In a ‘traditional’ start-up or new project initiative, a company develops a concept, builds a budget and market plan, gathers resources, assembles working teams, and constructs a full-blown, feature-rich version of their idea before releasing it for sale to grateful consumers. If consumers turn out to be less grateful than anticipated, you are, essentially, screwed.

This week’s public theater discussion at Arena Stage (aka, The Summit), caused quite a stir on the interwebs, primarily around questions of diversity and equity — or lack thereof — in the Washington, DC, theater scene. The Summit is a series of live discussions, curated and facilitated by journalist Peter Marks (described here by Mr. […]

I’ve been in a lot of arts discussions lately that wander around the question of risk. Most have been about risk-taking in audiences or communities. Some have been about risk tolerance and philanthropy. In these conversations, our language suggests that risk is a single variable, and that the individual is the best unit of analysis […]

Science fiction author Bruce Sterling is a far better writer than public speaker. But in both media he can capture a compelling tension, conflict, or possibility.

During the CAPACOA conference in Toronto, I attended a fantastic workshop on the ‘Critical Response Protocol‘ — a process developed to encourage reflection, connection, and inclusion in group discussions about artworks, texts, lessons, performances, or any other complex shared experience. Facilitators Judy Harquail and Tim Yerxa had been trained in the protocol, and talked us […]

There are a lot of learning moments in this recent story out of Pennsylvania about a grand jury, a nonprofit, and the museum in the middle. And there’s a gut-punching sentence that might encourage you to learn from them: ”The grand jury requested the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office investigate and forcibly dissolve the nonprofit if […]

I’m off to Toronto to offer the opening keynote and conversation session for the 2014 CAPACOA conference. Their theme this year is “The Culture of Curiosity,” which turned out to be an intriguing topic to explore and explain. I’ll share some of my key points from the keynote in a future post.

It’s fun to think that the new world of the Internet demands entirely new methods to connect and cultivate supporters. But as it turns out, many ancient practices still apply. Case in point, this recent study of successful and unsuccessful Kickstarter campaign language. It found that phrases connected to value for the audience, and confidence […]

This holiday season, our thoughts turn, of course, to Internet cat videos, and their implications for the live performing arts.