Anyone who watched ”The Simpsons” last week got a hilarious view of the cultural facility development process, featuring the voice of architect Frank Gehry. Summarized on this Simpsons web site: While in Shelbyville, the Simpsons watch a musical about the town, which includes a character from Springfield who isn’t particularly bright. Marge suggests to the […]
Teaching the unknowable
I’m on the road today to Pittsburgh for the annual gathering of Arts Administration degree program directors, faculty, and such (members of the Association of Arts Administration Educators). On the agenda, as always, are various panels, lectures, and breakouts about how to teach something that none of us can exactly define: proactive, effective, flexible, and […]
Do what we say, not what we do
One would expect the Central Intelligence Agency to think alot about thinking. After all, they have agents and analysts spread about the globe…drawing on whatever data, experience, and context they can to form actionable plans for complex issues. So, while other organizations might measure and assess the effectiveness of their construction process or supply chain, […]
Stocks, flows, and connectors…oh my
If you’re in a particularly wonkish mood, you might be interested in the release and public launch of the Cultural Dynamics Map, the first tangible outcome of a collaborative project I helped launch back in 2003 along with friends and compatriots Russell Willis Taylor of National Arts Strategies and John Kreidler of Cultural Initiatives Silicon […]
The answer, in a word, is ‘no’
Back in 1981, a report from National Economic Research Associates asked a pointed question about the new opportunities of cable television: Will Cable Save the Arts? The buzz about cable back then was that it opened a wealth of new channels and flows for all kinds of content. Broadcast television had been a horribly narrow […]
We are not alone
A short piece in the Christian Science Monitor shows that it’s not just cultural managers who are under stress from all sides…movie theater owners are feeling the pinch, as well. With razor-thin profit sharing deals with the major studios, mounting pressures to push blockbusters through their doors, and increasing competition for audience time, money, and […]
If you build it…you’ll be sorry
Friend and colleague Adrian Ellis received a nice profile in the New York Times yesterday, emphasizing his distrust of organizational growth as a sign of success. Instead, Adrian has focused much of his consultancy on providing a ‘reality check’ to organizations considering new buildings, new projects, or new funding initiatives. For some organizations, he’s become […]
The migration of the young professional
It may sound a bit like Wild Kingdom or some Nova special, but more cities and states are hunting and tracking young professionals. As the perceived importance of this link in the economic food chain rises, and the size of the available pool dwindles (thanks to birth rates a few decades back), governments and civic […]
Charity identity theft
A strange story out of Illinois suggests that charities can have their identities stolen too. According to this article in the Chicago Tribune, the Illinois Attorney General has filed suit against one nonprofit — United Front Inc., and its president Alex Brooks — for reinstating a defunct United Way chapter just to sign over its […]
It now takes a village to edit a book
Copyright counterforce Lawrence Lessig is taking a new approach to revising his 1999 treatise on technology, culture, and regulation, Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace. For the revision, he’s opening up the original text to public comment, criticism, and editing through a rapidly growing web protocol called wiki. On a wiki web site, visitors not […]
