The Artful Manager

Bloomberg offers an interesting article on a rising fear of commitment by consumers, in many aspects of their lives. Social and economic indicators point to rising lease vs. buy rates for cars, rising rent vs. purchase rates for homes, declining birth rates, and declines in long-term contracts (such as on mobile phone service). … [Read more...]

Since Diane Ragsdale left her work at the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and wandered to the Netherlands to pursue a PhD, she's been increasingly feisty about how the arts world works -- particularly in the United States, as that's her area of focus and experience. And I rather adore the emerging Diane (I was already a huge fan of the previous iteration). She's particularly bold in her latest post about goals and aspirations for the entire arts system, and lobs a challenge into the room for anyone and everyone to answer: … [Read more...]

For over a decade now, John Brockman has been posting a single question to brilliant people, and gathering their responses. Past questions have included "What will change everything?" in 2009, or "What do you believe is true, even though you cannot prove it?" in 2005. This year's question is particularly important and compelling, as it encourages insights that will help us think better: … [Read more...]

'Nuff said. … [Read more...]

There's extraordinary power in a thoughtfully conceived and artfully crafted infographic. When a complex dataset, process, or ecology is expressed as an image, we can see the whole and explore the parts. We can choose our own path to discovery, unlike most linear written narrative. … [Read more...]

Foundations and other funders seeking to promote innovation in cultural organizations tend to wrestle with two main problems. One, of course, is to find and foster innovative practice in an industry that's often just barely treading water. The other is to share those innovations beyond the inner circle of the project participants. … [Read more...]

The latest issue of the National Endowment for the Arts magazine explores the fertile ground of 'innovation' -- with a particular focus on artistic practice. Featured are discussions with artists such as Julie Taymor, Fred Dust, Josh Neufeld, and others. And the online edition features bonus multimedia about Tony Orrico, Meredith Monk, Low Anthem, and Meejin Yoon. … [Read more...]

A marketing professor in the Wisconsin School of Business loves to share arts marketing materials in his straight-up MBA classes, just so he can mock them publicly. His favorites are hyperbolic about the experience on offer, suggesting in romantic images and flowery prose that nirvana awaits any who purchase a ticket. Every show. Every time. Every audience member will be transformed. … [Read more...]

I'm co-teaching a special topics course this Spring about the intersection of art and enterprise -- where aesthetic and expressive effort meet the marketplaces of people, places, and resources. "Arts Enterprise: Art as Business as Art" works to encourage a more connected view among the students (mostly arts majors, but from a wide range of disciplines) between a creative idea and its realization as a project, an organization, or a career. … [Read more...]

My colleague Paul Beard was telling me about the Smith Center for the Performing Arts now in development in Las Vegas, and remarked that it was actually two entirely different creatures living in the same space. The day before it opens, it will be a construction site with one set of demands and challenges. The day after it opens, it will be a complex expressive enterprise with a whole different set of operating requirements. He likened it to an insect that enters a cocoon or chrysalis as one kind of animal, and departs as another … [Read more...]