If The Kids Can Do It, So Can You!

by:

Joe Patti

So in a follow up to my post yesterday about giving people permission to express themselves, Daniel Pink posted today about a teacher who applied the idea of FedEx Day to instructing his sixth grade classroom. The teacher in question, Josh Stumpenhorst, called the effort “Innovation Day” and created an environment to let his students direct their learning for the day.

There was some prep work involved in getting the students focused and prepared for what they were going to do, of course. On the whole, it was pretty dang successful and the kids really got invested in the process. Among the projects the kids undertook were:

We had a student:

• Writing and performing his own guitar solo
• Creating a model out of wood of the Sears Tower
• Writing her own historical fiction short story
• Creating a Rube Goldberg machine
• Designing and creating a replica suit of Roman Armor (out of tinfoil and cardboard)
• Creating a how-to tutorial on baking a cake
• Painting a still life on canvas of a nature scene
• Writing and performing a one-man comedy act
• Researching and presenting on the concentration camps of the Holocaust
• Creating a video highlight reel of basketball moves and plays
• Building a model of the Leaning Tower of Pisa
• Writing a biography of his favorite teacher Mr. Stumpenhorst (<—–ok, I made this one up!)
• Creating a video documentary of Innovative Day
• Building a model of Big Ben
• Choreographing and performing a dance
• Researching Walt Disney and creating a model of the Epcot Center
• Creating a model of numerous World War II battles
• Building a model of the Eiffel Tower
• Researching and creating countless Power Points, posters, and Photo Stories

I wondered yesterday how an experience that cultivated a sense of permission to express oneself might be designed for adults. I think this project might be a good basis to start from, especially since there was a lot of natural collaboration emerging. Granted, these kids and teacher already had an existing daily relationship with each other in which there was a certain level of structure and trust. The same environment may not exist for an arts organization and a constituency that spends the majority of its day in school or at work. It might take some time and effort to get to this point–if you wanted to get to this point at all. A project that evolves in an entirely different direction based on the dynamics of the community is eminently possible.

Permission to Express Yourself Is Granted

by:

Joe Patti

Our assistant theatre manager put a small mirror on his desk facing the door. I have no idea where he got it or why he put it there. As a bit of a joke, I put a piece of paper printed with the classic zen koan, “What was your face before your mother and father were born.” When people came in to buy tickets or meet with us, they look into the mirror and read the paper and often decide there is some great statement being made. It makes me reluctant to admit that I was making fun of attempts to manufacture profound statements like that.

But there is also the assumption that since we are an arts organization, we will surround ourselves with profound and nuanced statements. Even though we might get called out as elitist for attributing deeper meaning than is readily apparent, we still have permission to do nonsensical things in public and have it generally acceptable. I dare say it is expected.

I worked for an organization that ran a residential arts and music summer camp. Every year the kids would come in and let their hair down–many times quite literally– and include the liberal application of colored dye. During the rest of the year they felt like they had to subsume these impulses while in school and around their families. At camp, they were part of the normal group rather than the outsider.

That sense of permission to experiment and play is probably the biggest gift the arts can give people. I am still all for keeping the arts in schools and instilling people with the discipline and discernment to practice and experience the wide variety of arts in all disciplines. But failing that, if we can get people to realize they can have permission to express themselves, then there may be a small victory in it. And right now, we gotta take those small victories when we can find them.

Getting people’s butts in the seats is a short term solution to our problems, but I suspect that the arts needs to replace “if only they would come see our show, they would love it” with “if only they would try to create and express, they would love it.” The latter option is a lot more time and resource intensive a proposition though.

Confidence to step out and express oneself even in a formal setting is going to spring from increased mastery of one’s discipline. But most people probably aren’t going to have the time to devote to that. I have to think a shorter term hands-on encounter with creating art that teaches people that they have permission to experiment is going to be an important part of arts advocacy, especially if they spread the word and get friends involved. How do you present that in a balanced way? The usual approach with a lot of arts disciplines is that you have to master the rules before you can break them. It might be challenging to encourage people to have fun experimenting while instilling an understanding that there is still more to learn.

Actually, the best example I can think of is skateboarding. There is a lot of falling involved but the very people who are occasionally snickering at you when you fall are those providing you with the incentive to improve. I am not suggesting that derision be part of the approach an arts organization takes. But there may be something to an approach that creates informal cohorts of colleagues who are learning the “tricks” together. In such situations the gap in ability between members can often serve to motivate rather than intimidate, perhaps because everyone is enjoying the experience together.

No program is going to convert a large proportion of the population. Online content creation is produced by only a small percentage of people with a much larger proportion consuming it. On the other hand, that small proportion still accounts for a lot of people and the consumers for an even larger number. It could be that knowing you could create and participate if you wanted to even if you don’t, is empowering enough a concept to remove some of the intimidation factor of attending an arts event.

Of course, the expression is most accepted when a certain context is created. I don’t know anything about visual art, but my silly little display with the mirror is accepted in the context of an arts building. People working in the arts understand how to create that context regardless of the setting by manipulating mood and environmental factors. Perhaps greater success is to be found in teaching people how to do that along with formal performance techniques. By which I mean, give them the tools to create an environment in which self expression is acceptable.

As to how to accomplish all this as a practical matter, I don’t know. It may start with offering classes but ideally will expand beyond that in order to underscore the idea that expression can happen outside of a formal setting. You may dedicate your organization to creating opportunities now but not really feel that the concept has been realized in its fullest for 10 years. And at that point, people may decide that their favorite mode of expression doesn’t include your organization.

Yeah, I am not doing the best job of selling this, huh? But really, this is what we are asking of schools when we advocate for more arts education. We want them to create fallow ground in which we can cultivate patrons. Our mission statements say this is what our purpose is too, but really we want them to stick around. The most effective arts education programs in schools schools involve students in the arts experience rather than providing an experience. Perhaps where arts organizations have gone wrong is not providing enough opportunities for people to continue to be involved once they have left school.

Stuff To Ponder: Transparent Community Driven Grant Processes

by:

Joe Patti

The Hawaii Community Foundation just recently completed the first round of granting for their Island Innovation Fund. I was really very impressed by the way they went about their very transparent granting process. Instead of having a grant disappear into the bowels of the foundation offices, they got the community involved in the process of providing feedback and guidance at every step.

The blog for the local technology radio show, Bytemarks Cafe, did a good job last October of summarizing the approach they took.

On my preview, the proposal review was a 4 step process. The first step in the process is the Concept, where you submit your idea and any associated material, be it photos, video, documents or presentations. There is an open period for submittals and a deadline to meet.

Next the process enters into the Collaboration phase where proposal material is made public (public as in registered users of the site). The public has about 30 days to comment or ask questions. Applicants are able to respond to comments and make improvements to their Concept.

During the third phase, HCF personnel will review the revised Concept. Projects that best demonstrate the principles and goals of the Island Innovation Fund will be ask to submit a Proposal.

Finally in phase 4 the Omidyar Network and Hawaii Community Foundation staff will review and evaluate Proposals. The most compelling proposals get invited to present a 15 minute presentation to an independent panel of judges for final selection. This judging is open to the public. Winning proposals will be announced one week after the final presentations.

I listen to the radio show pretty regularly, but I must have missed the show where they originally discussed this because I would have definitely participated in the feedback portion of the concept phase. I think that is the best part of the entire program. Not only does it allow applicants to understand what the community needs are and adjust their application accordingly, but it also provides the Hawaii Community Foundation (HCF) with a better understanding of what the community needs from them.

It is something of a win-win for everyone. Even if the applicants aren’t proposing something that fits into the HCF or fund goals, they get valuable feedback about their concept should they wish to pursue it with another granting organization. Those who are invited to proceed, but don’t get funded also receive important feedback and I believe some will be allowed to reapply for the next round. Being able to walk away knowing how to make your proposal better and speak about it effectively is valuable in itself because you often don’t get any feedback in that vein from granting organizations.

In understanding what the community needs, HCF can begin to think about their own approaches and priorities, including assumptions about community needs they may have made. Perhaps some of the proposals didn’t adequately address how the specific submitter would effectively approach a need in the community. The need still remains and now HCF may be able to bring resources to bear having read the feedback on the community forums suggesting what considerations need to be made in effecting a solution.

I should also note that even the final presentations to the independent panel was conducted very publicly and was streamed live over the internet. The video may still be viewed on the Island Innovation Fund website.

Now in a bit of serendipity, Diane Ragsdale addressed the pursuit and funding of innovation in the arts on her blog today. She mentions that receiving funding for innovative work can actually destabilize an organization as they try to meet the heightened expectations that such recognition brings.

But she also notes that often the most innovative work is passed over in favor of more tame versions because real innovation risks failure by necessity:

“Finally, it’s perplexing and annoying to others in the arts sector when funders give ‘innovation grants’ to projects and organziations that are not, actually, innovative–particularly when one knows the projects that did NOT get funding. I’m not sure how this happens but I suspect it is in large part because ideas that are truly surprising, that may even defy written rules and conventions, are unlikely to make it all the way through the grantmaking process at most risk-averse foundations (in no small part because they make lawyers nervous).”

I am not going to claim that those awarding money from the Island Innovation Fund, even given their intriguing granting process, are any less risk averse than any other foundation out there. However, I would think that efforts toward innovation in the arts would benefit from a granting process like the one they conducted. The one benefit I hadn’t mentioned yet about this program is that even if one isn’t an applicant for the grant, just participating in the question and commenting phase can help a person refine their own nascent ideas and understand how better to execute them.

Mutant Business Models Are Coming! (Embrace Them Before They Embrace You)

by:

Joe Patti

Apropos to yesterday’s post about non-profit business models is a piece by Saul Kaplan on the Harvard Business Review discussing how every organization that offers some sort of service needs a business model regardless of whether you are a non-profit, NGO, government entity or for profit business.

If you have never thought about your organization’s business model but figure it is about time you did, you may found Kaplan’s comments about the mutability of business models a little disheartening.

“If you ask any ten people in your organization how it creates, delivers, and captures, will the answers even be close?

If not, it’s probably because, in the industrial era when business models seldom changed and everyone played the game by the same set of well-understood industry and sector rules, it wasn’t as important to be explicit about business models. Business models were safely assumed and taken for granted.

That won’t work in the 21st century when all bets are off. Business models don’t last as long as they used to. New players are rapidly emerging, enabled by disruptive technology, refusing to play by industrial era rules. Business model innovators aren’t constrained by existing business models. Business model innovation is becoming the new strategic imperative for all organization leaders.”

He goes on to talk about the need for new, hybrid business models that blur the existing lines. I take some comfort in the fact that business models are currently a hot topic of discussion among various arts administration blogs. It means we are staying current with trends rather than following far behind.

One thing in particular I took away from Kaplan’s post was the importance of keeping involved in the conversation about business models given that existing lines of separation between profit and non profit are likely to become less distinct.

“Perhaps the most important reason for developing common business model language across public, private, non-profit, and for-profit sectors is that transforming our important social systems (including education, health care, energy, and entrepreneurship) will require networked business models that cut across sectors. We need new hybrid models that don’t fit cleanly into today’s convenient sector buckets. We already see for-profit social enterprises, non-profits with for-profit divisions, and for-profit companies with social missions. Traditional sector lines are blurring. We’re going to see every imaginable permutation and will have to get comfortable with more experimentation and ambiguity.”