Archives for 2006

Those interested in brain science and its value in exploring the cultural experience probably already know Daniel Levitin and his work at the Levitin Laboratory for Music, Perception, Cognition, and Expertise (there’s a Boston Globe article on him here). But those with a specific curiosity about the difference between live performance experience and mediated experience […]

The events of five years ago today, and the world that followed, demand I write only a short post today, pointing us all to the absolute power and passion of creative expression in times of grief and confusion. A few thousand cases in point are available through the Library of Congress and their Witness & […]

There is perhaps nothing more essential to the earned revenue of most arts organizations than a clean, current, and accurate customer list. The names, contact information, and transaction profile of anyone who has donated, visited, bought, or registered in some other way are the key to the large majority of your future revenue. Not a […]

Recent studies in brain function have reinforced the idea that anticipation of an event plays a powerful role in the clarity of memories of that event. Says this report summary: The UW-Madison scientists found that two key regions of the brain — the amygdala and the hippocampus — become activated when a person is anticipating […]

Eco-advocate Anna Lappé suggested the vital and organic role we all play in forming the world around us when she said: “Every time you spend money, you’re casting a vote for the kind of world you want.” An interesting exploration of this idea comes from Design Stream and their Emissary Credit Card, a forward-looking concept […]

If you’ve had your tech antennae up lately, you’d have noticed that Internet and portable video is popping up everywhere. The video sharing site YouTube has seen massive growth in web visitors and visit duration, drawing some 724 million web site views in June. Major networks are starting to offer full-length episodes of their programs […]

There’s lots of focus in the entrepreneurship community about ”going to scale” or successfully growing a small business into a major player. Anyone who has experienced a rapidly growing organization has seen the tension — old methods and models fail to function at a certain volume of business, formerly tightknit organizational cultures fray at the […]

It was Christmas in August for a select set of policy wonks, researchers, economists, and statisticians as the U.S. Census Bureau released its American Community Survey results a few weeks back. The data set provides 2005 demographic information for communities larger than 65,000, offering the first such updates for many since Census 2000. The less […]

Management and marketing consulting firm AMS Planning & Research has a new on-line newsletter with knowledge nuggets mined from their work in the arts. Of particular interest in this article on the subtleties of single ticket and subscription buyers. The common wisdom about the two groups has been that single-ticket buyers value flexibility over all…willing […]

While motivating, trusting, and supporting their dedicated staff is a primary issue for cultural managers, it’s also their duty to keep a close eye on the cash. The Orange County Performing Arts Center found this out the hard way this past spring as it discovered an employee had stolen $1.85 million from the coffers (more […]