{"id":444,"date":"2012-01-29T09:08:58","date_gmt":"2012-01-29T16:08:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/?p=444"},"modified":"2012-01-29T09:08:58","modified_gmt":"2012-01-29T16:08:58","slug":"learning-to-play-ball-on-a-new-field","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/2012\/01\/learning-to-play-ball-on-a-new-field\/","title":{"rendered":"Learning to Play Ball on a New Field"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>In the book, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game<\/strong>\u00a0Michael Lewis reveals how the\u00a0Oakland Athletics\u00a0baseball team and its\u00a0general manager\u00a0Billy Beane crafted an analytical, evidence-based, sabermetric*\u00a0<\/strong><\/em>approach to assembling a competitive\u00a0baseball\u00a0team, despite Oakland’s disadvantaged revenue situation.<\/p>\n

(*SABR<\/a>\u00a0refers to the Society of American Baseball Research, an entity founded in 1971 to compile information of interest to\u00a0historians, statisticians, researchers and fans of the game.)<\/p>\n

With Brad Pitt cast as the lead in this year’s movie, the story progresses through the obstacles and risks inherent when “necessity is the mother of invention.”<\/p>\n

But to be honest, I’m less interested in the story of the first baseball team to discover the transformative power of empirical evidence than I am of the last holdout.\u00a0<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

Look, there is no shame in not being the first person to solve a profound challenge. \u00a0Undoubtedly, many people had apples fall upon their heads, but only Isaac Newton \u00a0was inspired by the act to conceive of the notion of gravity.<\/p>\n

But the world contains precious few Isaac Newtons and Billy Beanes – and far more people who firmly “know what they know” and stubbornly resist even the consideration of change.<\/p>\n

Here in Arizona, we are less than a year into our experience with the Arizona Arts & Cultural Census\/Community Database –\u00a0<\/strong>a secure and confidential means to analyze patterns of audience participation. \u00a0We’ve learned to consider this an\u00a0information asset <\/strong><\/em>that provides powerful analytical tools which enable arts & cultural organizations to become smarter and more effective in their own efforts while revealing areas of mutual need and opportunity in their service to all Arizona communities.<\/p>\n

The Census\/Community Database is conducted via the\u00a0\u201ceMerge\u201d technology of the company\u00a0TRG Arts<\/a>,\u00a0<\/strong>which\u00a0enables authorized users\u00a0to conduct research and compile dynamic direct-mail lists in an environment that is highly secure and which carefully guards confidentiality and protects privacy.<\/p>\n

So far, the Community Database tracks the arts & cultural participation of more than 808,000 unique Arizona households – which is more than 36 percent of ALL Arizona households.<\/p>\n

We have only just begun to climb the data’s steep learning curve – but even the first few steps of the journey have been nothing short of insightful, exciting and highly impactful. \u00a0(If you’d like to see what we’ve uncovered so far, you’ll find numerous postings here: \u00a0http:\/\/notes.allianceforaudience.org\/<\/a>)<\/p>\n

I mention this because at the start of Arizona’s community database project I was informed by the CEO of one significant organization that his company would not participate because, “we’d prefer to be guided by artistic vision rather than by statistical analysis.”<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Perhaps over time his feelings – or the needs of that organization – will change. \u00a0 I certainly respect their right to determine their own path. \u00a0But I do not believe for even one second that the choices are mutually exclusive.<\/p>\n

I also don’t believe that any arts or cultural organization – regardless of its size, genre, location or history – can ignore that the game is now being played in fundamentally new ways.<\/p>\n

# # #<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In the book, Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game\u00a0Michael Lewis reveals how the\u00a0Oakland Athletics\u00a0baseball team and its\u00a0general manager\u00a0Billy Beane crafted an analytical, evidence-based, sabermetric*\u00a0approach to assembling a competitive\u00a0baseball\u00a0team, despite Oakland’s disadvantaged revenue situation. (*SABR\u00a0refers to the Society of American Baseball Research, an entity founded in 1971 to compile information of interest to\u00a0historians, statisticians, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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":[34,4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-444","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-marketing","7":"category-strategy","8":"entry","9":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=444"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/444\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=444"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=444"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=444"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}