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Trying New Things With No Apparent Benefit

March 18, 2013

by:

Joe Patti

Something a former employer has started doing has reminded me to always keep your options and mind open even if the potential value is unclear.

I used to coordinate the operations for the Appel Farm Arts and Music Festival. A few years ago, one of the board members, (now executive director), had the idea to offer a 25 mile bike ride on the festival day. I believe this year will be the third year they are doing it.

Because the festival is outdoors in a rural area, having a bike ride does fit the vibe of the event and the lifestyle of many of those who attend. But I gotta tell you, it would have never occurred to me that people would be up for a 25 mile ride followed by a full day attending an arts and music festival.

Just thinking about it is exhausting to me. Also, most of the audience does not live in the immediate area. Will people really want to haul their bikes to south Jersey to do this ride and attend the festival?

Just based on my experience living where I do now, I know there are enough bike enthusiasts who won’t hesitate to answer yes to all of the above. 10 years ago, I would have discounted the idea. And in fact, maybe all the elements weren’t in place to make it an attractive option back then.

As the guy responsible for all the logistics for the event, there are details related to adding the ride that would have concerned me and made me resist it. But there was a good volunteer corps that supported the festival so none of the details would have been too troubling in the end.

I applaud them for making the initial investment of time and energy to try it out. It is easy to advocate for experimenting and trying new things, but there are always practical considerations. The festival is a big event and to add something new diverts attention away from the core activity.

It may sound simple to gather a bunch of people on bikes, send them on a ride and make sure to have water and snacks available at the planned rest stops. There is still a lot of planning and tracking involved with the ride and I imagine the festival staff and volunteers make it look a lot easier than it is.

I think that it can sometimes be easier to diverge from the core mission of the organization in order to chase funding and grant money, but more difficult to add activities which complement existing programs but do not have a clear potential for financial gain.

I am not saying this was the case with the bike ride. They may have seen the opportunity to add 50 new attendees for all I know. I am just observing what is a potential paradox of just about any business. It is easy to get sidetracked by the prospect of new opportunities to the detriment of enhancing the value of existing conditions.

People may think that doing something with no apparent benefit is the cornerstone of a non-profit organization’s existence, but living and working under that philosophy doesn’t make the decisions any easier–especially when you are frequently enjoined to act more like a business.

Business Models, creativity, New Initiatives

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Respect To The Loyal User

March 13, 2013

by:

Joe Patti

So it appears that Google is phasing out its Reader service. This is rather annoying because it is the way I follow the vast majority of blogs. Given that it appears they are also phasing out Feedburner, it looks like the writing is on the wall that Google is no longer interested in helping people follow blogs.

So if you are subscribing to this blog via Feedburner, I encourage you to subscribe to my blog directly by using the subscribe by email field to the right——>

I have seen a fair bit of annoyance and anger over the impending disappearance of Google Reader. The strongest came from Maria Popova:

(The language is a little strong so I am placing it after the fold)

Audience Relations, Marketing/PR, State of the Arts

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Toward Better Organizational Self-Evaluation

March 12, 2013

by:

Joe Patti

I have been thinking a bit more on my post about when you get your first hint that things aren’t going well for your organization. I haven’t thought up any more interesting warning signs, but I have been thinking about the “after action” conversations between staff members I mentioned.

It isn’t necessarily a sign that things are going downhill, but I do think at least a semi-formal post mortem discussion that leads to action is necessary for the health of the organization. If people gather around the water cooler, talk about how great the show was, sigh “if only more people were in the audience” and then go back to their desks leaving it to the marketing department to fix or hoping things are better next time around, that isn’t really constructive.

I have worked for companies where a post mortem discussion focused on the technical issues that needed to be fixed/learned from the next time around, but I have come to realize that development, marketing and audience services need to be given equal time. And they need to be at the same meeting with the technicians.

I will be the first to admit I don’t do this to the extent I am envisioning it should be done as I write this.

There may be smaller meetings prior to the post mortem where each department collects their thoughts so they can summarize their victories and challenges and keep the meeting short. But if you are going to embrace the idea that responsibility for marketing and development are shared across the organization, then every department probably needs to be largely present.

It is too easy otherwise for those who are not present to feel disconnected and uninvested in the central goals of the organization, inhibiting long term progress.

It can be easy to address concrete technical problems like broken equipment and missed cues. It is more difficult to figure out intangible things like how to attract audiences and motivate volunteers. When the decision is made to have a cabaret in the lobby prior shows in order to engage audiences as they arrive, it is better that the tech people were in on that entire discussion and know the motivation rather than being told they now needs to support a cabaret before every show.

Probably annually there should be a discussion about whether what the organization is doing is working. The ultimate decision will be up to the board, but the staff are all experts in their respective fields. They may be best positioned to say whether what the organization is doing is working. If the season is programmed out of a sense of obligation (seven shows, Shakespeare in the Fall, Musical in the Spring) rather than as an acknowledgement of the current operating environment and community, then the impetus for change and the supporting evidence may need to come from the organization’s staff.

Admittedly, it is difficult to move against the inertia of an organization’s history and business model for both staff and board. I don’t know that a staff would initiate a radical change. On the other hand, if they were regularly involved with providing feedback and saw it was often acted up, who know what people might feel empowered to suggest.

The impetus for this post came not only from thinking about the warning signs post from last month, but also thinking about a post I did from a year about about founding arts organizations with planned expiration dates. Though I thought expiration dates are a great idea, I wondered if anyone would have the fortitude to do it.

From there my thoughts turned to the concept that any business should always strive to do things a little better the next time around. I figure there is a better chance of arts organizations putting a self-evaluation process in place than planning for their own demise. Given that, I started thinking about what practices need to be in place to allow an arts organization to be responsive to changing times?

What I would really be interested in is knowing if anyone works for any sort of organization or business that has institutionalized a really effective self-reflective process like this. What about the corporate/organizational culture has made it so effective?

People will avoid the mechanical imposition of this sort of structure so there needs to be some whole hearted investment by the employees. I would bet that any organization that does a good job examining themselves also has a highly effective personnel review process.

Boards, Business Models, Leadership, Working In The Arts

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Be The Propaganda You Wish To See

March 11, 2013

by:

Joe Patti

Last Monday was March 4, according to my grandmother, the most commanding day of the year. (March Forth!). I am guessing other people’s grandmothers must have used the same line because last Monday there were a lot of hits on the post I did nine years earlier called The Most Commanding Day of the Year.

My grandmother had a lot of funny turns of phrase that she used to entertain and trick her grandkids. She was also very proud of being Irish (though she was second or third generation in the U.S.).

Now I have more German than Irish in my background from grandparents on both sides, but I didn’t realize that until I was much older thanks to my grandmother’s constant propaganda about how wonderful the Irish are and how wonderful it was that we were Irish.

I never recognized how much influence that had over my life. I have never been rabidly Irish, even on St. Patrick’s Day. However, two weeks ago I was listening to a Deutsche Welle report on how successful Ireland has been at achieving their goals while holding the European Union presidency. I felt a this sense of pride in Ireland’s accomplishment even though I only have a vague idea of how the EU presidency works.

I have generally been cynical about the effectiveness of constantly telling kids that they are smartest and most talented because reality tends to rear its ugly head a vast majority of the time and they realize they don’t measure up to the billing.

My recognition of my reaction to the Ireland story gave me some insight into the power of reinforcing ideas for kids as the grow up. It has started me thinking about the long term benefits of encouragement absent of specific value, consistently telling kids they can be artistic and creative without necessarily saying they are the most creative in class or specifying what being a successful artist looks like.

I know this sounds very vague and touchie-feelie and I will be the first to admit that I have no data to back this up.

I do know that many experts encourage parents to praise the process rather than the result– praise the hard work that went into preparing for a test rather than telling a kid they are smart for scoring so high. That way there is a sense of cause and effect behind a failure and how it might be resolved rather than a total sense of loss and bewilderment when the natural ability you have been told you possess seems to have abandoned you.

The idea that exposing and involving kids in the arts at a young age is important is barely news to any of us. My purpose in writing this post is to point to just how subtle and pervasive cultivating part a person’s identity as a child can be.

In terms of my Irishness, my grandmother’s influence was reinforced by the fact I lived an hour outside of NYC, one of the great bastions of Irish identity in the U.S.

But though my grandmother has been dead over a decade now, my immediate family, uncles and cousins inevitably bond over obscure “holidays” like March 4. My mother and I talked about it on March 3 and though neither of us spoke to my sister, she emailed out about the most commanding day of the year to my siblings and cousins on March 4.

If you think about it, there is probably some equally peculiar element from your own upbringing that influences you to this day. Considering all this, it may be helpful over the long term to include phrases like “what do you like to do?,” “what have you created lately?” in every day conversation with kids of all ages.

(By the way, I haven’t appropriated the saying commonly attributed to Gandhi for my title. There is no evidence he said it. But as with all evidence debunking misattributions, the research is pretty interesting.)

Art(ist) Education, General Musings

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