{"id":1854,"date":"2015-03-12T17:33:54","date_gmt":"2015-03-13T00:33:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/?p=1854"},"modified":"2015-03-12T17:33:54","modified_gmt":"2015-03-13T00:33:54","slug":"arts-organizations-and-the-quest-for-data","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2015\/03\/arts-organizations-and-the-quest-for-data\/","title":{"rendered":"Arts organizations and the quest for data"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/whirlwind-computer.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignleft size-medium wp-image-1233\" src=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/whirlwind-computer-300x185.jpg\" alt=\"what are the data telling us?\" width=\"300\" height=\"185\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/whirlwind-computer-300x185.jpg 300w, https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/whirlwind-computer.jpg 400w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a>There is an <a href=\"http:\/\/www.trgarts.com\/Blog\/BlogPost\/tabid\/136\/ArticleId\/297\/A-Data-Management-Love-Story.aspx\">interesting interview<\/a> from TRG Arts regarding the benefits to arts organizations from hiring someone to manage data. Heather Kitchen, Managing Director of Dallas Theater Center* says:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>When I began as the chief administrative person at a theater 25 year ago, even a large regional theater did not have a computer driven ticketing package. As time evolved, and we moved past Lotus 123 spreadsheets for tracking ticket sales, I observed and appreciated the power of accurate data and how it could be a powerful tool &#8211; not a decision maker, but a tool.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>True. Notice that this is not what is sometimes wrongly described as &#8216;big data&#8217;, but instead ordinary tracking of sales, donations, responses to marketing and to the events themselves, data for which there is better and better software for managing and displaying the numbers. Ms Kitchen is quite correct that data analysis is a tool, but only that &#8211; human beings still have to make decisions about where to target new marketing, or whether to change subscription prices.<\/p>\n<p>My worry is that sometimes this tool is misapplied, to the point of leading to poor decision-making. The misapplication comes from a conflation of average and marginal &#8211; it is important for arts managers to understand the difference. Here are two examples:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Suppose your museum has a very good data analyst, who has been looking at the characteristics of people who buy memberships. The analyst has found that on a per capita basis, people living in postal districts W and X tend to be more likely to obtain a membership that people living in postal districts Y and Z, even though all four districts are equidistant from the museum. You have the opportunity to expand localized marketing. Should you focus on W and X, since you seem to be having success there, or should you focus on Y and Z, perhaps reaching an untapped market? The thing to realize is that at this stage, at least, we <em>don&#8217;t know<\/em> the answer to that question. We know that <em>on average<\/em> we are having more success in W and X, but that does not tell us whether an increase in resources <em>at the margin<\/em> would have more impact there, or in districts Y and Z. Historical data, even thorough, accurate historical data, can&#8217;t tell us what to do.<\/li>\n<li>You have been running a series of concerts, with price differentials for orchestra and balcony seats. On average, you sell about 80% of your orchestra seats and 65% of your balcony seats. Should you raise, or lower, either of your two prices? Again, with the information given, we don&#8217;t know. That&#8217;s because we don&#8217;t know (yet) about the response <em>at the margin<\/em> &#8211; do consumers react strongly or weakly to price changes from the status quo (i.e. is demand elastic or inelastic at current prices), and how do they respond to the differential between the two prices. Even very accurate data on sales rates at current prices won&#8217;t tell you that. In economists&#8217; terms, the data are giving you a point on the demand curve, but not telling you about what the whole curve looks like.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But all is not lost. There <em>are<\/em> ways data can help you make decisions. What is needed is a willingness to experiment. In the first case, suppose you increased marketing efforts in W and Y, but not in X or Z. Suppose you found there was a bigger effect on memberships in Y than in W. Then I might suggest that in future, targeting what are currently weak areas is a better strategy than targeting those where you are already strong (assuming there are not vast demographic differences between these four areas). In the second example, try small changes in one price or the other, and track what happens: for what prices and ranges are customers price-sensitive, and where are they not? This can guide you in finding whether a price cut will yield an increase or a decrease in revenue.<\/p>\n<p>In each case, you need to find out something about the effects of marginal changes. And you cannot do that simply by looking at historical data (unless your data is already full of various experiments in adjusting prices or marketing or fund raising strategies). Simply collecting numbers isn&#8217;t enough &#8211; you have to be willing to be something of a scientist, devising experiments.<\/p>\n<p>A final note: some of these experiments will yield negative results &#8211; an increase in marketing targeted at a population segment that ended up having no effect on demand; a price decrease that ended up costing the organization revenue, as only a few extra tickets were sold. That is a consequence of being experimental. A current buzz circulating is about the &#8216;benefits of failure&#8217; &#8211; this is surely an application. And the benefit in all of these cases, if you are paying attention, is that you learn something.<\/p>\n<p>* In my country this would be a Theatre Centre.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There is an interesting interview from TRG Arts regarding the benefits to arts organizations from hiring someone to manage data. Heather Kitchen, Managing Director of Dallas Theater Center* says: When I began as the chief administrative person at a theater 25 year ago, even a large regional theater did not have a computer driven ticketing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1233,"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":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[26],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1854","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-issues","8":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/whirlwind-computer.jpg","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3dIW5-tU","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2910,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2023\/07\/producing-and-exhibiting-arts-as-a-nonprofit-entity-is-a-qualified-tax-exempt-activity\/","url_meta":{"origin":1854,"position":0},"title":"Producing and exhibiting arts as a nonprofit entity is a qualified tax exempt activity","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"July 18, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's what the Internal Revenue Service says: Organizations organized and operated exclusively for religious, charitable, scientific, testing for public safety, literary, educational, or other specified purposes and that meet certain other requirements are tax exempt under Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3). Organizations whose primary focus is literary or educational are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;issues&quot;","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Mitchell_Opera_House-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Mitchell_Opera_House-scaled.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Mitchell_Opera_House-scaled.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Mitchell_Opera_House-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Mitchell_Opera_House-scaled.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/07\/Mitchell_Opera_House-scaled.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1229,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/04\/what-is-big-data-for\/","url_meta":{"origin":1854,"position":1},"title":"What is big data for?","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"April 17, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"For a number of years I co-edited the Journal of Cultural Economics, and the core duty of the editor of a research journal is to guide through revision and publication papers that have findings new and interesting enough to advance our knowledge, and to turn away those papers that are\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;issues&quot;","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"what are the data telling us?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/whirlwind-computer.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2223,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2017\/07\/the-problem-with-ranking-cities-cultural-vibrancy\/","url_meta":{"origin":1854,"position":2},"title":"The problem with ranking cities&#8217; cultural vibrancy","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"July 10, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"Two recent publications derive indices to rank different cities according to their cultural vibrancy - from the National Center for Arts Research in the United States, and the European Commission for European cities. They have the same fundamental problem. In each report, a selection of data series applying to cities'\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;issues&quot;","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"not this again","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/07\/whirlwind-computer.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1357,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/06\/earmarked-taxes-for-the-arts\/","url_meta":{"origin":1854,"position":3},"title":"Earmarked taxes for the arts","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"June 18, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Last night Mecklenburg County (where Charlotte, NC is) commissioners voted to approve a referendum on increasing the sales tax by a quarter of a cent, some of which would be dedicated to culture: 7.5% of the proceeds to the Arts & Science Council and 5% of the proceeds to the\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;issues&quot;","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"I admit only having been to the airport","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/charlotte-north-carolina.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/charlotte-north-carolina.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/06\/charlotte-north-carolina.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":1667,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2014\/11\/arts-policy-and-the-election\/","url_meta":{"origin":1854,"position":4},"title":"Arts, policy, and the election (updated)","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"November 3, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Barry's Blog has a post on the consequences of the election, anticipating Republican gains in the House and likely control of the Senate, calling the post 'What Tomorrow's Election Means for the Nonprofit Arts.' Good question! He writes: On the federal level, if the Democrats maintain control of the Senate,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;issues&quot;","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"what's the big deal?","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/Voters.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":1926,"url":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/2015\/12\/the-creative-class-wont-save-your-arts-organizations\/","url_meta":{"origin":1854,"position":5},"title":"The creative class won&#8217;t save your arts organizations","author":"Michael Rushton","date":"December 22, 2015","format":false,"excerpt":"Let's talk about Hartford. I've never been to Connecticut, but in the past week I have read two stories about Hartford, and it is interesting to think about the links, if any. First, the symphony is in financial troubles. Dan Haar of the Hartford Courant reports, \"The symphony is bleeding\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;issues&quot;","block_context":{"text":"issues","link":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/category\/issues\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"The greatest","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/howe.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1854","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1854"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1854\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1859,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1854\/revisions\/1859"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1854"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1854"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/worth\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1854"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}