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Little Points of Pride

October 2, 2013

by:

Joe Patti

I didn’t know what to write about today. I have a bunch of articles bookmarked, but I haven’t read enough of any of of them to do them justice. I have a bunch of stories I want to draw instructive points from, but they involve people who work with me or rent from me so if I talk about them at all, it will be after some time has past.

What I have decided to do is talk about something I am not responsible for but I feel a great deal of investment and pride in. Talking about what other arts people are doing well seems like a good topic for a Wednesday.

Last week the gallery in my building opened a show by the artist Jimi Jones, and I have really been pleased with the whole experience.

The artist was great at the opening, taking people around to talk about the pieces, asking them questions about what different elements made them think about, telling them that their feedback would help guide his future work. I appreciated that he introduced the concept of interactivity between the artist and the viewer since many of the attendees were students.

He also showed up early the next day to talk to another class before running off to his next show. I got a chance to speak with him and ask him questions about his work and he was just as gracious and engaging as he had been the night before.

I got a little bit of an ego boost the evening of the opening when the directors of the local museum commented that they had tried to get the very show our gallery was presenting at a museum they previously worked at but met a lot of resistance from the board and staff.

You have to admit, there is always a little thrill with even the illusion that you are a bit more progressive than someone else.

What I also appreciated was that despite the reputation that young people today aren’t really engaged with the arts as much as they are with their phones, there were a large number of students who walked around with the artist for the better part of 90 minutes while he moved to and fro between the different works. I think he tired out before they did.

One of the visual arts faculty has brought at least five different classes into the gallery that I have seen and gotten her students engaged in a conversation about the art.

There is furniture made from a lightning struck tree in the lobby just outside the gallery and I often sit there and read during lunch. The best conversation I have heard the classes in the gallery have so far included the students’ disbelief that the artist is in his mid-50s rather than a 20 year old based on the contemporary subject matter and feel of the works.

None of this may seem like a big deal to some of you, but I have never worked in an arts center with an active gallery and so many interesting pieces of permanently installed visual art. We don’t have a large gallery, but its presence contributes to the vibrancy of the whole building.

As I said, other than unlocking the door and making sure audiences to our shows could see the sign directing them upstairs to the gallery, I haven’t been involved with any of the decisions that lead to the presence of this work. But I do take a lot of pride and ownership in it being here.

Advocacy, Art(ist) Education, Working In The Arts

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Passion vs. Engagement

October 1, 2013

by:

Joe Patti

The Drucker Exchange quotes an article in Bloomberg Businessweek claiming “truly passionate U.S. employees” make up “a scant 11% of the workforce.”

My first reaction was to wonder if the arts had a higher percentage of passionate employees than most sectors. The Drucker Institute piece mentions the responsibility of the employee to essentially manage their own careers because companies won’t do it for you.

But it also mentions the need for companies to provide an environment which allow passionate people to thrive. This has been a frequent topic recently in respect to the work-life balance employees at arts organizations seek in addition to their desire to make a difference.

“And yet, for all this, Drucker also recognized that it wasn’t simply a matter of employees seizing responsibility. It’s up to their employers to provide the systems and processes and culture for them to be able to do so. Heavy-handed, top-down organizations—those that “rest on command authority,” in Drucker’s words—don’t create the right dynamics for passion.”

When I looked at the Bloomberg article, I was intrigued by the distinction they made between a passion and engagement.

What’s the difference between passion and engagement? Employee engagement is typically used by organizations to figure out if workers buy into the company’s goals, if they like working for their manager, if they find the company sensitive to work/life balance issues, etc. That serves companies well when they want to scale and have workers “engaged” in the task necessary to expand their particular corporate silo.

The passionate worker—the metaphor Deloitte employs is “the passion of the explorer”—are those who view new challenges as opportunities to learn additional skills. That attitude becomes essential, the consulting firm maintains, because the typical work skill will be outdated within five years. “These people are driven to develop new skills at an ever rapid pace and are thrilled by it,” Hagel says. “Passionate people are the most agile.”

Once you think about it, engagement is a different aspect of employment from passion. You can feel engaged by your company and the environment and opportunities you find in your work, but not necessarily be passionate about advancing your skills and knowledge.

An engaged person could advance within the company by performing excellently, but not necessarily advance the company the way a passionate person will.

But a passionate person may not necessarily advance in the company hierarchy. Bloomberg cites the Andon Cord on the Toyota assembly line which any line worker can pull to stop the line and gather the workers when there is a problem.

Like Toyota though, a company needs to create an environment and culture in which passion is valued.

The end of the Bloomberg article notes that those in marketing and management were more passionate than those in accounting and customer service, as were those making more than $150,000.

However, the Toyota example shows that it can be cultivated at all levels of an organization. (And, one hopes, at arts salaries.)

Leadership, Management Philosophy, Working In The Arts

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Info You Can Use: The Writing On The Walk

September 30, 2013

by:

Joe Patti

So tonight is the first event in the season at my new job, a concert by a group called Cordis which bills their music as chamber-rock.

Now if you are asking, “what the heck is chamber-rock?” thank you very much. I actually used that question as the basis of my advertising campaign for the show because I figured nearly 100% of our audience, including our subscriber base, would be wondering the same thing.

That question was posed at the start of our press releases. I bought time on an electronic sign at the intersection of two major roads that flashed the “What the Heck” question on one screen and then provided contact and web information on the next screen.

A couple weeks before the show we distributed posters around campus and town. Then a week prior to the show, I went out early in the morning with sidewalk chalk to write the “What The Heck..” question, and a web address that contained information and videos, around campus and around town near the businesses that accepted our posters.

I didn’t write it directly in front of the businesses’ doors out of concern that they might find it annoying. (I was more direct on campus.) But I did put it on a general area close enough to the business that anyone entering the business had an opportunity make a connection between the sidewalk chalk and the poster.

Near the museum and the library, I took a slightly different tack and included a suggestion that people go in to find out more. My intent being to send people in to explore those organizations when the might not normally do so.

Here is a sample:

I know this is hardly a groundbreaking idea and it isn’t suited to all performances. But the content of this performance lent itself well to having a little fun.

I will admit that it didn’t seem to spur much increase in advance single ticket sales. I suspect there are a number of other issues at play like price and timing that factor into that.

Walking around campus, I did see students looking down at lot, but it was mostly at their phones rather than the sidewalk writing. Though I did catch a couple stopping to read, there is a decrease in situational awareness to contend with these days.

So I am happy to (pun intended) chalk this up to generating awareness and good will in the community than anything else.

Audience Relations, Info You Can Use, Marketing/PR, Working In The Arts

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Volunteer….Or Else

September 25, 2013

by:

Joe Patti

Would you volunteer for a non-profit if there was a better chance of becoming employed? Would you do it if you were forced to?

If you were a non-profit, would you welcome either set of volunteers?

This summer the NEA pointed to a report that showed the value of volunteering in the search for employment.

“The link between volunteering and finding employment appeared strongest among lower-educated people and those living in rural areas. As the authors write, “volunteering may assist in ‘leveling the playing field’ for these individuals, who typically have a more difficult time finding employment, especially during a recession.”

[…]

CNCS suggests that as a result of this knowledge, nonprofits may want to “target those who have the most to gain by volunteering—out-of-work individuals, particularly people without a high school degree or people living in rural areas. Volunteer recruitment may then have two purposeful outcomes: improvements to communities and better employment outcomes for community members.”

[…]

On the whole, volunteers for arts and cultural organizations were found to be better educated than volunteers for all other kinds of organizations, and they generally were more giving of their time than other volunteers.

However, the Non-Profit Quarterly recently noted that “the Michigan Senate passed legislation to require community service for people receiving government assistance such as food stamps and other welfare benefits.”

Non Profit Quarterly quotes The National Council of Non-Profits as supporting

“…programs that promote volunteering activities that mutually benefit individuals and the people served through nonprofits. However, the Council of Nonprofits’ Public Policy Agenda expressly opposes proposals to condition receipt of government-provided benefits on requirements that individuals volunteer at nonprofit organizations.

Such a policy, sometimes called ‘mandatory volunteerism,’ unfairly imposes increased costs, burdens, and liabilities on nonprofits by an influx of coerced individuals.” While the Council’s arguments emphasize “unfunded mandates on charitable nonprofits to accommodate the hundreds of thousand suddenly showing up on their doorsteps seeking unscheduled and unsolicited service opportunities” and the prospect of “name-brand nonprofits and foundations in particular…overwhelmed by sheer volumes of people if such a bill were passed…”

One of the commenters angrily observes that public aid recipients aren’t directed to work at large corporations, but rather to organizations with fewer means to support their presence. At one time it might be claimed that working for free at a large corporation runs into all sorts of labor laws that don’t apply to non-profits. However, with all the lawsuits that came to light this summer about unpaid internships, people have started to suspect the perceived non-profit exception to such laws may not be as clear cut as once thought.

But as the statement by the National Council of Non-profits notes, there is a significant cost to managing volunteers. How much more a burden will there be when the volunteers are compelled to serve?

I suspect that difference in context will engender a resentment that will make those providing community service less valuable as volunteers and less likely to result in the positive outcomes cited by the NEA. Non-profits might ultimately plead that they operate more effectively when these people are kept away from their organizations.

Some commenters cite the value of the WPA programs during the Depression. I am not sure how those programs were viewed in the 1930s, but the program in Michigan seems more punitive than designed as a “Let’s Put People To Work” effort.

And those comments overlook the fact that the government played a large role in the management of the assignment and training of those put to work. If there was a similar program in Michigan that provided preparation, placement and supervision of those doing community service, the experience might be productive.

It is encouraging to know that volunteering can be a constructive experience that can lead to employment. But I imagine the greatest value is derived when volunteering is performed willingly. I would be wary a situation where non-profits became a significant part of a government’s social welfare program without some degree of additional training and support.

In the absence of such support, the non-profit becomes part of the “or else…” stick the government is using, a situation which is counter to nearly every charitable organization’s purpose.

Instead of being viewed as a resource and asset in the community, the non-profit runs the risk of being viewed as an antagonist, or at least party to the antagonism.

Volunteers

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