{"id":1506,"date":"2011-08-16T08:40:08","date_gmt":"2011-08-16T15:40:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2011\/08\/invocation_and_allocation\/"},"modified":"2021-10-28T08:58:12","modified_gmt":"2021-10-28T12:58:12","slug":"invocation_and_allocation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/main\/invocation_and_allocation.php","title":{"rendered":"Invocation and allocation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Since the universe for arts and cultural enterprise is evolving quickly these days, and since I happen to run an MBA degree program that claims to prepare high-performing leaders for that universe, I spend an unreasonable amount of time trying to define what I do for a living, and how I do it. That effort is a key engine behind this blog, which helps me frame and float ideas for all of you to shoot at or refine (and honestly, I love both kinds of responses, so keep them coming).<\/div>\n
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In the process of defining what I do for a living, I’m continually drawn back to the Albert Einstein quote: “The best models are as simple as possible…but no simpler.”<\/div>\n
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So what is the simplest (but not over-simplified) way to describe what an MBA in Arts Administration does, or can do? What might define and refine what my colleagues and I do every day? Here’s what I’ve got at the moment:<\/div>\n
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“We foster a more elegant invocation and allocation of people, time, and other resources toward expressive ends.”<\/div>\n<\/div><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
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There’s a lot to unbundle in that sentence, so perhaps I haven’t hit Einstein’s mark just yet. But two words that evolved for me over the summer will be my focus here: invocation and allocation.<\/div>\n
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“Invocation” includes any activity that draws resources toward an artistic or expressive effort — talented artists, craftspeople, and technicians; staff and support personnel; board members and volunteers; audiences; earned and contributed income; space and equipment and raw materials. “Invocation” arose as the best word, because all of these resources are truly about summoning energy toward you, calling for aid and insight and inspiration. That’s an invocation.<\/div>\n
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“Allocation” includes anything you do to align, assign, direct, constrain, or evaluate how those resources are applied toward the expressive end. This involves, often, more control and analysis functions like accounting and finance, but also a full range of strategic efforts toward what my colleague Russell Willis Taylor calls “doing less better.”<\/div>\n
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These two bundles of effort require different skills and abilities, and often live in tension with each other. So, the other thing that “elegance” requires is continual balance and care.<\/div>\n
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It might be shocking to some that the word “creation” isn’t anywhere in my summary sentence. But to be honest, I don’t prepare people to create artistic works. My graduates support, advance, sustain, connect, commission, encourage, and refine creative works toward their successful expression and stewardship. Creative and expressive work is the center and purpose of all that they do. But the work they do is primarily invocation and allocation.<\/div>\n
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And that’s what I’ve got for now. Shoot at it, or refine it, please.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Since the universe for arts and cultural enterprise is evolving quickly these days, and since I happen to run an MBA degree program that claims to prepare high-performing leaders for that universe, I spend an unreasonable amount of time trying to define what I do for a living, and how I do it. That effort […]<\/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-1506","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\/1506","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=1506"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3799,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1506\/revisions\/3799"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}