrastructure, materials, equipment, space, facilities and dozens of other details are necessary if there are any expectations of a meaningful experience with meaningful outcomes from a mandatory service experience.

Mandatory service on a national or even state level can be a boon to the work that non-profits and other service organizations do, but it will require a significant increase in capacity building funding from some combination of governments and foundations. Otherwise having service workers becomes more of a hindrance than a help to an organization.

This issue needs to be raised a lot more emphatically when these ideas are discussed. Otherwise, people will be looking askance at the non-profit sector wondering how it could be screwing things up so badly when they were being provided with the service of 3 million high school graduates every year.

I think it is too easy to equate added labor with industrial productivity and revenue generation and see mandatory service as a boon to organizational sustainability. But very little work non-profit organizations do generates revenue. Being able to teach more children will require more space and instructional supplies. Being able to feed more homeless or elderly will require more food, vehicles and food preparation equipment. Being able to provide health services to people will require more space, medicine, diagnostic equipment.

More capacity to do these things means more money than ever will be spent. Unfortunately, the organizations’ capacity to generate the money to cover these costs probably won’t increase a whit.

The only area in which I could see any sort of return on investment would be in terms of the old WPA type infrastructure projects. If you have people planting trees that can be harvested decades down the road, clearing/creating parks that can be used to generate revenue or gentrify an area to increase the tax base, then you might tie a tangible result to the service. However, a lot of the needed services have intangible results.

So yes, ultimately the nation would be more unified and healthier for having a stronger ethic of service. But getting there ain’t free.

If You’re Happy Cause Your Boss Knows It Clap Your Hands

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Here is a little topic of discussion for you– Does having a boss that is an arts industry insider make for a happier work environment than working for one that comes from outside the arts?

In Harvard Business Review, researchers found that having an insider for a boss made for a happier environment.

Using these three measures of supervisor competence, we found that employees are far happier when they are led by people with deep expertise in the core activity of the business. This suggests that received wisdom about what makes a good boss may need some rethinking. It’s not uncommon to hear people assert that it’s a bad idea to promote an engineer to lead other engineers, or an editor to lead other editors. A good manager doesn’t need technical expertise, this argument goes, but rather, a mix of qualities like charisma, organizational skills, and emotional intelligence. Those qualities do matter, but what our research suggests is that the oft-overlooked quality of having technical expertise also matters enormously.

[…]

When we look closely at the data, a striking pattern emerges. The benefit of having a highly competent boss is easily the largest positive influence on a typical worker’s level of job satisfaction. Even we were surprised by the size of the measured effect. For instance, among American workers, having a technically competent boss is considerably more important for employee job satisfaction than their salary (even when pay is really high).

[…]

Moreover, we saw that when employees stayed in the same job but got a new boss, if the new boss was technically competent, the employees’ job satisfaction subsequently rose.

I am sure we can all think of personal experiences that reinforce or disprove these findings.

Something I was wondering as I read this article was what category to use when define deep expertise for a non-profit arts executive. Is it “arts” or “non-profit”? I have noticed that if they didn’t come up through the ranks in an arts field, non-profit arts executive directors and presidents often seem to come from the healthcare field.

Since the job description of non-profit CEOs seems to focus so much on fund raising these days, the non-profit category is probably the defining characteristic for the financial health of the organization, but what impact, if any, does that have on work satisfaction in the organization? (Obviously, I mean when the leader comes from any non-arts non-profit. I am not picking on healthcare.)

We often hear rumblings about the arts being too insular and needing outside perspectives. Is it really the case that arts people don’t have the capacity to innovate in their approach or is it the case of received wisdom akin to engineers not leading other engineers?

Thoughts?

Joe Patti's Musings on practical solutions for Arts Management

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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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