{"id":1478,"date":"2011-02-28T08:59:39","date_gmt":"2011-02-28T16:59:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2011\/02\/is_arts_entrepreneurship_train\/"},"modified":"2011-02-28T08:59:39","modified_gmt":"2011-02-28T16:59:39","slug":"is_arts_entrepreneurship_train","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/is_arts_entrepreneurship_train.php","title":{"rendered":"Is ‘arts entrepreneurship’ training really just career prep?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Over in his State of the Art blog, James Undercofler wonders<\/a> if most of the ‘arts entrepreneurship’ initiatives on higher education campuses are really just mis-named career prep efforts. He identifies two tracks of business training that seem to be running separately:<\/p>\n

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One relates to enhanced student preparation for careers or potential careers after graduation. The other mirrors “true” entrepreneurship, the creation of new ventures and enterprises.<\/div>\n<\/blockquote>\n
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After exploring many of these programs myself, I’d agree with Undercofler that the majority of them are really career preparation and professional practice initiatives — helping students craft their resumes, polish their interview skills, and understand the basic business issues required of a life in the field. But I’m still stewing on how far from ‘true’ entrepreneurship these efforts are.<\/div>\n
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There are many definitions of ‘entrepreneur.’ The definitions that capture the word with some clarity tend to read like this<\/a>: ‘An entrepreneur is a person who has possession of a new enterprise, venture, or idea and assumes significant accountability for the inherent risks and the outcome.’ Back in the olden days (last year, or the year before) that ‘new enterprise, venture, or idea’ manifested in a separate entity from the individual — a corporation, LLC, or the like. And third-party capital, cash, or debt provided that venture the fuel to run.<\/span><\/div>\n

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But in a world of increasingly distributed business structures, more networks than independent entities, entrepreneurship and life as a working artist seem to be growing toward each other. Both require ‘portfolio’ strategies, building multiple income streams and constituent networks that somehow all cohere toward a singular vision. Both require a broad and deep understanding of business and contract relationships to foster the tiny margins that combine to make businesses (or careers) cash positive.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Undercofler suggests that organizational design and innovation is the future of entrepreneurship in the arts (rethinking the 501c3, and such). I’m wondering if the organization will lose some energy in the coming arts world, and become more of a tool among many tools rather than the only tool in the box. We’re increasingly organizing activities without organizations (as Clay Shirky would remind us<\/a>). And in that world, creative careers are solutions to be designed, not tracks to be followed.<\/span><\/div>\n

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I completely agree with Jim about the need to define, with some clarity, what outcomes we’re looking for in our ‘arts entrepreneurship’ efforts in higher education. For students who want to become employees of arts and culture organizations, we need career development and professional practice support (and we need to call it that). For students who want to design their career — either through multiple simultaneous part-time careers, or through new organizational ventures — ‘entrepreneurship’ training, sensitive to the arts industries, seems the better word and the better path.<\/span><\/div>\n

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Over in his State of the Art blog, James Undercofler wonders if most of the ‘arts entrepreneurship’ initiatives on higher education campuses are really just mis-named career prep efforts. He identifies two tracks of business training that seem to be running separately: One relates to enhanced student preparation for careers or potential careers after graduation. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1478","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-main","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1478"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1478\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1478"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1478"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1478"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}