Our Question

Lead or Follow? A debate about leadership Increasingly, audiences have more visibility for their opinions about the culture they consume. Cultural institutions know more and more about their audiences and their wants. Some...[Read More]

54 Experiments in Engagement

5 DAYS, 15 BLOGGERS, AND YOU

January 23-27, 2012 - Thanks Everyone!



What Leadership Can Do

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By leadership and leading, I mean influencing. As I suggest in my first post, it begins with understanding and respecting your various stakeholders—an audience being one of many important constituency groups. Observe and learn from them, inquire and engage them. Take the time to create trust … [Read More...]

January 27, 2012 1:01 pm Leave a Comment

A Critic’s Perspective

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Artists and arts institutions aren't the only ones who have to worry about engaging their community. Critics, used to leading with their opinions suddenly find that the vast audience wants to engage... … [Read More...]

January 26, 2012 3:21 pm 2 Comments

Empty Forest. Tree Falls. Was It Heard Or Felt?

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"If a tree falls in a forest and no one is around to hear it, does it make a sound?" How would the City of ______ be damaged if the ______ Symphony Orchestra / Opera Company / Ballet Company / Theater Troop / Art Museum were to disappear tomorrow? How would the City of ______ be damaged if the … [Read More...]

January 26, 2012 2:57 am 7 Comments

Who Foots the Bill?

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There are literally hundreds of new museums nationwide that didn’t exist forty years ago.  Museums have never attracted greater crowds nor have they held more flexible hours to accommodate an increasingly dynamic public. They’ve made themselves places of social gathering with the introduction … [Read More...]

January 25, 2012 3:50 am 3 Comments

…. It is more about the courage of imagination and the plural

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In regards to “Lead or Follow?” and its relationship to audiences,  I say yes to lead, yes to follow and yes to question. Leadership is not a black/white, lead/follow proposition, life is and audiences are more complicated and slippery than this binary set-up. As a director of The Tucson … [Read More...]

January 24, 2012 11:22 am 6 Comments

Leaders Build Lasting Relationships

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Anyone can be a follower. To borrow from Tolstoy, followers are all alike; leaders are leaders in their own way. Organizations that lead set themselves apart from the rest and provide unique experiences. If we are to build organizations that survive—organizations that people want to make time … [Read More...]

January 24, 2012 7:12 am 2 Comments

Change We Must (As We Lead)

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For a very long time the arts field resembled the companion on a road trip who said "I know the way, I'll drive." Our systems in the nonprofit part of the sector are set up so that arts organizations lead with authority and with the power to dictate much of what is consumed as art. The quality of … [Read More...]

January 23, 2012 6:28 pm 2 Comments

We are the Movers and Shakers of the World Forever, It Seems

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My position in this debate was stated most eloquently by a man who studied frogs for a living, as quoted by a Welsh fighter pilot and re-purposed by an Oatmeal company hoping to launch a new candy bar. His name was William O'Shaughnessy. And he said, We are the music-makers, And we are the … [Read More...]

January 23, 2012 12:46 pm 3 Comments

Art with a Point of View

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Think about it. Great art in any genre succeeds because it has a unique point of view and has been elevated from obscurity to accessibility by virtue of advocates, be they organizations, cultural taste makers, or the public. Who would want to read a piece of literature where there is no clear point … [Read More...]

January 23, 2012 10:30 am 2 Comments Tagged With: , ,

The Problem of Taste

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As Michael frames it, the question on the table is whether arts workers (my term for artists, presenters, producers, educators, funder and commentators) should lead “taste” rather than follow it.  But there’s a fundamental problem here, one that needs to be explored before I can take a … [Read More...]

January 23, 2012 7:35 am 1 Comment

Art or Audience; Chicken or Egg?

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This week we examine the nature of leadership in the context of developing the most fruitful relationships with our audiences. Good relationships often strike a healthy balance between competing interests, and frequently this balance is forged over the course of many years. Arts organizations have … [Read More...]

January 23, 2012 6:22 am 3 Comments

Lead we Must

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Not-for-profit arts must lead audience taste rather than follow it. Just read the mission statements of not-for-profit arts organizations. Their missions are proactive and reflect a desire to bring a specific aesthetic, or a range of aesthetics, to their audiences. I know of no arts organization … [Read More...]

January 22, 2012 12:01 pm 3 Comments

Previous posts



Follow? No – Informed (Let’s Go To The Data)

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I'll admit I am surprised. When I started putting this conversation together, I thought it would be easier finding people to take the "follow" side. There is so much attention being paid right now to social media and starting conversations and finding ways to let the audience express itself, I … [Read More...]

January 27, 2012 3:40 pm 2 Comments

Red Pill, Blue Pill – Is Engagement An Either/Or Thing?

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What if our audiences are confined by our predetermined ideas about what they are? A professor who began to get hundreds of thousands of views online wonders why he confines himself to a classroom with only a few dozen students...Watch the video. … [Read More...]

January 27, 2012 8:35 am 5 Comments

CONTINUED: Institutions can learn by following…and following they must, for now

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Hi Adrienne, I appreciate your comments to my earlier post. Truly, it furthered my thinking and I hope it furthers this debate. A little call and answer below. Adrienne: “I appreciate the larger debate here about the balance between leading and serving the cultural audiences we work with in the … [Read More...]

January 26, 2012 4:16 pm Leave a Comment

Institutions can learn by following…and following they must, for now

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By following, I mean observing. Institutions are not static.  In fact, the best of them are living, breathing places from which there is a great deal of interactivity.  Key to assessing one’s impact is to understand the nature of this interactivity at every level.  By keen observation, one … [Read More...]

January 25, 2012 11:42 pm 4 Comments

Leading From Behind – We Need a Better Definition

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I'm wondering about what has brought about this frenzy of attention to engagement in the last few years. Facebook pages and Twitter feeds. Artists making video of their work. Online chats. Endless behind-the-scenes interviews and making-of opportunities. Contests. Prizes. Parties. Games... Sure … [Read More...]

January 25, 2012 10:42 am 9 Comments

Messengers of the Gods

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When Hermes, the messenger god, discovered language and writing and gave it to humans, he invited us to engage in the process of translating our experience and perception into words; in short, he gave us the gift of interpretation. In homage to Hermes, the Greek word for interpret (hermeneuō) … [Read More...]

January 24, 2012 10:01 am 2 Comments

What Does Audience Engagement Really Mean?

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I think arts organizations and the arts sector at large throw around the term “audience engagement” quite irresponsibly, using it as the new buzz word that makes us feel like we are doing something. It is no longer apropos to just focus on putting “butts in seats” or the more delicate … [Read More...]

January 23, 2012 10:12 pm 42 Comments

Selective and Sophisticated Followership

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"Do our artists and arts organizations need to lead more or learn to follow their communities more?" These are two questions. The charge of an individual artist or artist collective is not the same as that of an institution or organization. I believe that artists ought to follow their own … [Read More...]

January 23, 2012 11:47 am 1 Comment

If this is leading, what is following?

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In his influential book, Art Worlds, published in 1982, Howard S. Becker writes: Though audiences are among the most fleeting participants in art worlds, devoting less time to any particular work or to works of a kind than more professionalized participants, they probably contribute most to the … [Read More...]

January 23, 2012 9:38 am 15 Comments

Art or Audience; Chicken or Egg?

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This week we examine the nature of leadership in the context of developing the most fruitful relationships with our audiences. Good relationships often strike a healthy balance between competing interests, and frequently this balance is forged over the course of many years. Arts organizations have … [Read More...]

January 23, 2012 6:22 am 3 Comments

The Cultural World Has Fundamentally Changed

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The question hangs on the meaning of the word ‘lead’. There are many styles of leadership: at one end the Scottish model, where the chieftain runs in front of his clan as they charge into battle; at the other the English, where an aristocrat sits on a horse and attempts to direct the fighting … [Read More...]

January 22, 2012 12:00 pm 3 Comments

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