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The Engagement Quiz

April 27, 2013 by Leave a Comment
FinalExam

I am in the midst of a series of workshops and speaking engagements, centered around the theme of Mainstreaming Engagement. One early sponsor, Anne Katz of Arts Wisconsin, asked me to come up with questions for workshop participants to consider ahead of time, and I realized that a set of them I had put together earlier had rolled off my radar screen. Since I think they are fairly helpful additions to the workshop, I thought it would be good to … [Read more...]

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Farewell Rocco

February 9, 2013 by 2 Comments
RoccoLandesman

Rocco Landesman's departure from the NEA and Barry Hessenius's interviews of Rocco and his Chief of Staff, Jamie Bennett, provide an occasion to reflect a bit on Mr. Landesman's legacy in federal arts policy and advocacy. (Disclosure: Jamie has been very good to me in providing support, advice, access to NEA staff, a brief "meet and greet" with his boss, and the Foreword that Rocco wrote for my book.) I suspect (hope) that the lasting impact … [Read more...]

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Communities Take Care of Things

January 9, 2013 by 1 Comment
SandbagBrigade

Communities take care of things . . . that matter to them. That sentence, without the ellipses, made it into my notes from some conference in the last year or so. I have no idea what conference. That's one of the big problems with a life lived in conference sessions and without adequate notes. The statement has been staring at me, gnawing at my mind from the series of legal pad pages that serve as home to blog post ideas, for months. … [Read more...]

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Public Benefit

November 10, 2012 by 1 Comment
. . . for the people.

Public benefit (or one of many closely related concepts) is becoming an increasingly important element in rating grant applications and in assessing the value of arts organizations to their communities. As I discovered in my recent work on a grant review panel for Cuyahoga Arts and Culture, there needs to be much more discussion of and, eventually, agreement about what this means. This is far too big a topic to be addressed in one or even … [Read more...]

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At Last

June 9, 2012 by 1 Comment

At long last, Building Communities, Not Audiences: The Future of the Arts in the United States, is available for purchase. The paperback is available by clicking this link for CreateSpace. (It's also available at Amazon, but my accountant will be happier if you use the CreateSpace link.) The ebook version is available at Kindle. The Nook and iTunes accounts are getting set up and will carry the ebook soon. (Update: iTunes store version should be … [Read more...]

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Make Yourself Indispensable

May 30, 2012 by 3 Comments

My hometown newspaper, the Winston-Salem (NC) Journal, is one of the papers Media General is selling to Warren Buffett's BH (Berkshire Hathaway) Media Group. There was recently an article in the paper about that sale and Mr. Buffett's communication with the publishers and editors of the papers the Group has purchased. The general take was that the new owners intend to be "hands off" in terms of editorial policy. But there was one sentence in Mr. … [Read more...]

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