The Artful Manager

Oh, the power(lessness), the absolute power(lessness)

2009-11-06T06:18:24Z

If you're getting tired of 'top 20' lists of people who are richer, smarter, more attractive, better connected, and more interesting than you are, the folks over at Hyperallergic have a ranking for you! In response to the Art Review 'top 100' power-brokers in the art world, they suggest The Top 20 Most Powerless People in the Art World. Among them:

Independent curators without trust funds -- There's a saying, ''No trust, no love.''
Artists who can't speak English, French, German, or Spanish. While the world is filled with approximately 6,800 languages, artwork must adhere to the linguistic realities of economics.
Beleaguered Administrative Assistants at MoMA -- This is a group that knows what it's like to be underpaid, under-appreciated and powerless -- the trifecta!
Anyone living in only one place, as opposed to ''between Berlin and Beijing,'' or ''based in London, Amsterdam, Sao Paolo, and Los Angeles.'' Where have you been, mono-urbanity is so 20th century...

It's nice to find a list that we all have a chance to actually get on!

Thanks Bruce Sterling for the link.

What if the 'new normal' is really the original normal?

2009-11-04T14:29:05Z

Neill Archer Roan posts a rather interesting thought on his weblog about what we're all calling the 'new normal' for our economy, our society, and our work: what if the past 50 years were the exception, not the rule, to human history? What if the conditions we all considered to be 'normal' as we built our businesses, our industries, and our common sense were actually anomolies? He quotes a recent interview with Jim Collins in Fortune, who says:

It turns out that 1952 to 2000 was an aberration. We had a combination of tremendous stability brought on by two monolithic superpowers -- danger, yes, but stability, combined with unprecedented prosperity. Very rarely in human history -- maybe the Egyptian empire or 200 A.D. in Rome -- only a few times you can go back and find those.

And yet, most of the nonprofit arts industry was born and evolved in that aberration. And what we consider 'standards of practice' could be standards for a universe that's not coming back.

Which is not to suggest that arts organizations throw in the towel, but rather that it's a good time to check ALL of our assumptions about what we do, how we do it, and what we define as success. And it also might be a good time to dust off our history books to see how arts and culture worked before 1952. There might be some useful ideas from the OLD normal that could be revived.

Thoughts on the 'portfolio career'

2009-11-02T15:17:14Z

If you thought you were just bouncing from gig to gig, juggling multiple part-time or limited-term jobs in the arts and elsewhere, or just patching together a living from a seemingly diffuse bundle of clients, employers, and projects, you may not have realized that you were engaging in the job strategy of the future, the portfolio career. The phrase and the concept seem to be popping up in organizational theory circles as a way of capturing an age-old practice that's becoming an emerging trend.

The ''portfolio worker,'' defined by organizational and management theorist Charles Handy a few decades ago, doesn't work for a single company, but rather gathers a ''portfolio'' of jobs around a common theme or skill set, and balances that portfolio much like an investor manages a bundle of stocks.

I've been using the phrase a lot lately, as it describes both the reality of so much cultural work, but also the tension and intention of managing such complex working relationships. We've seen lots of evidence lately that policy-makers don't consider portfolio jobs to be ''real jobs'' (which are defined, it seems, as permanent, persistent employment opportunities). Further, our career counseling for creative professionals, and our training for prospective professionals in higher education, does little to engage the challenge.

Anyone know of an organization or a research cluster that's specifically looking at this issue in the arts? Would love to know who already knows about it.

An artist's alternative to material wealth

2009-10-30T05:39:43Z

In an era when our economy is in flux, and many are revisiting their penchant for buying more stuff, conceptual artist Jonathon Keats offers another way: buy the opposite of stuff. His upcoming exhibit on The First Bank of Antimatter (BoingBoing blog here, and here's the exhibition site) suggests a mirror marketplace to reinvigorate our current one. Says he:

"Economic equilibrium is upset by our unbalanced pursuit of material wealth.... My plan is to offset materialism with modern science, by exploiting the economic potential of antimatter, which is the physical opposite of anything made with atoms, from luxury condos to private jets."

The exhibit creates a new form of currency, backed by antimatter stored in a vault. Sounds like a plan to me.

Signs that you've stayed too long at the party

2009-10-28T17:30:24Z

In this job market and this economy, it's challenging to consider leaving a job. But it's never a bad idea for any cultural manager to at least ask the question: Am I in the right place, doing the right work? CompassPoint's Tim Wolfred offers six signs that it might be time to move on. Among them:

I keep returning to this thought: the organization needs to go in a new direction (or to a new level) and I'm not the right person for it.
I'm burned out and I know it.
I don't think I'm burned out, but other people think I am.
I can't stand my board anymore . . . and/or, I can't seem to please the board no matter what I do.
My clock is ticking.
Family roles are calling me.

For most of the above, there are alternatives to departure -- such as additional training or professional development, refreshing your perspective with your board (or refreshing your board), or redefining your job or your place within the organization. But even these take proactive identification that there's a problem to be addressed.

Worth a read, and a ponder.

[Thanks to Barry's blog for the link.]

Of management metaphor and myth

2009-10-27T14:51:21Z

Anne Midgette at the Washington Post offers a short slap in the face to those who suggest the orchestra conductor as a model of modern management (a la Roger Nierenberg, et al). Sure, in theory, conductors work to bring different talents together into a single expression. Sure, in theory, conductors engage a complex range of knowledge, context, and personnel to achieve a creative goal. But Midgette counters that, in practice, orchestras are a bit of a mess.

Orchestras are notoriously dysfunctional places, often filled with talented people suffering from acute frustration at their lack of autonomy or of artistic self-expression. And the conductor of stereotype is an autocratic figure who doesn't care if his musicians are happy or not.

And while those archetypes are changing by necessity, increasingly toward collaborative leadership and venture-friendly conductors, it's still not clear that the orchestral metaphor holds much water for the modern manager. Says she:

...orchestras with conductors have not traditionally been the happiest places for their employees; orchestras without conductors do not necessarily make the best music; and yet orchestras are being presented as holding keys to business success.

Discuss, indeed.

The challenge of blending physical business with on-line

2009-10-26T14:06:53Z

Slate's ''The Big Money'' blog offers a fascinating analysis of the new Barnes & Noble eBook reader, the Nook. Author Marion Maneker suggests that while the Nook is designed to compete against Amazon's Kindle, it might only underscore the fundamental differences between Barnes & Noble's business model and that of Amazon.

In brief, Amazon is in the business of delivering books through on-line sales. If that book can be delivered digitally, rather than in physical form by mail, Amazon wins by delivering a comparable product with vastly lower cost. Barnes & Noble, on the other hand, is a bricks-and-mortar retailer. And while their Nook strategy offers incentives to actually bring the device to one of their stores, the cost implications are vastly different -- prices drop, more digital books are purchased instead of physical books, but the retail side of that equation gets hammered in the process.

Barnes & Noble still needs to stock shelves, pay rent, and hire staff...at least for the immediate future. And if they're successful with the Nook, their margin to do so will get narrower and narrower (and perhaps negative) really quickly.

For arts and cultural managers, the analysis offers a sideways glance at the challenge of adding on-line strategies to place-based businesses (theaters, museums, galleries, and the like). It's a necessity if your goal is really to engage an audience. But it can have consequences that accelerate the business problems you already have in your primary endeavor. And you don't get a lot of time to decide. Says Maneker:

In an orderly world where change takes place incrementally, the Nook might be a smart long-term strategy to shift Barnes & Noble's base from physical stores to e-readers. But we don't live in that world. The book business has shifted into hyper-space with dramatic change taking place within a compressed time frame.

Blogging the GIA

2009-10-22T13:43:55Z

The annual Grantmakers in the Arts conference has long been a closed affair -- gathering foundations and funders for several days of discussion, workshops, and panels to inform their work. The reasons for the closed circle are obvious: Funders can speak more freely about their challenges and opportunities if they're aren't being swarmed by potential grantees. Plus, as a community of practice, they can benefit from reasonably pure peer-to-peer connections.

Nonmembers can come if they're invited (I've been to two of them, which makes me cool). But otherwise it's a bit like Fight Club and its first rule. Which is why it's rather nice to have a blogger on-site this year, in the form and phrases of Ian David Moss of the Createquity blog. Ian engaged the tension of blogging from a closed conference in one of his posts:

The conference is traditionally closed to all but staff of grantmaking organizations and invited speakers. In addition, there is a strict policy against solicitation of any kind... The result is that the conference creates, as GIA board member Janet Rodriguez characterized it, a ''safe space'' for the sharing of ideas among colleagues. However, at the only major national convening for arts funders every year, this strategy can also remove the possibility of healthy confrontation in a field in which getting honest feedback can be a challenge.

Lots of great summaries and perspectives. Although I'm rather eagerly awaiting the reports from the morning workshop entitled ''The Future and Our Role in Shaping It'' where Ian was not invited. If ever there was a topic for funders to engage with transparency, openess, and full-on critical engagement, that's it.

Rethinking arts economies and arts exchange

2009-10-21T13:32:35Z

A breadcrumb trail of conversation (from Twitter to Flux Theatre to Stolen Chair) led me to Stolen Chair Theatre's new initiative to support new works. Instead of grants and traditional subscriptions, they propose a community support system modeled on Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). Says Stolen Chair:

Like the CSA model, Stolen Chair hopes to build a membership community, a "CST", which would provide 'seed' money for the company's development process and then reap a year's worth of theatrical harvests.

The organization has received a grant to create the model as part of The Field's Economic Revitalization for Performing Artists (ERPA) initiative. More on the model and the metaphor in a future post. But in the meanwhile, I was struck by an extended quote from Stolen Chair's Jon Stancato (transcribed in his blog), which seems to suggest the motivation for their CSA idea:

There is no such thing as an arts economy since non-commercial arts by their very definition don't follow market logic and can't compete in the market place without dependence on non-profit support structures and the government. So we can embrace our role in the margins of the economy and struggle the way that performing artists have struggled since theatre and religion parted ways, or we can model ourselves on the only other two positions left to us in a market-driven economy: as charity (quite like an endangered species) or as community resource (like a neighborhood garden)....

I don't want to be a charity, in large part because I don't think our social cause has enough merit to compete with other charities who actually change lives on a grand scale. So, the only round hole we can force our square peg of a "business model" into is as community resource.

In this interconnected, digital age, if our art can serve as a meeting place for communities of like-minded individuals to connect, celebrate, and be challenged, then we might find a way of restoring theatre's primacy in people's lives and creating sustainable theatre-making organisms (not organizations).

For which he received both boos and applause. While I would nudge Stancato's definition of an economy, which seems to assume an exclusively commercial marketplace (which is only part of an economy), I think his central question is a rather important one:

Is unprofitable theater (or other arts endeavor) a charity, a community resource, an entitlement, a labor of love, or some combination thereof? Whatever we choose as our cluster of definitions, it will be helpful to align our business models and our resource strategies accordingly.

It will be fascinating to watch Stolen Chair, and the other recipients of the ERPA funding, explore these new alignments.

Calling all emergent leaders

2009-10-20T13:37:52Z

I don't spend much time on this blog talking about my day job, as I figure its a relatively commercial-free zone. But I do have a day job, directing an MBA degree program in Arts Administration in the Wisconsin School of Business. And that day job is entirely intertwined with all that I do online and offline.

Essentially, I work closely with my colleagues here in the business school, with alumni, and with international innovators in professional practice to do three things:

Search for and select high-potential professional leaders for arts and cultural enterprise;
Connect those individuals to curriculum, hands-on learning, and professional networks to help them become not only masters of the task at hand, but also ready for the task ahead;
Build and grow an international network of alumni and colleagues in the professional world and in academia to ensure we know what success looks like for items one and two, and that we have the capacity to achieve it.

Around this time every year, my focus narrows onto item number one: search and selection. Each February, we accept applications for fall admission. And each March, we select from that extraordinary international pool to build our incoming class. We already get a strong, competitive, and compelling group of applicants each year. But I'm concerned that we're missing large numbers of high-potential cultural leaders who aren't aware of the option.

Which is where I'd appreciate your help.

If you are (or if you know) an exceptionally passionate and focused professional in arts and culture, with two tor more years of full-time, post-undergraduate work experience, an aptitude for business thinking, and a commitment to innovation in the way arts organizations run, we should know each other. You provide the application, the transcripts, the GMAT score, and the compelling essays. We'll provide a fully funded (yes, all of our admitted students are funded through hands-on assistantships), intensive, immersive, conversational, and challenging two-year MBA degree in Arts Administration for those who are selected.

I know it sounds like a sales pitch, but it's really a call for partners. Our students, our graduates, our network, and our faculty have defined professional practice in arts and culture for 40 years. We need your energy and your insights to redefine the field for the next 40 years.

Interested? Send me a note!

Personal communications...in bulk

2009-10-14T12:58:53Z

So much of an arts manager's time is spent preparing written communications -- thank you letters, invitations, editorials, complaints, and the like. Whether in the form of e-mail, postal letter, notecard, or treatise nailed to a church door, these writing tasks are relentless, filling our to-do list as fast as we can crank them to the outbox.

Which is why I'm growing rather fond of the Bureau of Communication, and their handy fill-in forms for personal and professional correspondence. Just a few nouns and adjectives, and you're on your way to drafting unsolicited feedback, an airing of grievance, a formal apology, a statement of gratitude, or a number of other essential messages (such as the declaration of romantic intent).

Significantly better than having to think it all up from scratch.

Getting beyond the left-brain/right-brain debate

2009-10-13T12:57:34Z

Experience designer and strategist Peter Merholz over in Harvard Business Publishing calls a 'time out' on our growing boosterism for 'design thinking' in the world of business -- a la Daniel Pink's Whole New Mind. Is creative problem-solving important to the process? Sure it is, says Merholz, but so are a range of other skills and perspectives on BOTH sides of the brain. His complaint is that 'design thinking' has become such a myopic focus. Says he:

Design thinking is trotted out as a salve for businesses who need help with innovation. The idea is that the left-brained, MBA-trained, spreadsheet-driven crowd has squeezed all the value they can out of their methods. To fix things, all you need to do is apply some right-brained turtleneck-wearing "creatives," "ideating" tons of concepts and creating new opportunities for value out of whole cloth.

It's understandable for creative individuals -- especially those in the nonprofit arts -- to grab onto any business mythology that underscores their value. We certainly made hay out of Richard Florida's Rise of the Creative Class, even though many waving the book at city council members didn't actually read it (and didn't realize they were promoting bars, nightclubs, raves, and bohemian culture rather than the nonprofit arts). And we continue to milk the idea that the ''MFA is the new MBA,'' as Daniel Pink claims so famously in his work.

The problem isn't that we're wrong about the importance of creative thinking, just that we're a bit vague and overzealous about its sovereignty. Even Daniel Pink was actually arguing for a new balance, not a regime change (the book was called a WHOLE new mind, after all). And he's had trouble clarifying the position, as well (per this Washington Post response to his Nancy Hanks Lecture last year).

If artists, arts leaders, and arts organizations really want to engage the conversation about their value and importance to business, community, and beyond, we all might benefit from some critical analysis and balanced thinking. We can't just hop from slogan to slogan to slogan and expect to be taken seriously. As Merholz concludes:

The supposed dichotomy between "business thinking" and "design thinking" is foolish.... Instead, what we must understand is that in this savagely complex world, we need to bring as broad a diversity of viewpoints and perspectives to bear on whatever challenges we have in front of us. While it's wise to question the supremacy of "business thinking," shifting the focus only to "design thinking" will mean you're missing out on countless possibilities.

Collaboration is a muscle

2009-10-07T13:23:52Z

I often participate in working groups or task teams of arts and cultural organizations -- collections of managers gathering to address a collective problem, or consider a collaborative solution. And I'm often frustrated that more than half of the conversation is inevitably spent framing the problem in narrow terms, with the rest of the time conceiving a solution to that narrow frame. The problem, it strikes me, is generally bigger than the tactical issues being discussed. And any solution must begin with a broad view and a new frame.

Said Albert Einstein: ''You cannot solve a problem from the same consciousness that created it. You must learn to see the world anew.''

But, my recent working group experience, with Project Audience this week in Chicago, is slowly teaching me to get over myself.

The gathering, supported by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, convened to consider the development of new software tools to build connection and community around the arts. Representatives from many city or regional on-line arts portals, arts listings, audience initiatives, and the like are becoming frustrated with the tools they are using, and losing faith that commercial vendors will fill the gaps in mission-focused ways. So, they're wondering if they should build their own.

As I was beginning to feel my familiar frustration, however, we heard from Chris Mackie, a Mellon Foundation specialist on community-source software development (primarily outside the arts). And his point was this: Collaboration is a muscle.

In his extensive experience with communities of practice building software together, he said, that muscle took time to build bulk and dexterity. Early efforts were invariably designed to solve immediate problems, often narrowly defined. But the process of resolving those problems together made the group smarter, more sophisticated, and more prepared to grow into the challenge of a larger frame.

Along the way, early wins and direct returns on investment led to more elegant and innovative solutions. And those innovations led the group to think and work differently. And on and on. In some cases, it would take years of collective work until the group would find its way into the problem it was originally trying to solve. But they wouldn't and couldn't have recognized the problem or its solution back then. They needed collaborative muscle, which could only have been built together.

Which is why I'm rethinking my own frustrations with the pace and frame of problem-solving among cultural managers. And why I'm now considering ways, instead, to help them build things together. I'm certainly not giving up on the long view or the big frame. But I'm realizing that even the best perspective will require some considerable collaborative heft to get us there.

Project Audience

2009-10-05T11:28:03Z

I'm in Chicago at the moment, attending a small but intensive convening for Project Audience, an Andrew W. Mellon funded initiative seeking to improve the application of on-line technologies to engage audiences with the arts. Participants include individual arts organizations like the Seattle Opera and the Louisiana Philharmonic, discipline-specific service agencies like Theater Bay Area or Music for Tomorrow, and community-wide arts funding/support initiatives like Seattle's ArtsFund or the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance.

The group is working to find collaborative opportunities to rethink existing strategies, and perhaps even co-develop new tools, to (as Mellon's Diane Ragsdale put it last night) connect people with people, and people with art, and people with artists in more dynamic ways.

The question already lingering in my head (and in the early conversations last night) is this: Can we effectively serve a broad mission to engage anyone and everyone in expressive opportunities, when we really represent the specific interests of a small subset of such opportunities (either the professional nonprofit arts, or our particular organization)? When such boundaries are often irrelevant to audiences -- who might find equal satisfaction attending a professional nonprofit event, singing or playing music at home with their friends, or dancing and drinking in a local nightclub -- how can we build systems that support that full range of activity, while our boards and bosses demand strategic focus on the bottom line?

I know it can be done. But it requires a different approach to marketing, management, and engagement than we've come to know. It will be interesting to watch the conversation unfold.

Rethinking arts journalism...LIVE!

2009-10-02T05:17:38Z

[UPDATE: This event has come and gone. Hope everyone enjoyed it. For more details and media archives, visit the National Summit on Arts Journalism web site.]

My colleague Doug McLennan, founder and editor of ArtsJournal, has been reframing arts journalism and the public conversation on the arts since he launched this web site way back when. This Friday, he's leading and facilitating a large and live conversation about what's next for the field.

To share the conversation of the National Summit on Arts Journalism, I'm posting the live stream, chat stream, and Twitter feed on this blog. It all starts at 9:00 am Pacific Time on Friday, October 2. Watch it here. Watch it there. Or watch it later when the video archive is posted.

LIVE STREAM: [removed]

CHAT: [removed]

TWITTER FEED: [removed]