Archives for 2012

For many reasons, the questions of ‘audience engagement’ have been simmering in my head in recent weeks. For one, I’m working on a project on that very topic, as an advising consultant to AMS Planning & Research for TCG’s Audience (R)Evolution initiative. For another, I’m prepping for this Thursday’s ‘How Art Works’ public forum with the […]

If you have an interest in getting money given to you by strangers, you might be equally interested to know that September 15 is Free Money Day (via GOOD). So, on Saturday of this week, you will find individuals standing on street corners not ASKING for change, but giving it out. And if you’re so inclined, […]

On Thursday, September 20, from 2:00- 5:30 pm Eastern Time, I’m thrilled to be coordinating a public forum at American University alongside my brilliant Arts Management colleagues. The subject is the tiny question of “How Art Works” to impact the lives of individuals, communities, and society.

Nobel prize-winning psychologist Daniel Kahneman knows a bit about happiness. And his research suggests that we’re easily confused about what will make us happy. Kahneman calls this the ‘focusing illusion,’ which leads us to overemphasize a whole series of factors that might make us happy, while ignoring the factors that really matter

As a counterpoint and antidote to my post yesterday on the dark and difficult side of creative placemaking, I felt compelled to share the bold and brighter side. From the astounding mind, mission, and vision of Robert E. Gard in 1969

KCRW’s ‘The Business’ offers a fascinating conversation (beginning at 22:44) on the more complex and nuanced aspects of ‘creative placemaking,’ challenging the assumption that it’s always good for everyone. The place, in this case, is Rabun County, Georgia, where the movie Deliverance was filmed 40 years ago.

Part of ‘basic training’ in any business school is understanding opportunity cost, the measure of lost opportunities (or opportunities forgone) when you choose one strategy or path or project over others. Calculating your opportunity cost is essentially an exercise in pre-emptive regret — if I spend my money, or time, or attention on this particular thing, […]

I’ve admitted before my strange fascination with computer and digital interface design. (Remember “progressive disclosure“? Of course you do.) There’s something intriguing about designing environments that help human users work with highly abstract digital machinery in useful and meaningful ways. In some part, it strikes me as a metaphor for what arts and cultural managers […]

One of the oddities of moving to a new job in a new city after two decades elsewhere is that so many usually obvious things are suddenly unfamiliar.

Greetings all. After a rather long and eventful hiatus from the Artful Manager, I’m stumbling back into blogging from a new city with a new job. Today, I begin orientation as a new faculty member at American University, in Washington, DC, teaching and researching in their Arts Management program.