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The Artful Manager

Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture

Business planning meets mixed-media

May 8, 2009 by Andrew Taylor

The Creative EntrepreneurBusiness planning books are generally linear things, stepping you through the motions of starting or extending a business from insight to implementation. But we all know that reality is not like that, particularly in artistic enterprise. When artists and creative individuals consider starting their own business or profit-generating activity, vision, business, purpose, life, passion, and self-expression are all part of the mix.

Which is why I appreciate Lisa Sonora Beam’s book on the subject of business planning for artists and creative individuals: The Creative Entrepreneur. While it contains many of the same core elements as any business planning book — define your business, carve your niche, know your customer, know yourself, and so on — it brings a truly hands-on approach to exploring those deep issues in non-linear ways.

Beam offers a visual journaling approach to engaging goals, strategies, tactics and barriers — posing questions to be answered not just in your head or in spreadsheets, but on paper, with clippings, paints, markers, pens, scraps, and photos. And each essential question gets multiple treatments, as you go back to your original thoughts and highlight the essential bits with more layers of context.

The result is unique to business planning, and a uniquely beautiful book. If you think visually, learn with your hands, and bristle against traditional tomes on business, consider this alternative. I’ve already grabbed my crayons.

Filed Under: main, Readings

About Andrew Taylor

Andrew Taylor is a faculty member in American University's Arts Management Program in Washington, DC. [Read More …]

ArtsManaged Field Notes

#ArtsManaged logoAndrew Taylor also publishes a weekly email newsletter, ArtsManaged Field Notes, on Arts Management practice. The most recent notes are listed below.

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Artful Manager: The Book!

The Artful Manager BookFifty provocations, inquiries, and insights on the business of arts and culture, available in
paperback, Kindle, or Apple Books formats.

Recent Comments

  • Barry Hessenius on Business in service of beauty: “An enormous loss. Diane changed the discourse on culture – its aspirations, its modus operandi, its assumptions. A brilliant thought…” Jan 19, 18:58
  • Sunil Iyengar on Business in service of beauty: “Thank you, Andrew. The loss is immense. Back when Diane was teaching a course called “Approaching Beauty,” to business majors…” Jan 16, 18:36
  • Michael J Rushton on Business in service of beauty: “A wonderful person and a creative thinker, this is a terrible loss. – thank you for posting this.” Jan 16, 13:18
  • Andrew Taylor on Two goals to rule them all: “Absolutely, borrow and build to your heart’s content! The idea that cultural practice BOTH reduces and samples surprise is really…” Jun 2, 18:01
  • Heather Good on Two goals to rule them all: “To “actively sample novel experiences (in safe ways) to build more resilient perception and prediction” is about as useful a…” Jun 2, 15:05

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