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What Must They Think Of Us

February 15, 2012

by:

Joe Patti

In diplomacy terms, soft power is a nation’s culture and values as opposed to their economic and military power. Some institutions like McDonalds and Apple cross some of the boundaries between these three areas. For better or for worse, they represent aspects of both U.S. culture and economic power. This week I came across a blog post on the Voice of America (another channel of U.S. soft power) by a student from China who is studying in North Dakota.

I was a little chagrined to learn that everything Dandan knew about the U.S. before coming here, she learned from soap operas.

“When I was still in China, the only American art or entertainment I knew about was the American soap operas. In fact, I got my initial impression of America from “Criminal Minds,” “Sex and the City,” “Gossip Girl” and so on. Although these soap operas were quite ridiculous, even to my eyes, I still believed that most often they presented what was really going on in America.

These soap operas told me that the crimes in America almost existed everywhere and could be extremely disgusting, that everyone has sex and is open about talking about it, and that people in the Upper East Side were presumptuous and arrogant.

Yet when I came to America, the first lesson I learned from my classmates was that soap operas are not as popular as I expected, at least not amongst college students. Lots of people I know haven’t even watched one episode of those “famous” soap operas.

She goes on to talk about how impressed she was by a college theatre production. She also quite taken with her participation in a slavery simulation where she was sold in slave auction and escaped into the night hiding with others in basements until they reached freedom in Minnesota.

I think the arts community may need to add “tools of positive diplomacy” to the rationale for funding and look into getting on the State Department’s cultural ambassador program expanded. There is a lot of counteracting of our national image that apparently needs to be done abroad and we don’t always have to send the big symphonies, Broadway tours and ballets overseas in order to accomplish it. Not everyone is going to be able to see the big American company in the big performance hall in the major city. Smaller groups can bring interesting experiences to other places within countries.

Sure, it is in the best interests of some countries if the citizens have a poor impression of the United States. I figure if we can negotiate to have our military based placed on foreign soil, we must have the skills to create more opportunities for expressions of U.S. culture abroad. China, France and Germany have their Confucius Institutes, Alliance Francaise, and Goethe-Institut, respectively. The U.S. has the Peace Corps as one of its exemplar soft power organizations. Maybe we need an Arts and Culture Corps, too.

Honestly, I think the need and benefit of cultural exposure is probably mutual. U.S. citizens need the experience of traveling and performing abroad as much as people of other cultures need to be exposed to something other than our television programs.

General Musings, State of the Arts

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Stuff To Ponder: What About Engaging Arts Organizations?

February 14, 2012

by:

Joe Patti

Taking up where I left off yesterday, one of the last things I mentioned was that arts people might have an easier time shifting their perceptions to be more inclusive of what constitutes artistic practice and works of art than the general public might.

The thing is, while arts people may be more able to make the shift in thinking, they may not think it is necessary unless the necessity of doing so is pointed out to them. There is a lot of effort being made on a national, regional and local level to communicate the benefits of the arts to the general public but there isn’t a complementary effort to let the arts community know what their role is.

You can help in that effort by passing on or retweeting this post! 😉

But really, I recently realized the effort to get the general public to invest in the arts is a little one sided. Americans for the Arts will run ads telling people there are things they can do give their kids more arts experiences but most of the burden is on the parents to go online to the Americans for the Arts site and seek out arts organizations in their community. There may be an assumption that whatever arts organizations are doing to generate public awareness of themselves will be enough.

While Americans for the Arts had some requirements if you wanted to partner in their last kids and the arts campaign, what perhaps they should have also done is gone to the arts organizations and said, listen, we are going to run a slew of ads in your area encouraging people to take their kids to performances and museums and sign them up for classes. We are going to tell them to look for this little smiley guy logo. You can benefit by putting this logo on your website, in your ads and on the side of your building like the Safe Place logo they have on fire stations so people can easily identify organizations that offer these services.

The NEA starting a long term campaign communicating a “its all art and you should be reaching out” message to arts organizations through various channels would help to get arts organizations on the same page with them. That way the arts groups can start providing a public message complementary to the NEA’s and begin to shift themselves and the community to a more inclusive mindset.

Heck, what might actually be effective is a national campaign like the one Dominos recently ran that acknowledges people’s complaints about arts experiences. It could simultaneously address public sentiment and let arts organizations know they have a responsibility in the relationship as well.

Of course, lacking the unified will of a corporation, the campaign can’t make concrete promises of improvement across the arts sector. And honestly, unless it was incredibly well-designed and coordinated, it could alienate the general public, arts organizations or both.

But it would also be the first time that these issues were acknowledged and addressed nationally. Those of us who regularly read blogs and attend conferences are likely well aware of the need for change. But many arts people, including board members, aren’t participating in these conversations and may not be as aware of the shifting realities. This would put the topic front and center.

There isn’t just a need to do a better job of communicating our message to our local community, we need to apply the same techniques to communicating among ourselves. Which may in turn increase the number of organizations effectively communicating with their local communities.

There are already a few communication channels being used to rally arts organizations and their supporters to contact their legislators prior to crucial votes. Those are a good starting point to mobilize arts organizations but the message needs to come from different sources: blogs, television, radio, YouTube video, tweets, Facebook. In other words, the same channels we are urged to use to engage our communities can be used to engage arts organizations.

Whatever the message is needs to be light and encouraging rather than declarative and directive. Just like our audiences, arts organizations should be hearing more from their national, state and local leadership than OHMYGOD! THEYAREALLAGAINSTUS YOUMUSTMOBILIZENOW!

There should be Van Goghurt commercials made to encourage arts organizations to do better and point out resources organizational leaders can consult.

The nonprofit arts world in the U.S. is so decentralized it is hard to effectively communicate with most of the organizations. If the government provided higher levels of funding, more organizations might have closer relationships with central funders and it would be easier to provide training and information in best practices. For many it is not worth the effort required to apply, so they remain unidentified and out of touch with service organizations.

Instead of providing a few arts organizations with the funds to improve community participation, maybe foundations/funders should focus on establishing stronger channels of communication and relationships between service organizations/arts councils and arts groups, as well as between the arts groups themselves. Once that is achieved, instead of many individual organizations trying to re-invent the wheel alone, they may become better aware of the practices of those around them which will hopefully translate over time into a community engaged with the arts rather than with specific arts organizations.

As it is now, the best engagement practices developed by the exemplar organizations being funded will only be disseminated to a few hundred people attending a conference or reading a report. Better engagement and communication between arts groups and the arts councils/organizations that serve them could multiply the impact.

Advocacy, Art(ist) Education, Arts in an Age of Technology, Info You Can Use, Leadership, State of the Arts

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What Is Art? What Is Craft? Whadda I Care?

February 13, 2012

by:

Joe Patti

Philosophy professor Mike LaBossiere has an entry on Creativity Post in which he discusses the issue of defining art. He cites one of the creators of the Penny Arcade web comic, Jerry Holkin, recent statement resisting conventional definitions of art.

“I don’t think I’ve ever read a definition for art that wasn’t stupid. Generally speaking, when a person constructs a thought-machine of this kind, what they’re actually trying to do is determine what isn’t art. I have always been white trash, and will never cease to be so; what that means is that I was raised with an inherent distrust in the Hoity and a base and brutal urge to dismantle the Toity. This is sometimes termed anti-intellectualism, usually by intellectuals, when what it is in truth is an opposition to intellect for intellect’s sake. The reality is that what “is” and “isn’t art” is something we can determine with a slider in our prefrontal cortex..”

For reference, Holkin’s comment is associated with this particular strip. (I am actually an avid Penny Arcade reader, too.)

When I was in grad school one of the first classes I was in took up the discussion of the differences between art and craft. We spent a few classes on the topic and read a number of articles debating the differences. In the end we arrived at no set definition. While I think the exercise of trying to arrive at a definition was valuable, I didn’t saw a reason to worry about the distinction. I have never been plagued with doubts that the projects with which I am involved might be craft rather than art.

There have been a few times when I have been concerned that the quality of the performance might not be equal to the price of admission, but outside reading articles like LaBossiere’s I generally forget a distinction is often made.

Which is not to say that I do not make a distinction between what is and isn’t art. Like LaBossiere, there have been instances when I am certain a hoax is being perpetuated. Most things I have no trouble giving the benefit of the doubt, but occasionally I am incredulous at what is enshrined as art. When I visited the Philadelphia Museum of Art this summer, there were one or two galleries that left me incensed to think the contents were considered art. One of my visual artist friends explained how ground breaking the concepts were, but I still left pretty angry.

But I recognize that is personal and when I have these experiences, I don’t fume off to post denunciations.

As I read LaBossiere’s post it occurred to me that the NEA’s recent effort to classify a wider range of activities as participation in artistic pursuits will be in vain unless those considering themselves artists and arts professionals relax their own definitions. This may seem implicit in the NEA’s effort to widen the classification, but it is one thing to recognize that manipulating digital images is arts participation and another to have the product acknowledged as art.

Now I have already acknowledged there are some things I don’t consider to be art and that I am discerning about the quality of work I will present in my venue. Am I saying people in positions like mine need to give stuff we think is crap more exposure?

Well, not me of course, I am talking about all those other artists and administrators with their elitist attitudes. They need to relax and get off their high horses.

No, of course I am talking about me, too.

I don’t think I need to necessarily compromise on my standards of quality, but I can always do a better job of entertaining a wider range of types of artistic expression. Part of that will require educating myself about these different types. I am grateful that my daily life brings me in contact with many opportunities to do so. I need to take advantage of more of them.

Ultimately, I think if the NEA, Americans for the Arts, foundations, etc want to shift the public view of what constitutes arts, culture and the participation and creation thereof, they will need to devote a little time to communicating with those of us already involved in what has traditionally been recognized as arts practice.

It can’t entirely be about bringing the public around to the arts community way of thinking and considering themselves one of us. Efforts need to be made to encourage the current arts community to meet the general public part way and acknowledge their practice is valid and that they are in fact, one of us.

For all the elitism in the arts, I think arts people will have the easier job of shifting their perceptions. One of the benefits being touted about the arts is an ability to accept situations with no distinct right or wrong results. While one of the key practices of classification is to define what something is and is not, the vast majority of arts people don’t really cleave strongly to concrete definitions. While there are plenty of people who will happily go on at length, about what characteristics disqualify a piece from being considered post-modern, by and large most people won’t lie awake at night worrying about it.

I have some additional thoughts on the idea of arts organizations working to complement the efforts of national organizations like the NEA and Americans for the Arts which I will relate tomorrow.

Arts in an Age of Technology, State of the Arts

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Info You Can Use: Gen Y and User Generated Input

February 8, 2012

by:

Joe Patti

Last month, MarketingProfs presented the results of some research that showed Gen Y consumers won’t make purchasing decisions without consulting user generated content (UGC). Interestingly, they frequently trust the opinions of strangers over that of family and friends.

Millennials want to hear from friends and family, but when spending money is at issue, the opinions of strangers like them—particularly those with direct experience with the brand, product, or service—have more weight.

When considering purchases, 44% of Millennials are more likely to trust experienced consumers than people they know.

Moreover, 51% of Millennials state that UGC from strangers is more likely to influence their purchase decisions than recommendations from friends, family and colleagues, compared with 34% of Boomers who say the same:

At this point it probably doesn’t come as news that if arts organizations want to reach a younger audience, online sources are going to be a primary source of information for Gen Y.

The article mentions that user generated content is perceived by Gen Y to be fairly reliable and honest in the appraisal of goods and services. It also says that companies that support online feedback are seen as more credible.

Because “86% [of Gen Y] say UGC is generally a good indicator of the quality of a brand, service, or product,” what I would really want to know is how good they, (and really anyone), are at discerning company/competitor generated comments from authentic ones.

That degree of confidence in UGC could embolden a lot of companies to pad their reviews or sabotage their competitors. Since many review sites summarize the number of good and bad reviews a product received or the number of people awarding 5 through 1 stars, if people aren’t thoroughly investigating the ratings, it doesn’t matter if the text of the review is so stilted it is obviously generated by the marketing department. With so many available options, the easiest thing is to discard those with the poorest ratings and invest attention in the better ones.

Fortunately, while reviews on travel review sites, Yelp and Amazon often have their veracity questioned, I haven’t heard of any arts organizations becoming embroiled in attempts to bolster their own image or denigrate another’s. Granted, arts organizations haven’t been the best at leveraging online promotion so online reviews aren’t as relevant for them as other types of businesses. I just don’t see the Metropolitan Museum of Art having their staff making anonymous “Kandinsky, I say Kan-stink-sky” comments about the Museum of Modern Art’s exhibitions any time in the near future.

The fact remains that arts organizations need to be cognizant of the influence online information has and what is being said about their organization online. Sure the people with the most disposable income right now are Baby Boomers and they don’t put as much stock in online content as Gen Y. Everyone is checking product review these days, it is only a matter of time before the practice becomes more prevalent for the older generations.

While not profiled in the study, Gen Xers attitudes certainly fall somewhere between Baby Boomers and Gen Y and they increasingly have disposable income, too. It won’t be prudent to adopt a wait and see approach in respect to monitoring user generated content and providing feedback opportunities.

Info You Can Use, Marketing/PR

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