Just a quick summer-hiatus post to recognize the seventh birthday of this blog, which launched on this day way back in 2003 (aka, "olden times"). Lots of great conversation, confusions, and connections in those years. And I hope many more to come.

When I get my brain out of current summer projects, I'll be back to blog again. In the meanwhile, happy birthday to this little cluster of text files hosted on a server somewhere.

Over the summer months, I'll be blogging less often, with long stretches in between. Lots of reconstruction and reframing to do for the MBA/Arts Administration program I direct at the Wisconsin School of Business. And a few too many conferences in the way.

Hope to see some at the Theatre Communications Group conference in Chicago (I'm on the ''Creativity and the City'' plenary panel on Friday, June 18, at 4:00 pm). Or at the Americans for the Arts Half-Century Summit in Baltimore (where I'm on the ''Future of Leadership'' panel on Saturday, June 26, at 2:00 pm).

Otherwise. See you when I see you!

Trendwatching's latest trend analysis suggest that the online world is not driving citizens into digital isolation. Rather, it is fueling real-world gathering at a new scope and scale. Says the summary of ''Mass Mingling'':

Thanks to the online revolution, hundreds of millions are now actively searching for, finding, connecting/signaling, and staying in touch with likeminded souls in the virtual world. Constant updates, GPS and mobile online access is now bringing this explosion of dating, networking, socializing and mingling to the real world domain.

The trend report suggests that three trends are flowing together to encourage this new boom in real-world social gathering: 1) Social networking has magnified people's desire and ability to connect. 2) People continue to love the 'real world' despite their on-line experiences (thank goodness) and 3) an evolving information layer on top of the real world (GPS, geotagging, and such) makes the intersection of on-line and physical more possible than ever.

The article is big on conjecture and shy on evidence. But it's worth a reading regardless. Particularly useful are the examples provided that take advantage of this emerging trend. For example, Disney/PIxar's new ''tickets together'' initiative allows friends to coordinate and purchase group tickets to the new Toy Story 3 movie all within Facebook -- connecting on-line networks to real-world activities and place-based information like maps and location.

Is your organization ready to harness the trend? And if so, is your programming and environment resonant with what these mass mingling groups want to do?

I'm in Washington, DC, for my final conference as president of the Association of Arts Administration Educators. These are colleagues from around the world who direct and/or teach in undergraduate or graduate degree programs in arts administration (or cultural management, or cultural policy, or...). Looking forward to keynotes by the Kennedy Center's Michael Kaiser, the Duke Charitable Trusts' Ben Cameron, and Joan Shigekawa from the National Endowment for the Arts, and panels/presentations/discussions about what we all do. I'm also eager to reconnect with old friends and new colleagues who all struggle with me to define arts and cultural management well enough to teach it. No easy task when the target keeps moving.

The transition from president, and the beginning of my MBA program's fifth decade, is nudging me toward an essential transition in how I'm considering the field. This association, and my program, were both founded to serve what was a rapidly growing niche in management & leadership in the past four decades -- professionally staffed corporate nonprofits and public entities. That was never our exclusive charter, as many graduates of our programs went on to commercial efforts or volunteer enterprise. And to be fair, many member programs have actively embraced for-profit as well as nonprofit training for decades. But the implicit center of the circle was always pretty clear.

Now, my students and my field are eagerly exploring and exploding that assumed boundary (okay, not most of my field, but some of it). The formal conversations at conferences and among professionals are trending toward 'new business models' for value creation and capture. Increasingly, students are open to ANY organizational form or strategy that advances their vision. My phrase for this evolution is 'tax-status agnostic,' which found some traction on-line when I suggested it last month.

Increasingly, I am preparing my students and myself for tax-status agnostic cultural leadership. These are leaders ready and able not only to run a full range of organizational forms -- from nonprofit to informal to LLC to community/public to for-profit corporate -- but also to switch gears from one management approach to another in the course of a day (maximizing meaning when they support artistic process, maximizing revenue when they staff the lobby bar). That doesn't mean these new leaders are indifferent to mission or public value. Nor does it mean they seek to maximize the bottom line over all other goals. It just means they understand their best function in any moment, in the context of their creative work, and in context with their community and constituency.

Merriam-Webster offers one definition of 'dogma' as: ''a point of view or tenet put forth as authoritative without adequate grounds.'' I'd suggest that our assumptions and our development of effective organizations and effective leaders in cultural enterprise matches that definition.

I'm eager, along with my students and my colleagues, to question the dogma, and explore the tax-status-agnostic opportunities to advance and steward creative human expression. I don't know what it looks like yet. But I'm happy to find a growing group of colleagues -- many of them at this conference -- who are on the very same journey.

Clara Miller from the Nonprofit Finance Fund works with nonprofits at all stages of crisis -- from the highly stable and responsive to the oppressively unstable and inert. Some are going with flow of the economic thrill ride, others are hanging on by their fingertips. She summarizes the key challenges that have been plaguing nonprofits in all industries in her recent article for the Nonprofit Quarterly, ominously titled ''The Four Horsemen of the Nonprofit Financial Apocalypse.''

If one horseman visits you, you'll feel the pinch. If they arrive in a group, it might be time to read the want ads. Here's a quick summary of the four horsemen, but the entire article is well worth the read:

• Horseman One: Too Much Real Estate
  The lure of buildings and land of their very own has seduced many nonprofits, sometimes beyond the point of reason. Those carrying disproportionate real estate also carry disproportionate fixed costs, in the face of declining earned and contributed income, and collapsing real estate values.
• Horseman Two: Too Much Debt
  ''In the recent downturn, debt -- especially high levels of debt where borrowers and lenders overestimated the amount of reliable revenue available for repayment -- has affected even strong organizations. Those taking out mortgages or issuing bonds to finance purchase or construction have found that their debt is an additional component of increasing fixed costs. And ironically, some of the most creditworthy -- medium-size and large organizations with excellent bond ratings -- find themselves working their way out of this fix.''
• Horseman Three: ''Under Water'' Balance Sheets and Negative Liquidity
  Endowment efforts and market forces have left many nonprofits with non-liquid assets that drag them down rather than boost them along. Their auto-pilot efforts to build the balance sheet through assets have flown them off course.
• Horseman Four: Torturous Labor Economics
  ''Some nonprofits require highly specialized talent, which is expensive and requires ongoing care, feeding, and investment. Economies of scale available in the for-profit world are not always applicable to nonprofits (consider symphony orchestras and research universities). Other nonprofits are labor-intensive because of quality and regulatory considerations (consider skilled nursing facilities and day-care centers).''

In the long run, the nonprofit financial version of the four horsemen are pale riders compared to their Biblical counterparts (pestilence, war, famine, and death). But as your organization weathers the economy and plans for the future, they're important reminders of what to avoid.

While wandering the web looking for some insights on risk assessment and risk management (two key challenges for arts and cultural managers), I found the following rather intriguing theory:

Humans have a target level of risk they find acceptable (physical risk, financial risk, personal risk, you name it). It's not a shock to think that as you exceed that target, you change your behavior to reduce your risk. What's interesting is the inverse. The theory further suggests that when people drop BELOW their target risk level, they often change their behavior to INCREASE their risk toward the target.

The link above talks about two karate schools -- one uses full padding, one does not. The expectation would be that the one with full padding would have fewer injuries. But evidence suggests both will have the same. Says the article:

What's happening is a process known as risk compensation. It's a tendency in humans to increase risky behavior proportionately as safeguards are introduced, and it's very common. So common, in fact, as to render predictions of how well any given piece of safety equipment will work almost useless.

This is the nature of homeostasis -- the tendency of systems to stabilize around certain states. In this case, specifically, it's risk homeostasis. To be fair, the jury is still out on whether this is a universal principal or a interesting guess. (One rebuttal claims the theory ''has no credence as a theory and is almost entirely lacking in empirical support.'' Ouch.)

Still, I find it a useful frame to challenge any of us who assess, encourage, control, or balance risk-taking at our organization (creative risk, financial risk, credential risk, you name it). While we can increase buffers and safety nets to hedge such risks, we can't ignore the risk-seeking or risk-averse tendencies of the people doing the work, nor the larger risk-related culture of the organization.

An organization used to living at the edge of bankruptcy may well find their way back there, even after a cash infusion. An organization used to playing it safe will need more than financial incentives and urging of artistic leadership to increase their risk.

The theory doesn't suggest that safeguards are useless (don't go playing professional football without a helmet, please). But it does infer that safeguards are a PART of a larger system, and that larger system has goals that may well work against the safeguards.

And a final insight for those heading off to the dojo, padded or not. Expect injuries.

 

A recent report from the Pew Charitable Trusts runs the numbers on the September 2008 market and credit crash, and the numbers are rather large. In total, the average American household lost $107,850 through 2009 in income ($5,800), Federal recovery spending ($2,050), and declining stock and home value ($100,000).

It's a cold splash of water (like we needed another), but it's essential information for anyone who sells tickets, lures donors, or seeks support from local, state, or Federal government sources.

James Undercofler in his State of the Art blog suggests that the current training, support, and authorizing systems we use to advance the nonprofit and public arts are not prepared to engage the cultural entrepreneur. And boy, does he have a point.

The essential elements of successful entrepreneurship -- chief among them seed capital and hands-on support -- are almost impossible to find among charitable foundations or traditional funders. Although there are a few bright lights in the system helping to lead the way.

Artist-focused initiatives like Creative Capital, the Center for Cultural Innovation, Fractured Atlas, Springboard for the Arts, and others have long been supporting innovation and creative enterprise, including training and specialized funding. But traditional support institutions like foundations, government arts agencies, and higher education have a long way to go to catch up.

Like Undercofler's students, I'm seeing a broader palette of interest among each incoming class to our MBA in Arts Administration. While we began our degree over 40 years ago with a specific focus on corporate professional leadership in arts and culture institutions, incoming students are almost entirely 'tax status agnostic.' They have powerful creative or community visions, and want to get them realized. If nonprofit or public status is the way to get there, fine. If not, they're open to a full range of other business options -- which is why many come to an MBA.

It's increasingly clear that the professional nonprofit we've come to know as a standard in the past decades will continue to be an essential part of the arts and culture system. But it's also clear that those structures are NOT appropriate to every artistic or creative endeavor. Glad to know that James and others are following this thread.

Last Thursday I was pleased to be the opening speaker for the Indiana Cultural Tourism Conference in Indianapolis. The event drew arts, culture, heritage, convention/visitors bureaus, and other related professionals from around the state to learn and share the changing nature of their work.

Since they asked for an 'emerging trend' discussion that relates to cultural tourism, I prepared a talk on the changing nature of 'place,' and the increasing importance (thank goodness) of  physical location even when accessing online resources.

The audio and the slide deck for the presentation are included below, via SlideShare. The audio isn't great (just off of my iPhone, placed at a distance). But I hope it gives you the gist of the 30-minute talk.

Thanks to the good folks at IUPUI's Tourism, Conventions, and Event Management program for hosting. They run a good show.

Sorry that the last weeks of classes here in the Wisconsin School of Business have kept me distracted. I had piles of theses to wade through with my brilliant students, which kept my brain otherwise engaged.

And now, with the end of the semester, the conference season begins. Hope to see some of you at my currently scheduled upcoming conversations:

• Indiana Cultural Tourism Conference
  ''Engage! Enrich! Enthuse!''
  May 13, 2010
  Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis
  I'm the opening plenary speaker to this statewide gathering, exploring the theme: ''PLACE makes a comeback.'' The convergence of the Internet, GPS tracking, geotagging, and mobile digital devices is making your current place and context increasingly integral to your online experiences. Obviously, this has huge implications for cultural tourism and place-based cultural endeavor.
• Association of Arts Administration Educators Annual Conference
  ''Making Connections: Preparing Cultural Leaders for Future Challenges''
  June 3-6, 2010
  American University, Washington, DC
  It's my last conference as president of this extraordinary group of arts administration educators, and the conference team has ensured it will be a great event. Michael Kaiser, Ben Cameron, and Joan Shigekawa are among the headliners, with panels and working sessions galore.
• Theatre Communications Group National Conference
  ''Ideas into Action''
  June 17-19, 2010
  Chicago, IL
  I'll be on a panel exploring the ''Creative Ecology,'' moderated by Carol Coletta and also featuring Gordon Gill (Friday, June 18, 4:00 pm). Haven't been to a TCG conference in a while, so I'll be eager to soak it in.
• Americans for the Arts, Half-Century Summit
  June 25-27, 2010
  Baltimore, MD
  I'm on one of the ''visionary panels'' (yeah, that's right, a visionary panel) at this 50-year celebration event for Americans for the Arts. Our subject is ''The Future of Leadership.'' I'll be talking alongside moderator Edward Clapp, Phoebe Eng, Leslie Ito, and Russell Willis Taylor. Fun.
  

Hope to see some of you out there somewhere.