An apology for missing a day or five in my posts. I’m still unbundling my brain after a really interesting weekend of deep thought (see my last post for details). Stay tuned for a full debriefing. In the meantime, to keep the links going, take a look at this interesting article in the Chicago Tribune, […]
Rethinking how we think
I’ll be the first to admit that it’s easy to take potshots at an industry when you don’t take the next step and suggest alternatives. Weblogs in general, and this one as well, seem to be wonderful platforms for potshots, but often only sketchy at solutions. They are on-line rants, after all, intended to be […]
You are what you measure
A recent article in the Washington Post explores the impact of short essays in standardized tests like state proficiency exams, the SAT, and the ACT. While concise writing is certainly an essential skill, the opening paragraph of the article shows the dark side of measures and incentives. Sara Stevens is a very bright high school […]
The Creative Commons
Hands down, one of the coolest things to happen to copyright in the past decade is the Creative Commons, a quick and simple way for content creators to share their creative works. Based on the premise that not all authors, artists, programmers, and other creative individuals want to lock-down what they create, the Creative Commons […]
Brains from a Different Time
So many national conferences of nonprofit cultural professionals are consumed with ‘attracting younger audiences’. From multimedia additions to symphonic performances, to ‘singles night’ activities, to superimposed trendy amenities on the same old visual art exhibitions, these responses so often seem to miss a more basic point. Younger audiences think with different brains, and from a […]
From the Mouths of Mayors
As I mentioned, I was off early this week at Madison, Wisconsin’s ArtGrowth Summit, one of many such meetings of arts, business, and civic leaders taking place around the country. And yet, preparing myself for the Richard Florida-speak of luring creative workers with creative amenities, I was pleasantly surprised by a more balanced reaction to […]
Creative Cities
I’m off today at the ArtGrowth Summit, a Madison, Wisconsin, initiative to explore the place of the arts in creative cities. It’s one of countless such initiatives inspired by Richard Florida’s Rise of the Creative Class. The mother ship of such conferences will be in Toronto in October, the Creative Spaces + Places conference.
It’s all ‘Times Roman’ to me
The New York Times has a whimsical article on MoMA’s refurbished logo and typeface. While winking throughout about how nobody will ever know the difference, the article also showed the depth of thinking and craft that goes into even the things we never notice. It turns out, for example, that the original Franklin typeface had […]
The lean get leaner…
A new report by the NEA shows a grim recent and future view of dance organizations in a down economy (also covered on backstage.com). Arts Endowment Chairman Dana Gioia puts on as positive a spin as he can on the findings, which predict as much as a 30% drop in earned income for nonprofit dance […]
Dancing with Systems
The late Donella Meadows was a wonderful mix of business theorist, social scientist, and world citizen. As an early student of Jay Forrester at MIT, she was part of a team of academics and practitioners exploring the principals of complex systems (social systems, business systems, ecological systems). I keep returning to two of her essays […]
