{"id":826,"date":"2012-06-03T14:56:18","date_gmt":"2012-06-03T21:56:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/?p=826"},"modified":"2014-02-09T19:25:09","modified_gmt":"2014-02-10T02:25:09","slug":"its-time-to-dream-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/2012\/06\/its-time-to-dream-again\/","title":{"rendered":"It&#8217;s Time to Dream Again"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/2012\/06\/its-time-to-dream-again\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-831\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-831\" title=\"future ahead\" alt=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/future-ahead1-300x200.jpg\" width=\"300\" height=\"200\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/future-ahead1-300x200.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/06\/future-ahead1-500x333.jpg 500w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>On the occasion of its arts council&#8217;s 50th anniversary, I was recently invited to <strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.artsfortworth.org\/\" target=\"_blank\">Fort Worth<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0to design and facilitate a &#8220;visioning&#8221; session by which 75 community leaders &#8211; representing an array of civic, municipal, political and arts &amp; cultural interests &#8211; asked, <strong><em>&#8220;What investments in arts &amp; culture might we make today that will pay our community dividends over the next 50 years?&#8221;<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Such a <strong><em>refreshing<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0conversation!<\/p>\n<p>No speeches. \u00a0No sales pitches. \u00a0Nothing but a wide open agenda!<\/p>\n<p>And what resulted was about as profound and practical a discussion of the <strong>responsibilities<\/strong>\u00a0and <strong>opportunities<\/strong>\u00a0of arts &amp; cultural leadership as I&#8217;ve ever witnessed. \u00a0They discussed:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>What about arts &amp; culture makes our community distinct?<\/li>\n<li>What role can arts &amp; culture play in advancing the future vibrancy of our community?<\/li>\n<li>Who are (and who, frankly, are not) our audiences &#8211; and what should we do about that?<\/li>\n<li>How might arts &amp; cultural organizations work together in new ways to pursue goals of mutual importance?<\/li>\n<li>What past decisions have most helped us become the great arts &amp; cultural community we are today?<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>As with any community dialogue, the purpose is neither to answer the questions quickly nor definitely. \u00a0The virtue of these questions is in their ability to spark an even further-reaching community dialogue<em>\u00a0<\/em>that will attract many people, deepen their appreciation and encourage their further participation, uncover new resources, welcome new perspectives and unleash wildly creative thinking.<\/p>\n<p>I call such a visioning process <strong><em>&#8220;STARTEGY&#8221;<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 (and that&#8217;s not a typo) because the ENTIRE objective is just to get the process started. \u00a0Such visioning is a very brave effort &#8211; because it raises public expectations and opens a wide variety of possibilities without having pre-determined the end result. \u00a0How thrilling that can be!<\/p>\n<p><em><strong>Keep an eye on Fort Worth, they&#8217;re asking all the right questions.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n<p>Around the country, many arts &amp; cultural organizations remain understandably &#8220;hunkered down&#8221; while waiting for the economic storm to pass. \u00a0Having recently been in survival mode with my own organization, I appreciate that solving today&#8217;s challenges can preclude any capacity to think about tomorrow.<\/p>\n<p>However, here&#8217;s my plea: \u00a0As soon as you get even one moment of pause &#8211; one extra breath &#8211; one single un-allocated dollar &#8211; it is absolutely vital that you <em><strong>invest it forward <\/strong><\/em>by connecting yourself and your organization with others in your community.<\/p>\n<p>The long climb back to economic vibrancy &#8211; for ourselves, our communities, our sector and our nation &#8211; depends upon restoring our own capacity to start asking profound questions &#8211; to engage with other people widely &#8211; and to be willing to boldly pursue new opportunities as they are revealed.<\/p>\n<p>These days, &#8220;startegy&#8221; is far more valuable than &#8220;strategy&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p># # #<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On the occasion of its arts council&#8217;s 50th anniversary, I was recently invited to Fort Worth\u00a0to design and facilitate a &#8220;visioning&#8221; session by which 75 community leaders &#8211; representing an array of civic, municipal, political and arts &amp; cultural interests &#8211; asked, &#8220;What investments in arts &amp; culture might we make today that will pay [&hellip;]<\/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":[7,4],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-826","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-morale","7":"category-strategy","8":"entry","9":"has-post-thumbnail"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826","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=826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/audience\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}