The May issue of MIT Technology Review (okay, I read weird stuff) is all about invention — the brain-flexing, rule-bending process of creating something radically new. Throughout the issue, the articles repeatedly make the distinction between ‘invention’ and ‘innovation,’ and warn us not to confuse the two. According to economist Joseph A. Schumpeter, ‘invention’ is […]
Back from the brink
The national arts news seems peppered this week with financial Hail Mary’s and returns from the grave, among them the recent salvation of the Cincinnati Symphony (username: ajreader@artsjournal.com, password: access) from a $1.8 million hole, and the New Hampshire Symphony’s slow return from a $250,000 shortfall. The Cincinnati Symphony is clearly the happier of the […]
The high cost of being ‘free’
British museums are still pondering the net effect of eliminating entry fees at the 50 government-funded national museums and galleries, most of which are in London. Announced with great civic pride and pomp back in December 2001, the elimination of entry fees was an attempt to make great art and culture available to all. Depending […]
Policy
There’s a word that’s guaranteed to cast a glaze over the eyes of my arts management students, to encourage a silent slouch in the nonprofit board room, and to dampen even the liveliest discussion of the arts. The word is ‘policy,’ and it’s arguably one of the most important words that arts managers don’t want to say.
Performing arts and higher education
Back in March, I participated in the latest American Assembly, which explored the co-evolution of the performing arts and higher education in the United States. The convening was based on the premise that these two cultural engines had supported and advanced each other’s work over the past fifty years, and that their future could be […]
A virtual version of ‘word of mouth’
The technology and technique of ‘collaborative filtering’ has been around the Internet for almost a decade now, and it’s slowly creeping into everything we do on-line. Collaborative filtering is basically a way of comparing your preferences about something (books, movies, music, whatever) against a huge database of other preferences. When the pattern of things you […]
Debt, spin, and intrigue in Milwaukee
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinal featured a few articles on the Milwaukee Art Museum (one on the finances, one on new director David Gordon). Both articles addressed the museum’s challenging combination of an over-budget signature building and the ‘perfect storm’ of revenue problems facing most arts organizations these days (lower enrollment/admissions, strapped government funding, ‘right-sizing’ corporations […]
Knee deep in the hoopla
It’s the last two weeks classes here at the Bolz Center for Arts Administration, so my posts will likely be patchy and brief for a little while. So many papers to read, students to place, projects to launch. In the meantime, here are some articles worth your attention elsewhere: More on the transaction value of […]
The hot topic that leaves us cold
There’s a word that’s guaranteed to cast a glaze over the eyes of my arts management students, to encourage a silent slouch in the nonprofit board room, and to dampen even the liveliest discussion of the arts. The word is ‘policy,’ and it’s arguably one of the most important words that arts managers don’t want […]
Conferences, conferences, ever more conferences
So I’m off again to another conference, this time of the Association of Arts Administration Educators (yes, Virginia, there is an association for everything). This is a group of full-time degree program directors (of undergraduate and graduate programs) that prepare managers for the arts and cultural field. Avid readers will recall a point-counterpoint argument I […]
