{"id":797,"date":"2005-11-05T20:46:18","date_gmt":"2005-11-06T04:46:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/wp\/2005\/11\/if_culture_counts_how_do_we_co\/"},"modified":"2005-11-05T20:46:18","modified_gmt":"2005-11-06T04:46:18","slug":"if_culture_counts_how_do_we_co","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/artfulmanager\/thoughtbucket\/if_culture_counts_how_do_we_co.php","title":{"rendered":"If Culture Counts, How Do We Count It?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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\na keynote by Andrew Taylor, Director
\nBolz Center for Arts Administration<\/a>
\nauthor of The Artful Manager<\/a>
\nCAPACOA Conference: ”Culture Counts: Measuring the Value of the Arts”
\nNovember 5, 2005, Ottawa, Ontario<\/p>\n


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\n[Thanks and acknowledgements went here…I was
\n
\nvery
\n<\/i>
\ngracious.]\n<\/p>\n

\n[Personal introduction went here, which I needn’t bore you with.]\n<\/p>\n

\nThis convening focuses on how to measure what we value. So, I thought I should begin by defining what
\n
\nI
\n<\/i>
\nvalue in professional convenings like this. We are all here for a few days (I mean here at this conference, not here on earth). And while many of us attend many such convenings, the opportunities they provide are extremely rare.\n<\/p>\n

\nCertainly, many of you communicate on-line and by phone, as fellow professionals in a common industry. You happen upon each other at community galas or opening nights. But here we are, all together, all focusing on a common theme. It’s easy to forget how extraordinary this is.\n<\/p>\n

\nThis is what performance analysts in the corporate world call ”face time” — real people in real space in real time. And you might be shocked by the energy spent, especially in large corporations, optimizing ”face time” for their salespeople, their support staff, and their chief executives (sometimes to encourage more, sometimes to urge less). Many of us in this room are
\n
\nalso
\n<\/i>
\nin the business of ”face time.” Audiences, artists, donors, trustees, and volunteers commit this rare resource into our care. It’s an awesome responsibility, and a glorious gift. We’ll get to that soon.\n<\/p>\n

\nSuch convenings, therefore, deserve respect and clarity. In deference to both, I’ll express out loud what I value in these rare moments:\n<\/p>\n

\n

\n
\nDiscourse
\n
\n<\/b>
\nFace-to-face, we have an extraordinarily rich communication opportunity. I see you, you see me. There’s content, of course, but the context surrounding it is rich and full of meaning and nuance. In technology terms, this is
\n
\nvery
\n<\/i>
\nhigh bandwidth. We can forge meaning and understanding here better than anywhere. We should make every opportunity to talk back and forth.\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nDiscovery
\n
\n<\/b>
\nWith so much knowledge, experience, and perspective in one place, at the bandwidth I just described, there’s an astounding opportunity for discovery — finding a new way of saying something we implicitly knew but couldn’t express; hearing an angular view of something we only saw in one dimension; listening to what one of my colleagues calls our ”inner conference” — that interior dialogue that’s running within each of us right now, triggered by the conversations around us, perhaps, but running independently. It’s a powerful part of how conferences work, and I encourage you to honor both the outer and inner conferences now underway.[1]<\/a>\n<\/p>\n

\n
\nConnection
\n
\n<\/b>
\nYou all are part of a densely connected network, which has gained in power and intensity through the on-line world. But there’s even more power in having pieces of that network together in space and time. You can hear about a project or concern of a colleague, and instantly connect them to
\n
\nanother
\n<\/i>
\ncolleague that is on a similar path — not just with an e-mail, but in person. It’s like ”speed dating” for the isolated arts warrior in all of us. High touch. High bandwidth. High context.\n<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

\nFinally, to take full advantage of the opportunities above, I also suggest a fourth element that makes all of them more likely and more profound:\n<\/p>\n


\nBoldness & Humility<\/b>
\nAll productive conversations I’ve experienced balance the values of boldness and humility:
\n
\nBoldness
\n<\/i>
\nto say out loud what you believe to be true, or to express honestly what you don’t understand;
\n
\nhumility
\n<\/i>
\nto accept that you are likely wrong, as all of us are, if not in fact then by degree. This delicate dialectic is crushed by posturing and politics. I hope we make space for it here.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\nI’m sure you have other things you value about these convenings. And I encourage you to voice them to your inner conference as we progress. But let’s begin with these. Plus, I’m the one with the microphone, so I get to pick for now.\n<\/p>\n

\nDiscourse, discovery, connection, boldness, humility. I say these things out loud so you can hold me accountable, and so that you can help me stay true to what I claim to be important. You’re all smart enough to know when someone states a core value and then violates it with their actions. Heaven knows your audiences and communities are smart enough, too.\n<\/p>\n

\nWhen you call a customer service center, for example, and a recorded message tells you how much they value your call, you know they
\n
\ndon’t
\n<\/i>
\nvalue your call quite enough to answer it.[2]
\n<\/a>
\nWhen a speaker says they value discourse and then continues with a monologue, you know that their wires are crossed. In fact, if I’m still talking at 10:25, someone in the back should waive at me. That will be an indicator to me that I’m not serving the things I value. I want to leave time to talk together.\n<\/p>\n

\nBeyond someone waiving at 10:25, I’ll need some other indicators to help me define what I value with increasing clarity, and determine if my actions actually serve what I say I value. And, since I’m a busy person who is easily distracted, my indicators need to have a few basic qualities: they should be spontaneously generated, easily observable, and reasonably connected to the value I have in mind. In a perfect world, my indicators should also be participatory, so other people can carry some of the burden and have an active voice in the process.\n<\/p>\n

\nLet’s run those requirements again:\n<\/p>\n