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The Artful Manager

Andrew Taylor on the business of arts & culture

Sort of like PowerPoint haiku

February 20, 2008 by Andrew Taylor

Through a friend’s copy of Presentation Zen, I stumbled onto the strange beauty of Pecha Kucha, a seemingly arbitrary but undeniably compelling approach to PowerPoint presentations. Suggested and refined by architects Mark Dytham and Astrid Klein (and described here by Presentation Zen author Garr Reynolds), Pecha Kucha emerged as a way to share focused bursts […]

Illiterate or hyperliterate? It depends on how you count

February 19, 2008 by Andrew Taylor

Techno-trends author Steven Johnson offers a critical response to the idea (and the NEA report advancing the idea) that Americans are reading less now than they used to. The NEA study, released last November (available for download here), raised media concern and national discussion about the demise of voluntary reading. Said NEA Chair Dana Gioia […]

Balancing the masses and the elite

February 14, 2008 by Andrew Taylor

Social-networking maven Kevin Kelly posts some fascinating thoughts on the past and future of user-generated content systems (Wikipedia, distributed networks, smart mobs, blogs, and such). At issue is how such systems balance the aggregated, bottom-up insights of non-experts against the editing, filtering, curating, and clarifying energy of top-down, ”elite” content managers. We all know by […]

Allocating that complex asset, the museum collection

February 13, 2008 by Andrew Taylor

The decision by billionaire philanthropist Eli Broad not to donate his vast art collection to the new Los Angeles County Museum of Art is causing quite a ripple in the museum world (CultureGrrl explored the topic last month, as did Tyler Green, following the New York Times January article on the decision). Rather than donate […]

Getting in our own way

February 12, 2008 by Andrew Taylor

Charles Isherwood in the New York Times has mixed feelings about emerging theater works with an emphasis on active audiences, where the viewer plays a significant role in the way the event unfolds. It may be event-worthy and alluring to new audiences, he thinks, but it lacks many of the essential qualities of complex narrative […]

Thanks to Microsoft, I’m a better person…

February 11, 2008 by Andrew Taylor

As I was upgrading my Microsoft Office software to the new version last week, the dialog box shown here popped up on my screen. I know we all define ourselves, in part, by the goods we purchase and the tools we use. But I thought it was particularly thoughtful of Microsoft to upgrade my sense […]

Agent or manager…the distinction blurs

February 8, 2008 by Andrew Taylor

In the arts and entertainment world, there’s a distinction that’s often misunderstood as semantic, when it’s actually driven by law: the difference between a manager and an agent. In film, touring performing arts, theater, publishing, and other realms of creative expression, both agents and managers work to advance their clients’ work. The difference is that […]

Does anyone listen to lyrics?

February 7, 2008 by Andrew Taylor

Thanks to BoingBoing for pointing me to this Lawrence Welk show performance of ”One Toke over the Line” (if you’re out of the loop, ”toke” is slang for smoking Marijuana…I’m guessing Gail and Dale didn’t figure that out). The cultural disconnect recalls the recent Washington Post article on the songs used in presidential campaigns, and […]

More on authenticity

February 6, 2008 by Andrew Taylor

I was pleased to get a comment on my post yesterday from Bill Ivey, former chair of the National Endowment for the Arts, and current director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise and Public Policy at Vanderbilt. I had a great visit to the Curb Center just last week for an intriguing conversation between […]

What’s ”authentic”?

February 5, 2008 by Andrew Taylor

Some interesting threads about ”authenticity” are tracking around the web, many in response to the new Pine & Gilmore book on the subject (haven’t read it yet, but it’s in ”the stack”). Included in the thread are posts by Grant McCracken, then Sam Ford, and then Sam Ford again. At issue is what we all […]

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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.

RSS ArtsManaged Field Notes

  • The bother of bylaws July 8, 2025
    Does your arts nonprofit's map for action match the terrain?
  • Minimum viable everything July 1, 2025
    Getting better as an arts organization doesn't always (or even often) mean getting bigger.
  • The rise and stall of the nonprofit arts June 24, 2025
    The modern arts nonprofit evolved in an ecology of growth. It's time to evolve again.
  • Connection, concern, and capacity June 17, 2025
    The three-legged stool of fundraising strategy.
  • Is your workplace a pyramid or a wheel? June 10, 2025
    Johan Galtung defined two structures for collective action: thin-and-big (the pyramid) or thick-and-small (the wheel). Which describes your workplace?

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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