I’ve mentioned the Beloit College Mindset List once before in this weblog (back in 2003). But since it’s become a ritual for me to read at the beginning of every school year, it warrants another mention. The mindset list describes the world as experienced by the incoming freshman class each year. It’s intended to remind […]
Archives for 2006
Better learning through comics
Learn the basics of intellectual property law without falling asleep. Bound by Law is a copyright tutorial in comic book form. A fun and informative read for anyone in the business of creative expression.
Batting 600
A quick glance at my weblog stats shows this to be my 600th post since I launched this effort in July 2003. I thought I’d mark the occassion by saying absolutely nothing of enduring value. Besides, our MBA orientation starts this morning, and my attention is necessarily directed toward a new batch of fabulous Arts […]
Pandora’s music box
I’ll admit a strange fascination with the “recommendation engines” scattered around the on-line world, that take lists of things you like (through purchase or claimed preference), and suggest things you’d probably also like. The bulk of these systems seem to use collaborative filtering software to match the patterns of your choices with a database of […]
The path to California’s $500 million for arts education
The Music for All blog tracks the efforts and political forces that led to California’s astounding public investment in K-12 arts education — including $105 million in annual block grants for arts and music education, and a one-time, $500 million capital allocation for the purchase of sports, arts, and music equipment. The new state budget […]
Help wanted
As I’ve mentioned before, I was recently elected president of the Association of Arts Administration Educators, an international membership organization of degree-granting programs in arts and cultural management, policy, and research. The association is now in the process of hiring its first-ever administrative director (part time), to support our members and advance our mission. I […]
Mission, Models, and Money
The Mission, Models, Money initiative in the UK seems to be tracking similar issues to those in this weblog, through conferences, case studies, provocation papers, and such. Particularly interesting are their identified principal issues facing arts and cultural organizations in the UK, many of which might sound familiar across the pond in North America, as […]
Sharing the power
Helen De Michiel of the National Alliance for Media Arts and Culture (NAMAC) has posted a thoughtful discussion about her organization’s administrative division of labor. Instead of the traditional hierarchy with a single administrative director, NAMAC now has co-directors, sharing equally the burden of executive leadership. Says she: Many arts nonprofits find themselves dealing with […]
Understanding and fulfilling the presenter’s contract
Public presentations — speeches, conference panels, reports, proposals, and so on — can be engaging moments of learning or excruciating wastes of time, depending on how well the presenter understands his or her job and prepares to deliver on that understanding. The ability to make an engaging presentation remains one of the key competencies of […]
Designed to dissolve
We’ve been chatting a lot lately about the lifecycle of the nonprofit arts organization, and whether that cycle is as open as it could be to evolution, dissolution, or dramatic change. Thanks for the many thoughtful comments on the matter (here and here, for starters). But there’s another wrinkle in the conversation worthy of note: […]
