• Home
  • About
    • About this Blog
    • About Andrew Taylor
    • Contact
  • Subscribe
  • Other AJBlogs
  • ArtsJournal

The Artful Manager

Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture

Taking side projects seriously

March 21, 2013 by Andrew Taylor

SwissMissDesigner Tina Roth Eisenberg (aka swissmiss) is a cool-project machine. She and her team have launched the monthly breakfast idea-network of CreativeMornings, the TeuxDeux to-do list system, the artsy temporary tattoo business Tattly, and the Brooklyn shared workspace venue Studiomates. She has just posted her SXSW talk, and it’s well worth watching (embedded below).

Tina offers her 11 rules for life and work, with fantastic quotes and examples to explain each rule. Among the most compelling is her discussion of complaining. She says she has a rule that when she finds herself complaining about something, she forces herself to choose one of two paths: commit to making it better, or decide to let it go. That impulse led her to create the Tattly website, when her child brought home cheap and uninteresting temporary tattoos. It also relates to her Rule #8, where she disdains and dismisses anyone who criticizes without empathy or productive intent.

Tina is a maker-manager, a re-emerging model of creative leadership that thrived 250 years ago (remember the actor-manager, history buffs?). As a creative entrepreneur, she embraces ‘side projects’ as her main projects, and has built a system that can scan, experiment, and scale like crazy. As such, her rules are particularly salient for any maker-manager-wannabee, including those in the traditionally nonprofit cultural sector. Here are the rules. Sing along at home.

  1. Invest your life in what you love
  2. Embrace enthusiasm
  3. Complaining is not an option (either make it better, or let it go)
  4. Trust and empower
  5. Experiences > money
  6. Surround yourself with like-minded people
  7. Collaborate
  8. Ignore haters
  9. Make time to think and breathe
  10. If an opportunity scares you, take it
  11. Be someone’s eccentric aunt

 

Video streaming by Ustream

Filed Under: main

Comments

  1. jim o'connell says

    March 22, 2013 at 11:11 am

    Thanks, Andrew. My smile grew as I read down the list, but it spiked to a grin at 0.

  2. mariagracesimonelli says

    December 21, 2013 at 6:43 pm

    I love swissmiss- very inspiring

#ArtsManaged

Three more paths to improve and inspire your Arts Management practice: Field Notes (weekly newsletter) • Field Guide (online textbook) • YouTube Channel

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.

About Andrew Taylor

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

Recent Comments

  • 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
  • Andrew Taylor on What’s in a name: Arts Management?: “Thanks Ken! Grateful for your insights on this. I agree that it’s like screaming into the wind to decide upon…” Feb 19, 13:41
  • Ken Foster on What’s in a name: Arts Management?: “Hi Andrew. Totally agree with your focus of concern on the “Arts” word rather than the second word. I have…” Feb 17, 13:52
  • Andrew Taylor on What’s in a name: Arts Management?: “Thanks Jim! I’m so glad to have the link to your book review in JAMLS. Somehow I missed it the…” Feb 15, 15:17

Archives

Creative Commons License
The written content of this blog is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Images are not covered under this license, but are linked (whenever possible) to their original author.

an ArtsJournal blog

Copyright © 2023 · Magazine Pro Theme on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in