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June 1, 2004
The tyranny of templates
Graphic information specialist Edward Tufte (who I've talked about before) has some strong opinions about a favorite software program in the business world:
Imagine a widely used and expensive prescription drug that claimed to make us beautiful but didn't. Instead the drug had frequent, serious side effects: making us stupid, degrading the quality and credibility of our communication, turning us into bores, wasting our colleagues' time. These side effects, and the resulting unsatisfactory cost/benefit ratio, would rightly lead to a worldwide product recall.
Of course, he's talking about Microsoft PowerPoint, and specifically the lure of its presentation templates, which he suggests take their user away from clarity and toward meaningless droning. He outlines this opinion in a great short publication The Cognitive Style of PowerPoint (which he sells for $7...clever man), that I'm finally getting around to reading.
Tufte believes that the PowerPoint template leads our brains down a specific path of organizing and presenting information, and that it's a path with dangerous tendencies, including:
....foreshortening of evidence and thought, low spatial resolution, a deeply hierarchical single-path structure as the model for organizing every type of content, breaking up narrative and data into slides and minimal fragments, rapid temporal sequencing of thin information rather than focused spatial analysis, conspicuous decoration and Phluff, a preoccupation with format not content, an attitude of commercialism that turns everything into a sales pitch.
Because I work in a School of Business, PowerPoint is like bread and butter, a staple of everyday life (for those not on Atkins, that is). Almost every student presentation is now on PowerPoint, and most class lectures as well. The program and the style are also well entrenched in professional arts conferences and board rooms, and they're oozing their way into arts organization staff meetings, as well.
Peter Norvig posted a wonderful parody of the mind- and speech-numbing characteristics of PowerPoint in his adaptation of Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg Address into a PowerPoint slideshow. He shows how great opportunities for eloquence and clarity are lost to the tyranny of PowerPoint templates. And he drives it home with one of my favorite graphics ever, the PowerPoint equivalent of the opening lines: 'Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth, upon this continent, a new nation...' (check it out).
There's a larger point here, beyond PowerPoint. There are tons of potentially useful tools that arts organizations can steal and adapt from the for-profit world: ratios, budget templates, reporting standards, organizational structures, staff policies, and on and on. But merely taking them as we think they are, without a critical eye on how they work and how they might affect our thinking, can lead us to unaffordable distraction.
The irony of it all is that we deal in the business of metaphor, of vision, of clarity in thought and presentation, of critical exploration. Let's apply those artful insights to all the tools we use, on stage and off.
Posted by ataylor at 8:26 AM
June 2, 2004
Just don't start playing solitaire
The New York Philharmonic recently tested a new audience information prototype (covered here in the New York Times, and also in Greg Sandow's column), that feeds notes and insights about the current performance to the folks sitting out in the seats. It's a wireless PDA-equivalent, currently called the Concert Companion, that's designed as a performance-enhancement gadget for those who want to know more detail about the work they're hearing.From the Times overview:
As the orchestra played Stravinsky's ''Petrushka,'' short paragraphs, ranging from the innocuous to the complex, flashed on the device's screen. ''Throughout this piece, the music breaks into separate, independent blocks, each with its own rhythm, melody and sound,'' one fun fact read. ''These blocks of music are a trademark of Stravinsky's style '' Another urged concertgoers to "listen to the oboe give way to two solo violins an effortless transition.''
Mr. Sandow wrote the notes that provided this electronic 'color commentary'. And he admits that the effort was some of the hardest writing he's ever done.
Museums have been using audio tours and more fancy electronic equivalents for a long time now, providing those who want it with more context around their visit and the works they see. Performing arts have generally relied on program notes, with supratitle/subtitle translations of opera performances and audio description for the visually impaired the only real-time exceptions.
The trick with experience enhancements to performing arts events is that they are extremely difficult to target to individual participants. While museum-goers can wear headphones and not affect the experience of those around them, any change in a live performance space can't really do the same. This challenge goes beyond personal technology to include any strategic intervention to change the audience or the audience experience, including price changes (that can alter the perceived value of a ticket by all audiences), modified programming (projections during a symphony performance, for example), or even changes to the trappings of tradition (informal clothing for musicians, rather than black tie). The Concert Companion may be a godsend for someone interested in learning as they listen. But it could also a distraction and an unwelcome companion for those sitting around them.
My guess is that these devices, or some future version thereof, will provide a powerful new connection to live performances for a portion of the audience (if the startup can get the business model to work), and will continue to be a thorn for those who already have profound experiences without them. It will be fascinating to watch the interplay of innovation and tradition that this device, and others coming, will foster in their audiences.
Posted by ataylor at 8:23 AM
June 3, 2004
Here's a useful thought
Tessa Jowell of the UK's Department for Culture, Media, and Sport has a bit of a radical thought for a government funder: perhaps our 'public purpose' approach to funding and fostering the arts for their instrumental benefits is missing the point entirely. In a bullet-point essay she published in May, she offers a thoughtful argument about how the discussion and direction of government support for the arts have gotten so far off track:
Too often politicians have been forced to debate culture in terms only of its instrumental benefits to other agendas -- education, the reduction of crime, improvements in wellbeing -- explaining -- or in some instances almost apologising for -- our investment in culture only in terms of something else. In political and public discourse in this country we have avoided the more difficult approach of investigating, questioning and celebrating what culture actually does in and of itself. There is another story to tell on culture and itıs up to politicians in my position to give a lead in changing the atmosphere, and changing the terms of debate.
In a supportive essay about Jowell's perspective, columnist James Fenton provides a parable on how instrumental arguments for the arts can distort and distract from their true nature:
Supposing you were a potter, and you went to your bin of clay and scooped out a lump, and threw it on a wheel, and took the result, and baked it, and glazed it, and baked it again, and at this point the minister [of culture] arrived and asked what you were up to, and you had the wit to say, 'I am attacking adult illiteracy' -- you would be a very savvy potter indeed. This is precisely the kind of potter the government has been on the look-out for. This is the kind of rhetoric they have wished to reward.
The other large target for Jowell's essay is the buzzword and public goal of 'access' to the arts. Access is a wonderful thing, she believes. But without an equally public emphasis on the quality of the work, access is an empty opportunity. Says Jowell:
Access to the substandard is access to disappointment which will translate into an unwillingness to keep paying. It will not inspire or raise levels of aspiration, and in the end is not worthwhile. That is why excellence has to be at the heart of cultural subsidy, and that is what we must insist on.
What a great debate to launch in such a public way. Let's hope others on all sides of the issues come out swinging.
Posted by ataylor at 8:22 AM
June 4, 2004
Off to Pittsburgh
I'll be traveling to Pittsburgh all next week (June 8 - 13) for the National Performing Arts Convention. During the massive, cross-disciplinary event, I'll be co-leading (with Alberta Arthurs and Steven Tepper) a research team of 20 graduate students, deployed across all the convenings to observe, capture, and document the big ideas and common challenges that emerge throughout the conversations. In a bit of hubris, we'll be coding our findings in real time, and reporting what we learn back to the convention before it ends.As a result, I may or may not be posting to the weblog next week. If I have a brain cell left in my head, I'll make an effort. Otherwise, I'll see you in a week.
If you're attending the Pittsburgh convention, be sure to flag me down. I'll be wearing a goofy button with the research project name on it (I-DOC). Or you can recognize me from my lovely photo here.
Hope to see some of you at the 'big show'.
Posted by ataylor at 12:23 AM
June 15, 2004
Some tidbits while my brain cools
It was a long and fascinating week at the National Performing Arts Convention last week, likely to launch a hundred future blog entries. First, it all needs time to settle.In the meantime, some tidbits and pointers from some of the conversations in Pittsburgh that might be worth your attention:
- The San Francisco Symphony demoed its new on-line initiative with PBS called 'Keeping Score' that's raises the bar on interactive classical music exploration. Just take a browse through the Tchaikovsky's 4th Symphony (and especially the 'explore the orchestra' section) to see the current state of interactive, on-line education. The price tag on the effort is another question, with some estimates I heard topping over $500K. I often wonder why the San Francisco doesn't then license these systems to non-competing orchestras in other regions to earn some revenue back, and share the power of what they've created.
- NEA Chairman Dana Gioia was on the lecture circuit during the combined conferences (I saw him four times). Common themes were the Endowment's 'masterworks' efforts to introduce Americans to great American works of art. Another phrase that came up often was that 'the purpose of the NEA is not to serve arts organizations, but to serve the American people,' which went over like a lead balloon at the collective plenary.
- Regardless of the outcomes of the conference, many of us were pleased and surprised with the number of peers and old friends that were there together, from many different disciplines. I heard more than once a participant saying something like: 'I think everybody I've ever known in my career is here.' I look forward to hearing if the connection of old friends was also enhanced by the creation of new connections between strangers.
Posted by ataylor at 9:36 AM
June 21, 2004
When in doubt, look to the frogs
The Sunday New York Times was chock-a-block with interesting angles on arts management issues. Two of particular connection were an article on the slow vanishing act of architect Daniel Libeskind from the World Trade Center redevelopment; and another on the phenomenon of theater workshops of new works, and their tendency to kill full productions rather than foster them.The Libeskind story is a parable of vision meeting reality. The architect's early recommendations for the Ground Zero redevelopment were celebrated as fresh and honorable when first announced. Now the original vision has fallen into the hands of political and economic process, to the surprise of few, but the comment of many:
To others, the dimming of Mr. Libeskind's glow is inevitable, a function of both a culture with a short attention span and the proper progression from overall design to individual detail. If there is less excitement about the design for the World Trade Center now than there once was, said Frederic M. Bell, the executive director of the American Institute of Architects' New York Chapter, it is ''not through any diminishment of respect'' for Mr. Libeskind. ''When the actual buildings get designed, they supplant the drawings of what they might look like with what they will look like, and that's natural.''
That same struggle between vision and reality plagues the theater workshopping piece, that explores why so many staged readings, table readings, and more intensive theater workshops are leading to so few new produced works. Says the article:
The road to Workshop Hell is, as such things are, paved with the best intentions, aimed at giving writers -- particularly young writers -- a chance to develop new work in a safe environment. But according to many who have been through the cycle, it often has the opposite effect, stunting the artistic process, subjecting the work to endless critiques from random observers and inspiring waves of counterproductive, even conflicting rewrites.
It all raises questions about fostering and supporting bold creative vision in the face of dire economic, political, and practical energy (this earlier Times article offers a retread of the economic issues, if you hadn't yet heard about the 'perfect storm'). As arts organizations become more corporate and responsible (as they believe they must to attract and retain their broad base of skittish funders), they can become creatures of compromise. But in the meanwhile, we may all be killing the thing we're trying to preserve.
Another fabulous case-in-point about changing one's nature to grow toward the light comes in this other Sunday Times article on 'municipal branding'. It seems a town in Oregon has big plans to draw the tourist trade by reframing itself as the center of the frog universe:
The branding, discussed at civic meetings over the last year, envisions frog festivals, frog art, frog T-shirts and statues of frogs on skateboards at the skate park. At the bar on Main Street, cartoons of frogs sipping draft beer, and at the town chiropractor, a frog on crutches -- frogs on everything, and an advertising campaign to let the world know.
It all begs the question(s): what's the boundary between fostering something, and extinguishing its essence? Between clarifying who we are to an outside world and forgetting who we are within ourselves? Between being bold and being responsible? It's not an easy balance, to be sure, but it's worth bringing forward to ask.
Posted by ataylor at 8:37 AM
June 22, 2004
Tax reform poster children
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette discusses emerging efforts to review in-kind contributions to nonprofits and their restrictions within the IRS tax code. It sounds like a deadly dull conversation, far less interesting than the NEA budget advances, but alert managers should take careful note. As the conversation is forming, arts and culture organizations are looming large in the sights of the review committee -- with suggestions that they are poster children for the need for reform.Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, head of the Senate Finance Committee, is leading the charge for change, suggesting that the values of in-kind gifts are often wildly inflated by donors, and represent inappropriate tax shelters.
Just for background, 'in-kind' contributions are goods and services donated to a nonprofit that would have otherwise cost money...legal services, printing services, computers, even art works, artifacts, musical instruments, and the like. For most of these in-kind gifts, the cash value is fairly easy to calculate for both the contributor and the recipient: they just look to what those same goods and services would have cost if they were being paid for, or how they are valued on the contributors books. Attorneys know exactly what they would charge a paying client; companies contributing computers or office equipment already have some record for that equipment and its residual value.
The problem comes when the contributed item or service is difficult to value -- like a rare book or a 'priceless' heirloom. You can guess at the value of such things, but since they are often rare and unique, and are NOT being sold but contributed, you can't know for sure what they would have earned on the open market.
That's where Sen. Grassley is most concerned, and that's where arts organizations are perfect for the public pillory. According to the story:
....Grassley is expected to zero in on the much-ballyhooed case of Herbert Axelrod, a wealthy New Jersey businessman who made a fortune publishing pet-care books. In 1998, Axelrod donated four antique Stradivarius instruments to the Smithsonian Institution and, last year, sold several dozen more to the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra at what he claimed was a greatly reduced price -- and in both cases, insisted the instruments were worth $50 million.
It doesn't help matters that Axelrod was indicted earlier this year for tax evasion, fled to Havana, and was arrested last week in Berlin. Not your favorite profile of a major donor.
There's clearly a balance in here somewhere, and one that will be hard to come by in election rhetoric. Of course contributions should be valued carefully for tax purposes. And for most in-kind gifts, this is fairly easily done. The danger is in defining policy for the anomoly rather than the norm, which will leave arts organizations with much more legal fees and paperwork, and leave potential donors wondering if they should even bother.
More fun stuff to watch in Congress. If only I had cable.
Posted by ataylor at 8:41 AM
June 23, 2004
Come on, get happy
A great short piece in the NY Times Magazine explores the darker side of happiness, as described in a recent journal article in Psychological Science (can't link you there...sorry). Says the Times article:
The happier your mood, the more liable you are to make bigoted judgments -- like deciding that someone is guilty of a crime simply because he's a member of a minority group. Why? Nobody's sure. One interesting hypothesis, though, is that happy people have an ''everything is fine'' attitude that reduces the motivation for analytical thought. So they fall back on stereotypes -- including malicious ones.
While the opinion piece is thin on evidence from the journal article and thick on historical exploration of 'happiness,' it offers a nice bundle of thoughts on what we mean by the term, and what we've come to expect from it.
Does it have anything to do with arts management? Beats me. But understanding 'happiness' and 'joy' seems a useful knowledge nugget for anyone in the business of creative and cultural experience (either the creation, distribution, preservation, stewardship, or consumption thereof). Are we in the business of helping people be happier? Or are we part of a toolkit our audiences use to construct a more complex set of feelings and self-awarenesses?
It recalls a quote by playwright/director/cultural maven Robert Lepage:
''Going to the theater is not about feeling good. It is about feeling.''
(Or, at least, that's how Robert Fitzpatrick quoted him in this speech from way back when.)
Posted by ataylor at 11:18 AM
June 24, 2004
Selling Strads in bulk
A weblog reader sent some thoughts on the controversy of Herbert Axelrod and his valuation of his Stradivarius violins donated/sold to the Smithsonian and the New Jersey Symphony (touched on in a recent post). The perceived over-valuation seems to be fuel for the tax-reform fire currently smoldering in DC. This reader suggests that the claimed value may not be that outrageous, depending on how you assumed the instruments might be sold:
The problem with Strads or other high-end instruments isn't that they have no appraisable value -- it is that they have very, very limited liquidity. The market of buyers and sellers is so insanely small that the notion of more than one or two moving in the same month is highly unlikely.... Whoever did the appraisals is, in some sense, justified. If the question is 'how much could one sell THIS VIOLIN for' -- and the question is then asked five, or ten, or twenty times, you look at each violin, consider the market as it currently exists (without that violin for sale, or any of the others) and value it.I think this is a unique situation -- not only are you dealing with the difficulty of appraising rare ('priceless') goods, you're dealing with a volume of them such that the value of any one decreases substantially based on the presence of the others.
The idea that this case is going to become the poster child for what is wrong with non-profits is, IMO, troubling in the extreme. There's far more obvious and self-serving nonsense going on out there....
Thanks for the thoughts...keep sending them along.
UPDATE: In a bit of synchronicity, NPR featured two stories on Stradivarius instruments this morning, this one about a salvaged and restored cello, and this one exploring the Library of Congress collection of the instruments. The latter has some great commentary from violinist/commentator Miles Hoffman about what makes them so special to play (and so expensive to purchase).
Posted by ataylor at 12:39 AM
June 25, 2004
More from Miami's PAC
The Miami-Dade Performing Arts Center currently (and perpetually) under construction has bumped up its final project cost again (username: ajreader@artsjournal.com / password: access), much to the frustration and chatter of county government and citizenry. I've touched on the huge and complex project before (first in this weblog entry last September, and then again last November), because it's such an astounding bundle of intrigue, politics, power, and misunderstanding.A call for bids at the end of 2000 was hoping for a final construction cost of around $200 million. The lowest bid came in at $280 million. And that was just for construction, without architects fees and other softer costs. The latest estimates rise another $67 million above all previously estimated costs to $411 million ($254.6 million for construction, $89.4 for architect's fees, land, and insurance, and an additional $67 million in proposed cost overruns). Beyond that pricetag, the center also says it will need another $17.4 million in fixtures, furnishings, security systems, phones, computers and other equipment, and another $10 million in pre-opening operating costs.
Miami-Dade's county commissioners were publicly cranky about the new estimates, and seeking some sort of head to put on some sort of platter. But it also seemed obvious to all of them that they couldn't stop this train, and that even the estimates they were seeing were likely low.
It brings to mind an aphorism I heard at a recent leadership event:
There are two phases to every project: too soon to tell, and too late to do anything about it.
Miami is now in phase two.
Posted by ataylor at 8:24 AM
June 28, 2004
Flop or success? Ask the accountant
Depending on how you measure, the Toronto run of The Producers has either been a terrible flop or a cash smash. The Toronto Star's Martin Knelman unbundles the question in yesterday's edition, suggesting that 'flop' is often in the eye of the beholder (and the accountant):
Should a show really be considered a flop when it runs for 33 weeks in this town, delighting 400,000 people and pulling in an average of $1 million a week at the box office?
He contrasts the failure cloud surrounding The Producers with the glowing sense of success of Urinetown, which has enjoyed an extended Toronto run -- but that shows to half empty houses and cut its number of weekly shows from eight to six. The reason one continues while the other closes? Three annoyingly dull answers fit the bill: wildly different operating costs, expectations of the financial model, and underlying purposes for the two productions (nonprofit vs. for-profit).
'Success' is a construct, like so many other catchwords we use in business and art. It's good to keep in mind that arts managers have an essential role to play in that construction.
Posted by ataylor at 8:47 AM
June 29, 2004
The difference that makes a difference
While attending the National Performing Arts Convention in Pittsburgh this past June, I had the opportunity to duck into several of the separate annual conferences that were running concurrently (Dance/USA, Chorus America, American Symphony Orchestra League, and OPERA America). While I had been to many of these association meetings before, there was never the opportunity to jump from one to the other (they've never been in the same town at the same time before).
NOTE: For those that aren't familiar with the convention format, these four national service organizations held their separate annual meetings in separate hotels on Thursday and Friday, then collaborated on a combined convention on Saturday.
Lots of things struck me about these events, things that will bubble up in this weblog over time, but the one that keeps striking me is how we group ourselves and our challenges/opportunities in nonprofit arts and culture.
By their nature, the leading national service organizations are primarily grouped by artistic discipline (dance, chorus, orchestra, theater, museum, etc.). There are other associations grouped by region (Arts Midwest, WESTAF, etc.), and a few national organizations (Americans for the Arts, which is more of a service organization to political action). Apart from these few exceptions, when arts administrators gather, they tend to gather by their discipline.
Disciplines are certainly convenient ways of grouping ourselves. If I'm a dance company manager it makes perfect sense for me to meet and talk with other dance company managers, or opera with opera, or theater with theater. When I join a national association of these discipline-specific organizations (such as OPERA America), I do so to meet peers that work like me in organizations like mine, and to receive information, alerts, ideas, and professional development opportunities designed to serve the needs of my discipline.
But what if discipline isn't the most useful distinction to solve my problems, explore my opportunities, or expand my craft?
What if I'm a small theater company, for example, and the best answers to my particular issue are available from a small dance company, or symphony, or chamber ensemble, or even museum? Crazier still, what if the most interesting answers are outside the nonprofit field, in independent record labels or garage bands or commercial film production companies or city planning or software development? What if the nature of my particular problem isn't a function of my discipline at all, but of my community, my market area, my production requirements, my budget size, my board composition, or the professional/volunteer mix of my staff?
Anthropologist/social scientist Gregory Bateson once defined information as ''a difference that makes a difference,'' meaning that not all differences are useful in advancing understanding or insight. If I'm looking for a taxi, for example, and both a yellow one and a white one stop in front of me, their color is an obvious difference, but not necessarily a useful difference in making my choice. I would look for more useful differences (i.e., information) to decide which one to hop into (which one's closer, which has the lowest rate, which has the smartest-looking driver at the wheel). If I were really looking for the best travel choice, I wouldn't even limit my category to taxis, but might consider buses, cars, trains, subways, walking, or even convincing my next meeting to come to me.
There are certainly reams of differences between chorus organizations and theater organizations, between dance companies and opera companies, between nonprofits and commercial organizations that create, distribute, or support cultural experience. But the obvious differences aren't always the ones that make a difference when I'm looking for better management ideas, insights about how to connect to an audience, thoughts for improving my work with my board, or a full spectrum of other issues that are best defined by other boundaries. Worse yet, when we get our brains stuck in a non-useful distinction (like the taxi example above), we never even consider the more powerful choices and innovative options at our disposal.
That thought kept striking me as I wandered from annual conference to annual conference. Each had issues of small organizations in low-density communities. Each had groups of larger organizations in high-density communities with a different set of problems. Each had tensions about how to justify their work to their supporters, their donors, their city and state governments. By grouping primarily by discipline, these smart and creative people had limited their pool of insight and experience to an extremely small and fairly homogenous subset of the useful world.
Clearly, the National Performing Arts Convention was designed to highlight that very issue, and to shift the centrifugal forces that push the professional disciplines apart (and there were some powerful moments when it seemed to succeed). But I was struck by the power and persistance of those forces, and the common assumption that answers were best found in 'organizations like mine' -- without taking a moment to consider what 'like mine' really meant.
So what are the differences that make a difference among arts, culture, entertainment, education, and heritage organizations? That's a weblog for another day...
Posted by ataylor at 12:54 PM
June 30, 2004
Numbers and rankings and lists
Americans for the Arts just announced a new study, some new findings, and a new mapping tool that seek to define the number and location of 'creative industries' in the United States, and how they cluster in cities, states, and towns. The study and mapping tool combine Dun & Bradstreet data and geo-economic analysis to draw conclusions (and pretty scatter maps) about a broader bucket of 'creative' organizations, from both the nonprofit and for-profit world. Says the press release:
The creative industries are composed of arts-centric businesses, institutions, and organizations that range from museums, symphonies, and theaters to film, architecture, and advertising companies. Nationally, creative industry businesses number 548,000 (4.3 percent of all U.S. businesses) and they employ 2.99 million people (2.2 percent of all employees). The creative industries also provide the essential fuel that drives the 'information economy' -- the fastest growing segment of the nationıs economy.
Sure to ensue is a series of local and regional articles on the massive importance of creative industries -- broadly defined -- in city and state economies. The Denver Post is already on board in this regard.
The numbers and maps are fascinating bits of information, and sure to be useful tools in government arts advocacy efforts (especially since the maps can be drawn by congressional district, city, or any other political zone desired). But as with all such rankings and numberings, the conclusions fall short of showing causality, or suggesting a policy response (we've got a bunch of creative industries in our region...is that good? would more be better? would less be better? do we have more advertising firms, movie theaters, or symphonies than a comparable city? do we care?).
A resolution passed by the U.S. Conference of Mayors (coordinated with the release of the new study) seeks to connect these dots a bit (creative industries attract a quality workforce, are rooted locally but exported internationally, encourage cultural tourism, etc.). But we're still strugging to figure the mix and balance of creative activity in a community that really gets us there (nonprofit/for-profit, professional/amateur, incorporated/informal, 'high' art/popular, etc.).
An essential next step is to move beyond counting the number and species of fish, and to start understanding how they all interconnect and relate within a vital ecology.
For the rankings addicts, the metropolitan areas with the highest concentration of creative industries were New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island and Los Angeles-Riverside-Orange County. When measured for creative industries per capita, Seattle-Tacoma-Bremerton and San Francisco-Oakland-San Jose jumped to the top of the list.
Posted by ataylor at 9:10 AM
