Plans of attack

I feel like I've been a bad blogger, having been in Denver for two  
days and only now sitting down to make a quick entry, but that is the  
nature of the beast with these conferences: too much to do, too many  
people to meet with, and not enough time!

While I've been to a couple of sessions so far, most of my time has  
been spent meeting with colleagues from other cities.  The opportunity  
to meet with so many people regarding a wide variety of projects all  
within a few days is, for me, the best reason to attend the Opera  
America conference.  This is not to say that the actual sessions are  
not valuable, but there is only so much that one can take in, so it  
becomes a matter of priorities.

This morning, I attended an excellent session about Board  
Development.  As I run a small company that is, at this stage in our  
development, more of a service organization than a performing company,  
I face some unique challenges in developing my board because we don't  
have a great deal of public programming through which prospective  
donors, board members etc. can get to know us.  A lot of what we do is  
'behind closed doors' - something I realize we need to change, to the  
extent that it is possible without altering our core programs.  The  
session I attended, however, did give me some new ways to think about  
Board Development beyond the typical "go to your current Board or high  
level donors and get them to open their rolodexes."  One of the most  
practical suggestions actually came from a fellow attendee, which was  
to approach the HR officer of major corporations  and not to ask them  
to be on the board, but rather to introduce the company and our  
mission and programs to them, and to let them know that we are  
actively seeking to new Board Members with x specific  
characteristics.  The idea is to encourage them to let any senior  
executives who might have an affinity for our mission know about our  
organization and the potential to play a vital role by serving on the  
board. This sort of strategy is actually very actionable for us, as I  
already have an HR executive on my Board who is well connected to  
other HR executives in the community, and in fact, I have been trying  
to figure out the best way to 'use' her connections.  I left that  
session feeling that I now have a viable plan of attack to discuss  
with this Board member that will not only help ALT, but will get her  
engaged in the company in a way that really uses her skills and  
relationships.

This afternoon, I attended a session that provided a survey report on  
the Metropolitan Opera's HD movie transmissions.  As there has been so  
much speculation in our field about the potential impact - both  
negative and positive - of these transmissions, I was very curious to  
hear the results.  While the data reported was only a summary (and I  
look forward to receiving the full report when it is available to us  
through Opera America), I was not particularly surprised by the  
results.  The transmissions are not attracting new audiences to opera  
(I believe the figure was less than 2% had never been to an opera  
before), and the ethnic diversity of those attending HD transmissions  
was even LESS than those of audiences in the opera house (a figure I  
suspect may have been skewed by where the sample was taken from, as  
those giving the report could not give any information about the  
demographic statistics of the areas from which the sample group  
came).  The survey was also administered prior to the actual  
transmissions, so qualitative questions about potential effects of  
having experienced the transmission on future attendance could not be  
asked.  All in all, it was interesting to get this information, but I  
hope that in future research, a more extensive set of questions is  
asked to the sample group so that we can learn more actionable  
information as it relates to building participation at live  
performances.

Signing off for now... off to see Nixon in China, directed by my  
colleague Jim Robinson... I'm very excited to finally see this  
production!

posted by Lawrence Edelson.