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Fulfilling Mission Vs. Fulfilling Design

September 1, 2020

by:

Joe Patti

Drew McManus has recently rolled out a video podcast on the Adaptistration site with the goal of addressing topics facing the orchestra business. Today, he posted the second episode title, Art Has Always Been Political, with guests Jason Haaheim and Weston Sprott.

They get to discussing the familiar topic of how the non-profit model in the U.S. has tended to reinforce the values and demographic composition of those who had the money to support non-profits. Right around the 23:10 mark, Sprott approaches the fact many arts organizations reflect a very wealthy, Caucasian demographic from the point of view of mission vs. design.

He says that many arts non-profits fail to live up to their mission statements, mostly by virtue of the fact that those statements are idealized visions of reality. From the design perspective, they are operating exactly as intended:

“…if you shift the paradigm and think, is this organization serving the group of people that it was designed to serve, then that is yes…Now that doesn’t mean that the group of people that it was designed to serve is the correct group or an inclusive group, but it is what it was designed to serve. If you have an administration and a board and everyone that funds you fits in one, in general, to one demographic, then it’s not surprising that the people that perform and the people that attend the concerts…all fit into that demographic. It was designed to be that way.

I don’t think that a lot of opera companies or The Met, for example, were designed with the idea that we want to make sure that people from all cultures and backgrounds, including black people and brown people and other groups who are marginalized feel like they are truly comfortable in our space. So that is a different question..Does our mission say we reach those people? Yeah it does. Was our organization designed to reach those people and is it structured to reach those people? It’s not.

This reinforces what Nina Simon says in The Art of Relevance about needing to create more doors through which the people you wish to serve can enter. While some of those doors may indeed be physical if you are designating space for new people, in most cases they are conceptual. But require no less effort than a construction project in order to properly revise staffing, board composition, funding, programming so that the organization is designed to serve this broader range of people.

Audience Relations, Building Public Will For Arts And Culture, State of the Arts, Working In The Arts

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Love It So Much I Had To Destroy It

September 1, 2020

by:

Joe Patti

A little background. I have had a Facebook account since ~2011 but I only created it so I could access and control my organizational Facebook pages. There are a very small number of people I friended when created the account and I pretty much haven’t friended anyone since. I don’t have a Facebook connection with any of my siblings or my mother. I pretty much ignore anything Facebook suggests I might want to watch.

That is until about 3-4 months ago. There was a video of magician/puzzle enthusiast Chris Ramsay solving a three dimensional puzzle. I am not really into puzzles, but the time, effort and craftsmanship people have put into creating the puzzles Ramsay gets his hands on is worthy of admiration. After awhile I realized watching Ramsay disassemble and reassemble a puzzle in 40 minutes that I know would take me a couple days to solve has gotten me to pay attention to all the different perspectives one may have to take to solve a problem–though his default opening move is usually to spin the puzzle. (His videos are generally edited down to about 10 minutes, but he generally has a timer running next to him.)

Suffice to say, he is really, really good at solving puzzles. However, there was one he really couldn’t solve and subsequently took a circular saw to it to learn its secrets. Then he immediately felt regret at having done it.

He made a video where he admits he could present a number of reasonable explanations about why he cut it open, but that he would be lying. He expresses his regret for cutting it open and apologizes to his viewers for having done it.

It was all very heartfelt and honest. Even though he wasn’t reflecting on his own creative process directly, he dedicates so many of his videos to admiring the mastery of puzzle makers and magicians, I feel like there is something worthwhile in witnessing his apology. Actually, you could probably use this as a jumping off point for a discussion about the destructive ways in which a declared fervent love or admiration for something can manifest.

I found the video on YouTube and cued it up to the start of the apology. Feel free to start from the beginning to see how the puzzle was crafted.

creativity

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Do They Know Its Covid Time At All?

August 26, 2020

by:

Joe Patti

I am guessing it isn’t any news that a lot of arts and cultural organizations are struggling financially and grappling with the challenges presented by Covid-19. I mean, there is a lobbying effort to have Congress provide relief specifically aimed at helping both for and not-for-profit arts and events organizations and spaces. A lot of service and trade organizations have partnered up to advocate in this area.

But you wouldn’t know it isn’t business as usual from the job postings out there. I am hardly the first to notice this. I saw someone tweet about it a couple weeks ago†. While I had noticed an increase in job listings over the last few months and took that as a positive sign, I didn’t read any of them because I am not currently seeking a position.

After that tweet, I started paying closer attention. I have to say, they are right. I have looked at about 40 listings that were posted since mid-July for everything from executive director for state arts councils and major cultural centers to part time jobs in rural communities. With one exception, none of them acknowledged that there was an epidemic going on and how that might impact job duties, or even more helpfully, how the board of directors had resolved to respond.

Honestly, it looks like people pulled out the job description file they used for their last search. The Opportunities & Challenges heading of one description listed delays due to jurisdictional issues between government entities, but apparently the epidemic won’t hinder anything.

By the way, the one group that did acknowledge the operating environment had changed was Children’s Theatre of Charlotte which wrote:

CTC is facing the current economic challenge with resiliency and innovation. In 2020-21, CTC will mount an entirely virtual season with four productions: The Velveteen Rabbit, GRIMMZ Fairy Tales, My Wonderful Birthday Suit and Tropical Secrets: Holocaust Refugees in Cuba. In addition, CTC will provide week-long mini-camps as a resource for families looking for creative solutions this school year, along with a combination of in-person and virtual theatre education classes in the evenings.

Nothing complicated about this. Hundreds of organizations have sent out this sort of messaging in press releases and social media posts the last few months. However, no one else seems to see the need to even awkwardly cut and paste out of a press release and into a job description.

I seems like right now, if you are looking to hire quality people, a job listing should implicitly, if not explicitly carry a message which acknowledges regardless of whether you are looking to get a job or transfer from another one, there is even more stress and anxiety associated with that process than usual. However, not only has our organization developed a plan which frankly acknowledges what is viable over the next two years, we are looking to add someone to a supportive team which will translate this plan into action.

Even if I were out of a job and extremely anxious to find another, I would question my potential career with an organization that failed to give a nod to overwhelming reality.

Likewise, the shifting expectations and activity associated with diversity/equity/inclusion (DEI) didn’t seem to be present other than generic statements about the applicant needing to be committed to DEI. These may be new additions to some of the descriptions, but they read as boilerplate from the past. There were a couple exceptions like Burlington, VT’s Flynn Center which included:

“Address systemic racism with thoughtful programmatic vision, embedded governance structures, dynamic staffing, equitable vendor interactions, and intentional audience experiences.”

and Dance/USA:

Recognize, acknowledge and address power imbalances and privilege within a membership that is diverse with regard to a role (e.g., dancer, choreographer, artistic director, arts administrator, presenter, agent) and locale, as well as broader diversity dimensions such as race, ethnicity, economic status, gender, disability status, gender expression, nationality, sexual orientation, and religion.

† N.B. – Nina Simon was the person who mentioned generic job descriptions in a Medium post she made. My recollection was that I saw it on Twitter and my gut told me Nina wrote it, but I couldn’t find the Twitter post–because I saw it elsewhere.

Boards, Leadership, State of the Arts, Working In The Arts

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We Are More Accepting Of Disease Spreading In Large Crowds Than I Thought

August 25, 2020

by:

Joe Patti

A recent study looking at a connection between influenza mortality and professional sports leagues provides some insights into the possible impact of the more highly contagious Covid-19 virus if large group assemblies were permitted.

The researchers looked at influenza rates and sports activity from 1962 through 2016. They do a lot of work with their data taking into account geography (a number of New York teams that play(ed) in NJ), the entry of new sports franchises in that time period, the extent of public transit lines, impact of people gathering at bars to watch competitions, and the fact that some sports seasons occur outside of flu season, among many other factors.

What they found is:

The results show cities acquiring one new professional sports team experienced 4% to 24% increases in local influenza mortality across all age groups compared to cities without professional sports teams, suggesting that sports-related changes in social distancing patterns represent important influenza transmission mechanisms. These results are in line with Stoecker et al. (2016) who estimated an 18% increase in flu mortality among the local population age 65 or older in MSAs that sent an NFL team to the Super Bowl. In addition, local flu mortality fell in some years when work stoppages occurred in sports leagues, further buttressing the evidence that games played by professional sports teams make substantial contributions to local seasonal flu mortality.

My first thought was that we have been pretty blase about the potential impact of these large gathering on influenza mortality. Though I guess that was sort of clear back in March/April when people were saying Covid-19 wasn’t worse than the flu. There was already an acceptance that a number of people die every year. Perhaps that will happen one day with Covid-19 as we become acclimated to its impact.

One interesting thing to note – while there was an 18% increase in mortality among the 65+ population of MSAs that sent teams to the Super Bowl, in that earlier Stoecker et al. (2016) study they cite, there wasn’t an increase in mortality for the city that hosted the Super Bowl.

…suggesting that changes in travel patterns bringing large numbers of spectators to the host city play a small role in the process. This result does not completely rule out changes in travel patterns as a mechanism for transmission. It is possible that the mechanism works in the opposite direction: fans who travel to the host city for the Super Bowl become infected there and bring the virus back home with them..

One thing to keep in mind, and the study authors point this out, is that all large gatherings are not created equal. They suggest future research do a deeper dive into distinctions like size, age and amenities of facilities. Some sports are played in larger, younger facilities with better HVAC systems and more enclosed seating areas than others. All these things can impact the spread of disease. Likewise, some of these facilities also host concerts and other events with large attendance. Different activities spread disease at varying rates even if they are held in the same facilities with similar attendance.

Also, apparently not all work stoppages are created the same. Flu mortality fell during the 1982 NFL and 2011 NBA stoppage, but there was no impact from the 2004 NHL work stoppage. They theorize fans engaged in substitute activities which exposed them to the flu.

So overall this some clearer information verifying for arts organizations, who I suspect are already doing pretty well at proceeding with caution, the importance of paying attention to the attendance and spacing at your events.

Arts Facilities, State of the Arts, Working In The Arts

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