Dog Days

Loving Where You Live is Important to the Economy

2009-11-12T18:12:30Z

A colleague shared this Soul of the Community Knight Foundation/Gallup Poll research with me. It has fantastic findings for arts and culture advocates. My two favorites are

After interviewing close to 28,000 people in 26 communities over two years, the study has found that three main qualities bind people to place: social offerings such as entertainment venues and places to meet - the top factor in 21 of 26 communities, openness (how welcoming a place is) and the area's aesthetics (its physical beauty and green spaces).
Access to quality education - whether at the elementary, secondary or college level - was also an important factor.

and

The study also looked at the relationship between how passionate and loyal people are to their communities and local economic growth. Researchers did find a significant relationship between the two. For example, from 2002-06, the most attached communities had the highest local GDP growth.

I love the idea that economic vitality is connected to how strongly people feel attached to their community. And the number one factor in giving them a strong connection to their community is having places to meet and socialize. The arts are absolutely part of the solution for economic growth and this data makes new correlation. Let's use it!

Arts Education is a Social Justice Issue

2009-11-08T20:48:43Z

In just a few hours I will introduce the San Diego Youth Symphony and Conservatory's "Celebration of Music Education" concert. It is the one time in the year when all of our 500 students perform on a single concert. We annually honor a local music teacher for a lifetime of acheivement and provide free tickets to private, school, and university music teachers. We're actually honoring one of our alumni from the 1950s, JoAnn Ford, for her years of teaching music in the schools and privately.

This year, the local public radio station used the occasion to focus on music education during its morning talk show. Along with our award honoree the stataion invited Dr. Diana Hollinger of San Jose State University, the creative force behind the California Music Project, and Russ Sperling, the VAPA Coordinator for the middle and high school district that covers the entire south end of San Diego County, to speak about the current state of music education.

The transcript of the full interview is now posted here. The most important statement from the 45 minute session got passed over by the host but offers all of us a new argument for the importance of the arts. Diana demonstrates that arts education is a social justice issue.

Samuel Hope, who's the executive director of the National Association of Schools and Music, he says we have five ways to communicate and organize thought and knowledge. The first one is letters and words, which is our language. And the second is numbers and symbols, which is mathematics. But the next three are still images, which is art in architecture and design, moving images which is dance and film, and abstract sound which is music. And we tend to only place emphasis on the first two. And if a child does not excel at the first two, then we spend more time teaching him that or her that rather than - at the expense of the other three. And so there are other ways besides numbers, mathematics and language, to communicate and to organize sound, and music is one of those. And if we have a child who doesn't communicate well with the first two, then he or she just doesn't do well in the education system as we have it set up today. And, of course, we're going to have students at risk. Imagine if you spend eight hours, as a seven year old, just studying words and numbers and you're bursting to express something and you can't do it. I mean, this is just an accident waiting to happen. And I don't - I mean, we don't - we can't just do a little music. Let's outsource this and sing some songs after school. That's not how you teach. You don't teach algebra that way, you don't teach somebody to read that way, you don't teach science that way. You cannot teach anything that way. So it's very important that you have a structured, you know, step-by-step education so that students have access. Understanding how to read music and to sing music and to play music is access. It's social justice...

I look forward to seeing Diana again tomorrow during California Music Project activities in San Diego and exploring this idea with her further. I'm sure others have been making this case before and I've just not heard it. Have you?

Talking Structural Overhaul at Every Turn

2009-11-04T19:07:30Z

Last week we had the California Arts Advocates lobbyist in San Diego to present a briefing on the current political realities in Sacramento. The message I took away was simple: change is coming because every aspect of state government is broken. This is echoed in our California headlines about the need for prison reform, education reform, water infrastructure investment, and budget reform. Even the infamous Prop. 13 of thirty years ago is up for reexamination because of the state's chronic budget crisis in good times and bad.

The recognition that reform is needed at the national level has also dominated the headlines for the past year. Whether we're talking health care, finance and banking, or green house gases, the basic subject is the same: how to organize policy and regulation to ensure sustainability. The degree to which reform happens now or is swallowed by politics remains to be seen.

I'm not hearing many of the same conversation amongst arts and culture colleagues. We are all proceeding with the assumption that whatever super structure overhauls come out of DC and our own state capitals we won't need to radically rethink our own business model or change how art is experienced. My impression is most people devoted to the arts think we will just adapt. Even more worrisome, we are treating the macro-trend of declining arts participation as a marketing and programming problem. We aren't thinking of it as a structural probelm.

The arts will be much better off if we lead government agencies and foundations to a new reality instead of waiting for them to push, pull, or overwhelm us with their own agendas. We are undergoing a national redesign and the arts have an important role to play in it.

Some efforts are underway. This New Cultural Policy proposal for improving our nation through the arts launched last week. It is full of broad ideas. I assume the specificity is still in development or for individual artists and arts organizers to create. And I'm not sure how the authors are communicating these ideas to elected officials or building partnerships. I see it as the beginning of a conversation.

Finding Your Inner Arts Advocate

2009-10-03T20:16:30Z

Becoming an arts advocate really takes little more than getting over the hurdle of one's own reluctance. My friend and colleague Victoria Saunders articulates this very well in a piece she recently wrote for Americans for the Arts about accepting the role as leader and hub for our local efforts to save the San Diego City School District's Visual and Performing Arts Department. I documented the effort earlier this year here and here.

If you are passionate about the arts you are an arts advocate. All you need to do is start working with others. A little effort and coordination can go a long way. In San Diego our advocacy efforts are all volunteer. There is no staff for the San Diego Regional Arts and Culture Coalition nor dedicated advocacy staff at any of our local service organizations. Wtih volunteer energy working together we've sustained city funding for arts and culture, established strong relationships with local elected officials at all levels of government, and secured media recognition for the impact of the arts in our community.

You can do this too. And now is a good time to start. It's National Arts and Humanities Month. In this quiet period before next year's budget battles, use this national focus to start a small coalition, engage elected officials, and get stories in the media about the local importance of the arts. Don't wait for a crisis. And if you need help from outside your community ask for it.

All artists and art lovers can be powerful champions for the arts. They just have to start.

An Artist Activist Takes On Globalization

2009-09-29T03:02:17Z

While leaders from the G-20 nations met in Pittsburgh this weekend to further pave the road to globalization, Michelle Obama shared the arts with her fellow spouses, and protesters tried to interrupt the meeting, one artist quietly and clearly detailed the relationship between free markets, democracy, genocide, and middle-class consumerism.

If you only know Arundhati Roy through her Booker Prize winning novel "The God of Small Things" then you only know half her talent. She is a remarkable commentator on the subjugation of people in the name of progress. The US occupation of Iraq with 150,000 soldiers is nothing compared to India's 700,000 soldiers in Kashmir, its own territory. You can watch the interview below or read the transcript here to find out what is happening in the world's largest democracy from the perspective of its most activist artist.

Manufacturing Discontent 2

2009-09-23T00:28:28Z

Update: Thanks to Leonard Jacobs for commenting and prompting me to check out his tracking of the anti-NEA campaign at the Clyde Fitch Report. He also links to several other bloggers from the arts world working to unravel the NEA conference call reality. Check out Ian David Moss' Shocking(ly tame) NEA audio and transcript released.

CultureGrrl has today's statement from Rocco Landesman explaining the facts behind the recent conference call that resulted in the reassignment of Yosi Sergant within the NEA. If you read the transcript or listen to the conference call you'll see that these facts are consistent with the content of the call.

Alas - I don't expect those targeting the NEA will be satisfied with the reassignment of a political appointee or a list of facts aimed at distancing the agency from his comments.

They want to take down the entire agency.

These are the same people that targeted Van Jones and ACORN. (Their supporters are making the link: Shepard Fairy Studio Tagged with Anit-ACORN slogans) The NEA was in their sites before the notorious conference call. It just happened to provide them with much more political fuel than the 80s style "indecency" attack they started with. The editor of Big Hollywood, which "broke" the conference call story, published a call for elimination of the NEA in July. Check out all the anti-NEA articles published at this website the last 24 hours to keep the heat on: http://bighollywood.breitbart.com/?s=NEA

This is not going away. If arts supporters and champions of the NEA "move on" as CultureGrrl asks, no one will be looking for the next attack. This is not an isolated incident but the beginning of a sustained campaign.

If you've never told your Congressman what the NEA has done for your organization in your community, now is the time to start. Don't wait for the next attack.

Manufacturing Discontent

2009-09-14T14:45:33Z

I went to 9th grade "Back to School Night" last week and learned that my son's history teacher focuses on critical thinking skills before teaching history. He explicitly aims to give students the tools to analyze history, understand the difference between primary and secondary sources, and ultimately be prepared to live as discerning and engaged citizens. The importance of this 9th grade lesson came alive last week as a single account of a conference call during which artists were encouraged to participate in the White House's United We Serve initiative ballooned into a broad attack on the NEA.

I've yet to find any analysis of the background or motives of Patrick Courrielche, the author of this account, or his publishers. Instead, the most fervent follow up reporting has magnified his interpretation of the call as an accurate and unbiased representation of what happened and trumpeted subsequent inconsistencies as evidence that he is right. I've decided to apply 9th grade critical thinking lessons to understand this very recent history as it is still unfolding.

Mr. Courrielche published an opinion piece for Reason.com three days before the conference call entitled "The Artist Formerly Known as Dissident: Artists have a duty to dissent--even against Obama." There are three passages in the article that specifically inform us of the personal bias Mr. Courrielche carried into his participation on the conference call. (I've added bold to his italics)

I've personally known the key players behind the Barack Obama "Hope" posters for many years--one being a former employee of mine, another a former colleague...When asked by my former employee to be involved with the Hope poster distribution, I declined on philosophical grounds...

...it feels to me, as it did during the campaign, that the art community is not meeting its duty of always questioning those in power. And I say duty because the art community, as a counterpart of the press, has been given special rights written into the Bill of Rights, known broadly as freedom of the press, for the explicit purpose of keeping power in check.

It's time for the art community to return to its historical role in political affairs, which means speaking to power, not on behalf of it. Which leads me to the second case where art enters politics on a mass scale. The power of art, in combination with the suppression of free speech or a free press, has been used as a tool by authoritarian governments to control their citizens. From Hitler, Stalin, and Mao to Saddam Hussein and Kim Jong Il, art has been used to deify leaders while preserving the position of the ruling class. Most artists would not want to be referred to as tools of the state, but in the case of Obama's administration, that's exactly what they've been so far.

Mr. Courrielche makes it clear that he does not believe all private citizens have the freedom to participate in civic life as they choose. Instead, he argues that artists must only act in opposition to government and political leaders. The logical extension of his argument is that artists are obliged to never participate in solutions developed by the government.

Mr. Courrielche's juxtaposition of President Obama and the tyrannical despots of the last century echoes the President's most radical opponents who have spent the summer seeking to convince the nation that he is their doppelganger. In this environment, it is impossible to believe the author casually linked the President and these dictators. His bias is clear.

The website Big Hollywood published his account of the conference call fifteen days after it occurred. Based on the fact that he didn't take advantage of the web's ability to publish immediately and a controversy has unfolded through his incremental release of information, it appears he used his skills as a marketing strategist to collaborate with his publishers on a roll out plan for generating as much controversy as possible.

The next publication to pick up the story was the Washington Times where the publisher of Big Hollywood works as a staff writer. When the NEA's then Communications Director Yosi Sergant responded to Kerry Picket of the paper that the NEA had not sent invitations to the call those trolling for a controversy had the inconsistency they needed. In fact, Mr. Courrielche received his invite via email from Mr. Sergant. They've used this inconsistency to suggest wrong doing ever since. (Mr. Sergant has since been reassigned to an undisclosed new position at the NEA.)

The next day, August 28th, Foxnews.com reported on Mr. Courrielche's post and interviewed both him and another participant who disagreed with his depiction of the call. From this point the ricochet of cross referencing by Mr. Courrielche on Big Hollywood, Ms. Picket at the Washington Times, and Fox News accelerated. Mr. Courrielche published a portion of the email invite he received in a second posting though the bottom portion was not included to show its full content nor the attachments. The Washington Times published an editorial calling for the NEA to reconcile the discrepancy between the email and Sergant's denial of sending it. Mr. Courirelche saved his ultimate revelation for an interview with Glen Beck on Fox News where audio clips he'd clandestinely recorded of the conference call were broadcast. Previously he'd only referenced having notes of the call. This interview occurred on September 1st, the same day a shortened version of his August 25th posting appeared as a guest editorial in the Wall Street Journal, another paper for whom the Big Hollywood publisher writes.

Carefully planning the launch of his attack on the propriety of the NEA's participation in the conference call had worked. In the course of one week Mr. Courrielche and his allies successfully caught the attention of the main stream media. From this point he sited other commentators to reinforce their position though most were only speculating based on his account. Those references include Lee Rosenbaum's AJ posting about her experience on a similar call later in August, George Will's reference to the NEA having likely broken laws, and former NEH Deputy Chairman Lynne Munson's negative assessment of the situation. In this same posting Mr. Courrielche plays his hand as a collaborator in a coordinated attack on the NEA by sticking to the exact same message points as the Washington Times and using the plural when recounting their success in exposing inconsistencies in comments from the White House and NEA. On this same posting he rolls out another clip from the conference call to fan the flames of indignation over the inconsistencies without posting audio from the entire call.

The Washington Times used the news that a second conference call with members of the arts community took place to widen the scope of it its attacks. Not surprisingly it credited Mr. Courrielche as breaking this news and links back to his posting instead of the Lee Rosenbaum posting he sites. At the end of last week the paper used Americans for the Arts CEO Bob Lynch's podcast account of his interaction with the Obama administration, and the fact that AFTA received an NEA stimulus grant as further evidence that the agency has become a political tool. They immediately followed this posting with a timeline they contend tracks the transformation of the NEA. Today, the paper is running a longer version of this editorial consolidating all of the assertions it has made over the past two weeks into a call for the NEA to answer its accusations.

The NEA conspiracy frenzy started by Mr. Courrielche and whipped by the Washington Times and Glen Beck has completely short-circuited any examination of the full content of the conference calls or their purpose. While Mr. Courrielche and the Washington Times have called for transparency at the NEA they have not held themselves to the same standard. They seem to be purposefully withholding of the full recording of the August 10 conference call so that it won't undermine their agenda. Without releasing this primary source material or the second half of the original email invitation and its attachment they are only employing smoke and mirrors. They would further bolster their credibility by releasing all communications concerning this matter between Mr. Courrielche, associated Big Hollywood staff, Ms. Picket, and other involved staff at the Washington Times. The evidence that exists implicates them in a conspiracy of their own.

I ask those journalists working to gather more details from the NEA on this story to also request transparency from Mr. Courrielche and the Washington Times. He has primary source material that can elevate the controversy out of the realm of conjecture and innuendo.

Getting to "Good Enough" from "Excellent"

2009-08-27T15:39:07Z

Wired has now posted the article The Good Enough Revolution: When Cheap and Simple Is Just Fine from the latest issue of the magazine. They've labeled it a "Gadget" story which just shows they don't give themselves enough credit for illuminating cultural transformations.

I encourage you to read the whole piece. It gives evidence and examples of products and services to support this conclusion.

We now favor flexibility over high fidelity, convenience over features, quick and dirty over slow and polished. Having it here and now is more important than having it perfect.

This is a societal change with immense implications for all artists and arts managers that pride themselves on producing and promoting excellent work that must be experienced at certain hours in a quiet and respectful environment. The article contains a warning.

Companies that focus on traditional measures of quality - fidelity, resolution, features - can become myopic and fail to address other, now essential attributes like convenience and shareability. And that means someone else can come along and drink their milk shake.

This summer's NEA report on arts participation told us for certain that arts participation of all types is dropping across the country. Here is information to help us all understand why. The speed of change around us is accelerating, and getting yourself a Facebook fan page does not mean you've changed with it.

The glimmer of hope is that people still want to come together in shared experience - otherwise the upcoming Twestival would have no legs. They just want the experience to be flexible, convenient and affordable. Will the arts change fast enough to meet this need for people or keep losing ground? It will take all of us to create an answer in the affirmative.

Suburbs Have Needs Too

2009-08-13T19:06:49Z

As an everyday arts advocate, I've been ruminating on the interview the NY Times published with new NEA Chair Rocco Landesman last Friday. (The NEA's 10th) The interview gives us much more to think about than how Mr. Landesman's style and perspective will play out with Congress, though that's what others have given the most attention.

AJ blogger Lee Rosenbaum wrote immediately about Landesman's comments and has continued to follow the reactions from Peoria's Congressman and Peoria's arts community. Judith Dobrzynski made her observations a couple days later on her AJ blog.

I'm more interested in how Landesman's rhetoric connects to the wider social transformations challenging our country right now, and how he's articulating his priorities. When he states,

"I don't know if there's a theater in Peoria, but I would bet that it's not as good as Steppenwolf or the Goodman,"

Landesman is really saying large cities are better than ~~suburbs~~ small cities and they deserve more government investment in the arts.

He further demonstrates his dismissal of the suburbs by describing his idea for creating an "Our Town" program that connects artists and small towns. He says:

"When you bring artists into a town, it changes the character, attracts economic development, makes it more attractive to live in and renews the economics of that town," he said. "There are ways to draw artists into the center of things that will attract other people."
The program would also help finance public art projects and performances and promote architectural preservation in downtown areas, Mr. Landesman added. "Every town has a public square or landmark buildings or places that have a special emotional significance," he said. "The extent that art can address that pride will be great."

Suburbs don't have town squares or historic buildings, but they are full of people. And, these people are feeling the sting of losing ground - economically, politically, and as the long-time ethnic majority.

With the agenda and prejudice Mr. Landesman has already articulated, he's on track to further distance this large swath of our national population from the arts and the essential role the arts play in bringing individuals and communities together. Hopefully he'll move away from believing that quality and geography are mutually exclusive criteria and embrace them both as means to a greater end.

Mr. Landesman is now the arts leader with the largest megaphone. What he says and what he does will ripple out to every state and municipal arts agency, major foundations, arts organizations of all sizes, and individuals. He's doing more than running a 170 person federal agency. He's responsible for articulating a vision that makes the arts meaningful in the eyes and lives of all Americans. I'm looking for him to invite everyone to be part of his vision.

UPDATE
Here is Rocco Landesman's official first statement from the NEA website.

More Learning from Comic-Con

2009-08-09T00:15:22Z

The day after I posted my musings about Comic-Con International and what the non-profit arts can learn from it, I received a call from Angela Carone, the arts reporter at the local public radio/tv station asking if I'd participate in an extended dialogue on the topic. Along with me, Angela invited Tyler Richards Hewes, Executive Director of Orchestra Nova San Diego, and Edward Wilensky, the Director of Media Relations for the San Diego Opera.

Angela posted our dialogue over three days. She asked us questions about "high art" versus "low art," Comic-Con's use of social media, and the changing nature/loss of arts journalism when compared to Comic-Con's embrace of citizen journalists and bloggers. There are certainly more people that grew up being comic book fans working in arts than we really know. Maybe we need to have sessons that include Comic-Con organizers at future non-profit conferences so the dialogue about what can be learned from the world of Popular Arts is brought to the center of our internal conversations and not convened by a journalist with a foot in both worlds.

For a taste of Comic-Con, check out all of Angela's coverage at her blog Culture Lust.

Morning TV feels like vaudeville

2009-07-31T17:52:46Z

Yesterday morning I went onto the San Diego Fox affiliate's morning show to promote our International Youth Orchestra concert. I was joined by 21 year old flutist Kimberley Beimen from The Netherlands. There is nothing profound in what we say, it's morning TV after all. We were there to wake people up.

I did come away wondering if backstage at vaudeville was similar to what I experienced. A producer got us on the show, a technician took us to our interview/performance location, and a host arrived with her notes for a 4 minute segment. They had other "acts" lined up to follow us - including a car dealership and dancers. The hosts were irreverent and the technicians harried. Knowing that so many vaudeville performers found second careers in TV, it doesn't surprise me that it still has that rushed but ready feel.

And if you're in San Diego this weekend, we'd love to see you at our concert on Saturday night at the Balboa Theatre. It won't feel like vaudeville other than the fact that the Balboa is a full restored 1920's vaudeville theater. Check out the photos at www.sandiegotheatres.org

Swimming in the Popular Arts pool

2009-07-28T17:11:28Z

Comic-Con International evaporated for another year on Sunday night from the bayside convention center in San Diego. This is no ordinary trade show - its a festival of 125,000 people gathering over four days to celebrate the epic stories they love from comics, movies, video games, and novels. The Con mission statment is:

Comic-Con International is a nonprofit educational organization dedicated to creating awareness of, and appreciation for, comics and related popular art forms, primarily through the presentation of conventions and events that celebrate the historic and ongoing contribution of comics to art and culture.

The street banners hung all over town simplify this mission to the slogan "Celebrating the Popular Arts."

The arts world outside the scope of Comic-Con has much to learn about its growth from 300 isolated comic and science fiction fans seeking to create a community gathering in 1970 to bursting the seams of San Diego's convention facilities. For three years in a row it has sold out months in advance, and the local tourism industry is pushing hard for a convention center expansion so San Diego doesn't lose this homegrown extravaganza.

Beneath the media and product hype that dominates the exhibit floor are three factors that I believe still make Comic-Con a successful arts focused community event.

1 - Celebration of the artists, creators, and their legacy. Comic-Con has its own Hall of Fame, annual awards, and numerous panel discussions focus on the history of comics.

2 - Access to the artists and creators. Whether it is the opportunity to ask a quesiton at a panel (there are hundreds), getting an autograph, or even seeing someone amongst the crowd on the exhibit floor (I passed Ray Bradbury last year - an attendee since the beginning), the attendees and artists are excited to be interacting with each other.

Here is my son with writer Tom Taylor after getting his autograph and chatting about their mutual enthusiasm for Star Wars.

3 - Fans are full participants. They come in costume, they are featured in games during panels and at exhibit booths, they are officially respected and celebrated along with the artists.

The "fine arts" and "performing arts" don't make these three factors a part of their everyday operation. We don't bring back the legion of actors or musicians that have performed on our stages for an annual celebration, our artists are not regularly available for playful interactions (post-show talk backs are generally so serious), and we don't encourage our audiences to add their own creative energy to the experience.

When my son leaned to me during the San Diego Star Wars Society trivia game and said, "I've found where I belong," I understood how far the rest of the arts have to go before they are swimming in the big "popular" pool like comic book fans do every summer.

Tell Your Community's Campfire Stories

2009-07-20T17:04:18Z

I've just returned from a week at Boy Scout camp with my son. He knew all along we'd have fun. I didn't. But, I was surprised to discover myself having fun by the end of the first day. However, my biggest surprise came from witnessing the use of live performance at the camp, most especially during the closing night campfire.

I'm aware of the long standing controversies that surround the Boy Scouts' policies that exclude gays, atheists, and agnostics. Despite our disagreement with these policies, my wife and I decided to respect our son's desire to join Cub Scouts as a 2nd grader. As a result, we've been interacting with the Boy Scout culture for the past 7 years. Finally, I've come to understand the role of performance in the Boy Scouts community. If every performing arts organization achieved what the Boy Scouts do with performance there would be few conversations about how to keep the arts relevant to people's lives.

Not only does the campfire gather the community for a shared experience, it unfolds with a specific structure that gives meaning, cohesion, and understanding to the community. Through the simple tools of comedy, song, and story the campfire reaffirms the collective experience, articulates community values, and honors community tradition.

The staff campfire performances always start with a mix of silly skits and songs. However, the content of these performances reenact in exaggerated form the experience and perceptions of the camping community. We see a young scout free from parental supervision gorge himself on candy, we are reminded of the absurdity of the scout master trying to keep his troop of excited boys in order, and we watch as the camp staff lampoons itself. The comedy culminates in a long form farce. The one I saw is called "The King, the Queen, and the Gate" and has been in the scout performance repertoire for over 50 years.

Following the farce, an adult leader takes center stage to tell a true story that affirms the community values. I heard the story of football player Raymond Berry and "The Greatest Game Ever Played" at the campfire I attended. The story slows the evening down and is followed by a ballad that articulates everyone's strong feelings about the week of camping and wish for it to continue though it must end. With a quiet mood now settled on the gathering the camp director makes closing remarks and honors all the adults that gave a week of their time to support the scouts in attendance by coming to camp. The night ends with the full camp staff of sixty people entering behind the camp director to sing the camp hymn as the scouts and parents slowly and quietly depart. I lingered behind to see that the hymn ends only after the staff encircles the campfire and sings it through as their own smaller community.

I left the campfire stunned by the perfect service it had provided to its community. The content wasn't sophisticated nor the talent overwhelming. But the genuine enthusiasm of the performers to entertain and be relevant to the audience connected the event to each person's unique experience. I came away wondering why so many non-profit performing arts organizations don't have the same passion for being meaningful to their community as they do for achieving highly polished performances. There is something to be learned from a simple Boy Scout campfire.

Gone Camping

2009-07-05T16:15:56Z

I'm camping until July 12. Enjoy your week while I enjoy mine!

Congress Calls Me to a Meeting in My Own Home

2009-06-25T18:10:19Z

I was surprised to answer my home phone the other night and have my local Congresswoman's pre-recorded voice invite me to stay on the line to participate in a Phone Town Hall Meeting.

I'm an advocacy guy and my family was shopping so I decided to listen in. I was quickly connected to her live voice speaking about health care and the economy. She also said anyone listening could ask her a question directly by pressing zero. I decided to do that too.

When people started asking questions and revealing very personal aspects of their lives I knew Congresswoman Davis was on to something with this conference call format. One woman described caring for her two autistic children and shared her growing distress because the minimum percent due on her credit cards had suddenly jumped substantially. Other stories were equally intimate. The Congresswoman answered each one and often asked the individual to phone her staff in the morning to get help with the specifics of their situation. I was able to ask my question too, which wasn't about the arts but about strengthening banking regulation so we don't have a rerun of last Fall's meltdown.

There I was, sitting at home speaking to my Congresswoman on the topic of my choice after she initiated contact with me and many others! This is an amazing example of being proactive to make yourself relevant to the community and expanding the envelope of interaction. My Congresswoman and her colleagues aren't changing the way they fulfill their primary responsibility of passing legislation, but they are clearly rethinking how to strengthen their ties to the community. In fact, I'm guessing she was on the phone in her Washington, D.C. office, not even in San Diego.

I want to see arts organizations be this proactive at building relationships and connectivity in their communities. When I worked at Goldman Sachs ten years ago, conference calls were standard practice for investor relations communication by every major public company. Has any performing arts organization used a conference call to interactively announce its season to subscribers, convene pre-performance lectures, or a post-performance dialogue? I believe the conference call format would appeal to performing arts attendees because it mixes the live with the convenient.

The League of American Orchestras has identified the adoption of new technology as a major weakness in the orchestra field so this is now one of its strategic focuses. After my call from Congresswoman Davis, I was reminded that technology need not be the latest web or desktop tool to be under utilized by the arts. It can be so old that Congress has even started using it.