The April edition of Free Range Thinking (a short newsletter on nonprofits and storytelling, available for download here) shares an insight that should be second nature to all arts managers — the compelling and endearing qualities of flaws and imperfections. The story focuses on Character, LLC, a consulting company that revamps and refreshes brand icons, […]
Archives for 2006
Prison, purgatory, or playground
In my line of work, I often find myself in front of a group of cultural managers, walking them through a particular tool or strategy used in the commercial world, the social sector, or academia, and framing a conversation about how we might use it in the arts. One of the great joys of being […]
Being really, really, really committed to the art
News has been bumping around the web about playwright and director Jung Sung Sanabout, and his new musical exploring North Korean prison camps (listen to the NPR story here). Preparing for the controversial show’s premiere in South Korea, Jung ran into some serious funding and logistical issues, to which he responded in a rather desperate […]
The art of the start
Computer guru and entrepreneurship evangelist Guy Kawasaki has some thoughts on how to start things (companies, mostly, but other stuff too). His 2004 book, The Art of the Start, was recently recommended to me as relevant to arts organizations (the first chapter is available for free download from his web site). It’s the kind of […]
Music and Media
The Music & Media Forum, a convening I attended and reported on back in January, has just released its summary report (available for download from the project web site). The forum gathered about 60 leaders from the worlds of music performance, presenting, and electronic media for five primary tasks: Share current ideas about the issues […]
The board-of-directors disconnect
CompassPoint’s new report on nonprofit leadership trends (Daring to Lead 2006, available for download here) has lots of great insights for cultural leaders and their boards. Among the most striking of their summary conclusions is this one: Boards of directors and funders contribute to executive burnout Negative perception of the board of directors is strongly […]
The physics of friendship
Physics, by at least one definition, is the science of matter and energy and their interactions. So nobody should be surprised when that particular science strays into social analysis, as well. One particularly cool application of this physics crossover is this effort to model social interactions based on laws of the physical world. The physicists […]
Access vs. excellence
A passionate essay in the UK Times rails against the emerging emphasis on access and public palatability among museums, claiming that it distracts and destroys the true purpose of the institutions. According to novelist/journalist James Delingpole, that true purpose is this: They exist today, just as they did 250 years ago, for the preservation, collection, […]
Measuring progress in ”smiles per hour”
Let’s assume you wanted to foster a sustainable and vibrant community over time, and you wanted to be publicly accountable to that goal along the way. What would you do? The city of Port Phillip, Victoria, Australia, came up with 13 indicators of what they believed to be a sustainable community, and then dared to […]
And you thought you had a youth marketing problem
A recent consumer product survey asked me what I thought of the product concept shown here, with the following marketing text: Natural spring water in the Aquapod bottle is the cool new kid on the block — Aquapod makes drinking water fun. Its unique bottle style is intriguing enough to get kids excited to drink […]
