“And the beat goes on...............”

The National Medal of the Arts Television Show:

In 1999, when I was still the President of the California Assembly of Local Arts Agencies (now tragically defunct – but that’s a whole other story), I accepted an invitation to attend the National Medal of Arts ceremony in Washington D.C. I went because I had a meeting in D.C. with Harriet Fulbright, then Executive Director of the President’s Committee on the Arts & Humanities, about a project she and I were hatching to get then Vice-Chair of the Committee, Terry Semel – co-chair of Warner Brothers Pictures – to convene a Who’s Who of Hollywood to consider ways to support the arts (and that’s a whole other story too), and I went because the ceremony was at the White House and guests were to be treated to a private tour. I had never been to the White House and I thought this a good chance to cross that item off my bucket list. Alas the ceremony was scheduled for the Rose Garden, and it rained, and so it was moved to Constitution Hall. I haven’t yet been in the White House.

Still, it was an impressive event. That year the recipients included Aretha Franklin, folk singer Odetta, Norman Lear, designer Michael Graves, Maria Tallchief and the Julliard School. The ceremony was very simple, but in that simplicity there was a certain elegance; an awards show with class. The honorees sat on stage, and then President Clinton spoke about the achievements of each, a voice over narration provided a thumbnail sketch of each one’s artistic accomplishments, and then the President bestowed the award to each. None spoke. The whole thing took about an hour. As I watched the ceremony, I thought to myself that this would make a fantastic television show. Why not? There seemed to be an endless parade of award shows on television. Today it seems there aren’t a half dozen nights in the year when there isn’t some kind of awards show being broadcast. Television loves awards shows -- the big ones do really well in the ratings, and they are all relatively cheap to produce and easy to hype.

I noted the 2009 ceremony was held last week. This year’s crop of awardees included Bob Dylan and Clint Eastwood (disappointedly neither of whom showed up – and why was that? Perhaps if it had been on television they would have made it) along with Frank Stella, Michael Tilson Thomas, Rita Moreno and Jessye Norman among others. The awards frequently include arts patrons and even organizations (this year including the Oberlin Conservatory of Music and the American Ballet Theater), and that’s one of the things about these awards that impressed me - a mix of celebrity names and the less famous (or at least not as well known) nonprofit artists and patrons and arts organizations. It is really a celebration of art in America. Watching the Oscar telecast last night, got me thinking again, why isn’t the National Medal of the Arts presentation a television show? The only real awards show we in the arts have is the Kennedy Center Honors – singling out lifetime achievements of the same mix of the famous and the less famous – but all artists of distinction. The Medal of Arts is special – it’s this country’s highest honor for artists – bestowed on behalf of a proud and grateful nation. This show ought to be on television.

We talk all the time about the lack of media attention we get that drives home the importance and the value of the arts. All of the awards shows on television –from the Oscars and Grammys and Emmys to the myriad of other awards shows that champion the arts – really champion only popular entertainment and entertainers (many of whom are truly artists – don’t get me wrong), but the celebration is really of “celebrity” as much, if not more, than “art”.

What a wonderful show the National Medal of Arts would make, even without the Red Carpet – so obligatory now to all award shows (America seems to care more about what honorees wear than why they are being honored). Still all the essentials of good television (read – ratings) are present: glamour, prestige, celebrity, stellar artistic achievement, the President of the United States, the White House as backdrop, names in the audience (including political big wigs who might fall all over themselves to be seen and even some foreign dignitaries), thumbnail visual highlights.

It would be an easy show to produce. You could create a very interesting and captivating two+ minute video piece on each one – charting their rise and accomplishments, showcasing their creative performances and works -- with a voice over narration by someone with a great (and recognizable) voice like Morgan Freeman, or Maya Angelou or even Tom Hanks. You could even offer small mini-grants (and probably get some corporate sponsor to pick up the tab) and solicit talented working artists to create those videos – and those might turn out to be mini works of art in their own right – an interesting experiment – a sort of two minute video twitter. The President could make whatever introductory remarks he might deem appropriate for each honoree, and each recipient could be allowed a couple of minutes of acceptance remarks. It would be refreshing to hear artists talk about their art rather than thanking their agents. The whole thing could be relatively fast paced. There are all kinds of promotion angles and opportunities to really ramp up media attention. It would complement the Kennedy Center Honors, and in the same way demonstrate the value the nation places on the arts and artistic achievement. It would send the message that the arts encompass more than Hollywood – and feature all artists portrayed as equally important – a key message to send to young people.

It would be a splendid opportunity, I think, to elevate and exalt the arts – and, because the honorees are so varied, it would have the potential of appealing to a wide audience. Past recipients have included such a stellar and representative sampling as: Les Paul, Dolly Parton, Robert Duval, Buddy Guy, Tommy Tune, the Mormon Tabernacle Choir, Twyla Tharp, Alvin Ailey Dance Foundation, Yo Yo Ma, Johnny Cash, Itzhak Perlman, I.M. Pei, Saul Bellow, BB King, Ray Charles, Bella Lewitskiy, Cales Oldenberg, Mikhail Baryshnikov, jazz great Benny Carter, Harold Prince, Barbara Streisand, Frank Gehry, Robert Redford, Tito Puente, Maurice Sendak, Wayne Thiebaud, Ray Bradbury, Gregory Peck, Richard Diebenkorn, Gene Kelley, Roy Lichtenstein, Cab Calloway, Paul Taylor, Beverly Sills, Jasper Johns –and such supporters and patrons as the Lila Wallace Readers Digest Fund and the Dayton Hudson Corporate Fund – to name but just a few. How’s that for an “A” list?

We need more media coverage of our triumphs if we are to successfully make the case for support for our value. Here is a golden opportunity. I even have a suggestion for a producer for the show – long time, frequent Oscars telecast producer and nonprofit arts theater stalwart – Gil Cates.

This might be a project which NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman – with his theatrical experience, showmanship acumen and network of contacts could put together. Rocco, are you listening? Please give this kind of effort your consideration. I think it’s an idea with merit. We really desperately need more media attention. Thanks.

I think there are any number of ways we might convince television that shows involving the arts (and not just Hollywood arts – but not to exclude them either - as we need more bridges to Hollywood anyway) would make good television (again read ratings). Like it or not, television coverage often has the effect of legitimizing value in the public’s mind. And the more we can get ourselves in the mainstream media and get people (especially younger generations) to see that the wider society champions all the arts – the better off we might be; the easier to make our case. I have a couple of other ideas for television shows that feature the arts that I will share with you in a future blog.

NOTE: Beginning with this blog I am going to try, from time to time, to include links to some artistic performances that are just on the cusp of more popular entertainment. I include them for your enjoyment as a break from the daily grind, and as a way to showcase the changing nature of how art is produced and accessed. Here are two truly outstanding YouTube clips I know you will enjoy and which, though not of well known performers, are extraordinarily artistic:

The first has been on YouTube only a week or so and is already a phenom – garnering over 1.25 million plays. Who says the unknown artist isn’t commercial? Watch the YouTube alternative “We Are The World for Haiti” -- a basically amateur version – 57 unknown singers who are quite talented. Some are budding professionals on their way up. But all are relatively unknown still. (You can click on the screen for any one of these singers and go to their website to hear and learn more.) What a great project – put together by Lisa Lavie – one the 57 singers and one of the most talented. She is a pioneer in using the web for getting her music out to the world.

The second is a performance by Jake Shimabukuro - who played the TED Conference this year – an incredible virtuoso performance of Queen’s Bohemian Rhapsody on the Ukulele – yes the Ukulele. Watch it – you won’t believe what he can do. So far 38 million people have watched it. Probably more people than have seen all the theater, dance and music performances in a year. And probably as many people as watched the Oscars last night.

These two online performances are in many ways the future of the arts. But that too is a whole other story.

Have a great week.

Don’t Quit.

Barry

“And the beat goes on................”

HERE’S WHAT WRONG WITH OUR EFFORTS AT PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT:

In the last two blogs I have recounted some of the complaints about the interpersonal relationships in the workplace in the nonprofit arts – which is, I think, emblematic of the far more serious and profound lack of professional development that we provide to all of our people. I have had several comments and emails echoing my lament that we spend precious little time or effort in training ourselves as managers in how to effectively deal with the personal relationships in the workplace and the consequent damage that does to the harmonious balance of generations working side by side and ultimately to our productivity, and our ability to attract, recruit and retain talent. And that reality is, in turn, symptomatic of the dearth of our efforts at Professional Development as a whole.

As I see it there are five fundamental problems with our attempts to provide real professional development business training:

1. WE DON’T PROVIDE ANYWHERE NEAR ENOUGH:
We need more training in more areas; training that is deeper and broader and richer in content. Too few of us are getting the basic and advanced training that would help us to be better administrators and managers. We erroneously assume that in certain areas all we need is common sense and that training isn’t really necessary. It’s as though, as several people have told me: ‘We pretend that these skill sets come naturally to everyone.’ They don’t. The private sector understands that, and the necessity of on-going training to do one’s job better. Moreover, we lack any comprehensive offering of training opportunities. What we do offer is essentially confined to two or three areas – marketing, fundraising, and board development. Scores of areas are ignored entirely – from the aforesaid generational and interpersonal relationship management in the workplace to such specific tutorials as budget planning, report and memo drafting all the way to more technological training, time management and strategic planning. Even in the areas we do offer limited training, most of the offerings are only surface training with very little depth to any given subject. Often times they are but rehashing of old ideas with new, pretty sounding course titles – designed to get us to sign up, but end up unsatisfying. There are some basic courses that should always be available as fundamentals, but too many of our training workshops seem tired and old to me.

We need to offer a full range of management training across a wide variety of subjects, and we need to offer this kind of training at different levels. New hires need a whole different range of available learning modules than do seasoned veterans. We too often expect younger employees to somehow just intuitively know what it took us years to learn. We long ago adopted a one size fits all approach that really makes no sense to our needs. Long term leaders need much more technological training than the average Millennial generation member.

And while many trainings will work across a broad spectrum of end users (whether in the nonprofit or private sectors), arts administration is (as we really well know) a specialty. Our sector isn’t a carbon copy of every other sector, and we need to tailor and customize our training to our specific needs – across areas of responsibility and expertise, and across experiential and generational lines.

2. THE TRAINING WE OFFER ISN’T NEARLY ACCESSIBLE ENOUGH.
Those in major cities have far more available to them than do those in the suburbs or rural areas. But even in the metropolitan areas, what is offered is rarely accessible when the end user needs it – but rather on some schedule (and at locations) that is convenient to those offering the training. We need to figure out some sort of professional development plan that allows the end user access to the training s/he needs WHEN they need it – in ways (and places) convenient and workable for them. Talking head seminars and ill-prepared panels simply may not be the most effective way to teach. We need alternatives. That means a wholesale change in the way we offer training – from the occasional course offered by a management center or individual consultant (dependent on a minimum X number of attendees to justify the cost) to offerings virtually on-demand. Very likely the only way to do that is via some web online offering system – at least as one component in an overall approach. We’ve made some progress in this area of late, with webinars et. al. that remain available on-demand, but we are still barely scratching the surface. Meaningful training needs to be available to anyone, whenever they want it – as far as that is practically possible.

3. THERE NEEDS TO BE SOME CENTRALIZATION OF WHAT IS OFFERED TO PROVIDE A ONE-STOP OPPORTUNITY FOR THE END USER.
Along the same lines, that which we do offer is widely scattered about, and the end user is often faced with the daunting (and time consuming) task of tracking down what might be available, when, where and then making some “in the dark” determination whether or not what is offered is likely to meet their demands. We need to aggregate what we offer in centralized places and we need a way to offer reliably excellent training. We need some standards and benchmarks for trainers and their offerings.

4. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT AND SKILLS TRAINING NEEDS TO BE ACCEPTED AS AN ESSENTIAL ON-GOING NEED FOR ALL OUR ORGANIZATIONS.
Unfortunately, few of our organizations budget a line item to training. Too often expenditures in this area are regarded as a luxury and an afterthought. We don’t think we can afford to train ourselves on a continuing basis. We think it is something to budget for only in very good times. This is the opposite of what the private sector believes. It is also shortsighted, because: (i) It isn’t true. The success of our missions is dependent on our abilities as administrators and that is dependent on our level of skills; and (ii) It works as a disincentive to younger people looking for a career from entering our field. If we are to become better, and more competitive, as business people, we need to accept the reality that training is a life-long learning process. And not just for a few of us, but for all of us – from the Executive Director and Board member to the intern. Too often senior leadership doesn’t think it needs more training. What a ridiculous self-defeating notion. You may never forget how to ride a bike, but business management is very different in 2010 than it was in 1995 or 1980. On the other hand, we also suffer from the internalized belief that we can only afford training for the senior or middle management – not those on the lower rungs of the hierarchy. Another ridiculous self-defeating limitation. New people need training and mentoring to grow into being effective leaders. Empowering the younger generations to speak to, and for, themselves is laudable, but we are derelict if we don’t provide them with training and guidance. We have to change the culture of our business philosophy to recognize that arts administration is a profession, and treat it accordingly by embracing learning to improve ourselves as professionals at all stages of our careers.

In the long run, we need to embrace professional development so that it can make financial sense. Training must be affordable (see # 5 below), but it must be used by sufficient numbers of people so that the income it generates is enough to make any such sector wide effort self-sustaining. Organizations should budget for it, but any such line item cannot be excessive. Creating systemic, sector wide provision of professional development will likely require funder support in the early days of a new model. But no model that depends on some kind of outside subsidy for its existence is likely workable long term. Whatever means we devise to provide professional development opportunities, after not too long, that system will have to be self-supportive to be viable. Economics of scale must be applicable in terms of both supply and demand.

5. PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT MUST BE AFFORDABLE.
Finally, because we allocate virtually no money to training as professionals, and because we are in a severe economic climate, most of what is offered is too expensive. Degree in Arts Administration programs have much to offer, but are relatively expensive - as is all higher learning today. Isolated, individual course offerings can likewise be prohibitively expensive for both the cash starved organization simply trying to stay afloat, as well as for individual managers who would like to improve their skills levels but have limited budgets. We need a system that has some economy of scale so as to provide substantive, high level training to everyone as and when they need it throughout their careers. Funding that provides trainers to individual organizations isn’t working, because too few people are served; it is not an effective use of limited funds. We need to figure out how to make widespread availability of first class training financially feasible for everyone. It is bad for the profession and the whole sector if only some organizations can afford training; if only some organizations and / or individuals are subsidized. We have to figure out a way for subsidies and support to enable a delivery system for professional development that makes economic sense for the providers and the users.

I know that others share my concern with the sad state of our professional development programs. We really need a unified effort by our funders, municipal and national agencies and all the employees of all our organizations to recognize that this is a fundamental, and very profound, need for our sector and begin to take a longer term, strategic and comprehensive approach to make training:

• a high priority embraced by all segments of our sector, and all levels of our organizations
• comprehensive and tailored to our specific needs as a field
• aggregated in a one-stop centralized manner
• widely available and accessible on-demand
• offered to everyone in our work force
• at affordable costs for everyone
• and self-sustaining in the long term

If we don’t do that, we will continue to marginalize our preparedness as capable business leaders and remain at a distinct disadvantage to others in the nonprofit world and the private sector, and there will be identifiable, and costly, consequences to our failure to act. I know one thing for sure – there is a thirst and desire and need out there for more training opportunities.

Have a great week.

Don’t Quit

Barry

“And the beat goes on...........”

MORE COMPLAINTS FROM THE WORKPLACE:

Last week I listed some of the complaints from employees towards their bosses – most of which were directed from one generation to the other (in this case younger to older).

Based on the focus groups from the Hewlett study I did on the generations in the workplace and some scouring around the web, here are five complaints of bosses (and the older generation) directed at younger employees: (again, don’t shoot me, I’m just the messenger).

1. Unrealistic Expectations: Junior employees need to shed themselves of their sense of “entitlement”. They complain about the lack of promotion opportunities and seem dissatisfied if they aren’t promoted in the first six months. We’re in the middle of an economic meltdown, be realistic and be willing to pay your dues. We did. That’s how it works.

2. Lack of initiative: We’re all understaffed and overworked, ok? You say you want us to delegate more decision making authority to you, but often times when we do, you don’t run with the assignment. You seem to want someone to hold your hand and walk you through how to do it. If I had time to do that, I’d just do the job myself. This is the nonprofit world and sometimes we don’t have the luxury of not having to work overtime.

3. Skills level: You need more training. I know. We all do. You need to take some initiative and work on your weaknesses yourself. And most of you could use a lot of work on your written communications. Using text speak isn’t acceptable in the workplace.

4. Patience: You might have been the center of your parent’s universe as you grew up, but it is unreasonable for you to think you are the center of my universe. Be patient.

5. Manners: Try to remember that basic manners go a long way in any personal relationship. Too many of you seem to forget that.

And here are some complaints that seem common to all generations in the workplace – ten things that drive all co-workers crazy:

1. Putting PDAs Before People:
Christine Pearson, co-author of "The Cost of Bad Behavior", says that gadget-induced absorption is the No. 1 complaint she hears from office workers around the globe. "Most people find texting and e-mailing in meetings really offensive. The irony is, most of these same people admit that they do it," she says.

2. Eating Smelly Food:
Why should anyone mind if you have a little microwave Indian curry chicken in the afternoon? “Oh, no reason except the place stinks all afternoon.”

3. Hygiene:
Too much perfume, too little grooming. We all have to share the same space and nobody should have to remind anyone else that personal hygiene is an absolute must.

4. Failing to give credit to co-workers:
You help a colleague out and then they absently-mindedly forget to acknowledge your contribution – that is if they don’t claim all the credit outright. And sometimes, when there is blame to be assigned, it’s often somebody else’s “bad”.

5. The Rumor spreader:
Few things are as annoying as the office rumor spreader - especially since most of the time the rumors are false, and even misleading and damaging to innocent people. Just stop it.

6. Cover for me:
The person who constantly asks you to cover for them one way or the other. Even once is over the line. Don’t ask me that.

7. The Know it all:
Every office has one – the Cliff Claven (the character on the old Cheers television sitcom for those of you too young to remember) – the expert on everything, the person who knows the answers to every question – even those no one asked them. They have no idea how little they really do know, and after awhile their sense of superiority is annoying.

8. The Greedy One:
The person who invariably eats all the good cookies and leaves the ones nobody wants for everyone else.

9. The Borrower:
The one who eats your food in the refrigerator and asks innocently: “Oh was that yours” – if they own up to it at all. ‘Hey I put my name on it. Can’t you read?” And don’t forget the one who uses your coffee cup then leaves it in the sink for you to wash.

10. The Bathroom Splashers:
How hard is it to just clean up the sink area for the next person anyway?

A lot of complaints are minor, but over time mushroom into something larger because they go unchecked. Every workplace needs a protocol of some kind to keep that from happening. We live together all day long, we need some basic understanding of the ground rules. The wise manager will remember that. This is a professional development issue – yet another one we continue to ignore – important because it impacts and affects what we do, how well we do it, and ultimately our success as businesses.

Next week I want to talk about the critical deficit of professional development opportunities in the nonprofit arts world – from mastery of mundane business skills to the management of interpersonal dynamics in the workplace. I believe our lack of attention to training ourselves to be better and more competitive managers is a critical problem that impedes our best performance – in both good and bad times.

Note: Americans for the Arts announces a March 1 deadline for applications for its Professional Development Fund for Emerging Arts Leaders of Color. A total of five Joyce Fellows from the Great Lakes region (Illinois, Indiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, and Wisconsin) will be selected to participate in this year-long program in 2010/11. Fellows will receive stipends of $3,000 to support their attendance at the 2010 Americans for the Arts Half Century Summit, the 2010 National Arts Marketing Project Conference, Arts Advocacy Day 2011. In addition, fellows will have special opportunities to meet field leaders, work alongside mentors, and receive individualized career coaching.

Have a great week.

Don’t Quit

Barry

"And the beat goes on.............."

NOTE: Scroll down for last week's Interview with NEA Chairman Rocco Landesman.

MANAGING THE WORKPLACE / BEING A BETTER BOSS :

I see lots of courses on marketing, fundraising, board development, and even strategic planning and how to adjust and adapt to the changing economic times. But I see virtually nothing about that whole other side of being an effective leader – how to manage people and the whole workplace environment. The focus group project I did for the Hewlett Foundation on Youth Involvement in the Arts brought to light a litany of complaints from Millennial and even Generation X employees about the lack of skills level of their “bosses” in the nonprofit arts sector in just relating to the ‘perceived’ needs of their younger employees.

Here is a list of common complaints of younger employees across the whole of American business as set forth by Jeff Schmitt in a January 26, 2010 Yahoo online article entitled “BAD BOSSES, WHAT KIND ARE YOU?” as provided by Business Week magazine (included are a some additional thoughts of mine based on my experience in our field and from the focus groups in the Hewlett study).

ARE YOU GUILTY?

1. You Don’t Know Your Job:

“You’re out of touch with how the organization really works on a day to day basis. You can’t run the whole organization until you have more of an understanding as to how each of the parts of the organization function, and you seem to have little interest in learning that”. You don’t keep up with cutting edge changes and your own training is years old.

2. You Don’t Listen:

“You interrupt constantly to make your points. And you roll your eyes and grow impatient—unless you're talking. No matter, you disregard our input anyway. So we've given up; we don't come to you anymore. And we both suffer for it. If you want to succeed, rebuild that goodwill. It'll require time and toil, but the best relationships always do.” Saying you have an open door policy isn’t the same thing as actually having one.

3. You’re Close Minded:

“You're gifted and accomplished, the best and brightest. And that has made you susceptible to pride. Now, you're quick to reach conclusions. Everything is one-sided, with no room for discussion, differences, or dissent. You may view yourself as all-knowing, but conditions change. And talent doesn't stand for "my way or the highway.” We don’t want to be exclusively the instrumental pawns in your grand scheme of things. We want to have a voice and contribute. You tell us to think outside the box, but all the decisions are made inside the box, and we aren't allowed access to that place.

4. Poor Preparation:

Another emergency meeting. Drop what you're doing, they need it now. We're changing direction and working late again. It's always last minute, make it up as you go along. Maybe it fosters teamwork and creativity sometimes, but you can only cry wolf so many times. In reality, the unexpected drama reflects your inability to set expectations, plan ahead, and think it through. And it's just wearing us down.

5. You Don’t Help Us Build Our Skills:

"People are our most important asset." Well, it's empty rhetoric here. Maybe you want to be hands-off or encourage self-reliance. Whatever the intent, you're not helping us grow. And that's your real job as a manager: to broaden our outlook, push us beyond our comfort zones, exemplify the (organization’s) values, and focus us on learning, serving, persevering, leading, and advancing. Don't take that responsibility lightly.” If we can’t expand our skills level, and become better managers ourselves, you’ve just removed one of the big incentives to being here at all.

6. You’re Overzealous:

“History remembers the tyrants but rarely the subjects who did the heavy lifting. It's no different here. You've created a divide-and-conquer atmosphere, all stick and no carrot, where everyone should be the same workaholic reflection of you. Eventually, your bullying and rah-rah intensity produces one question: "Why?" You may think we should be in "for life," but what are you giving back in return for that blind loyalty?” Maybe you don’t have (or want) a life outside this job, but we do, and we want to live it now, not when we retire.

7. You Don’t Maintain Discipline:

“All the workers come and go as they please, living according to their own rules. No one knows who is where or doing what, and the result is chaos. Maybe you want to be our buddy—or experience how a sweat shop atmosphere fosters only resentment. Either way, coddling does no favors to anyone. Like it or not, you need to set rules and hold people accountable.” And while we’re at it, having your own favorites breeds contempt and suspicion among those of us who aren’t in the ‘club’.

8. You’re Tactless:

“Your talent and tenure shields you from scrutiny. Sadly, your lack of self-awareness results in everyone—superiors and reports—maligning or marginalizing you. Brains take you only so far; eventually, you'll need to build and nurture relationships. And that requires people skills: listening, charming, understanding, and compromising”. It would go a long way, if you could at least try to remember what it was like down here in the trenches.

9. You Lack Influence and Credibility:

“It's funny how we're usually last to get face time and resources. Look at your variables: appearance, body language, and speaking and writing styles. Do you always convey the image of a polished professional who can work in a team and get the job done? If you can't, you'll never get anyone's ear.” Actions speak louder than words.

10. You Blindside Us:

“Ah, there's nothing like a surprise. Whether you're singling us out in public or ambushing us in private, you're not afraid to render judgments and deliver lectures. Despite our qualifications and track records, you still treat us as servants. Instead of dropping the news all at once, give us fair warning when our performance doesn't meet expectations. Always take action immediately—and discreetly.”

Since the publication of the Hewlett study, there has been a groundswell of activity in directing resources and energies at providing services, infrastructure, guidance and counsel to the next generation of arts leadership – all across the country. But I don’t yet see much energy, resources and thinking directed at educating the current leadership as to how they might better and more effectively manage the generational divide in the workplace of the average arts organization. I applaud the direction foundations and others are taking in supporting the efforts of the next generations to organize and mobilize themselves as a smart way to insure we pay attention to the issues that will determine how well we provide access to future leadership within our structure. But I caution that for us to make real progress on a faster track it will also be necessary to provide some resources and energy directed at informing, educating and training those who are now the “bosses” as to how to be better bosses and in so doing help to make sure we are fostering the best environment we can to attract, recruit, train and keep the next generation of arts leaders.

Have a great week.

Don't Quit!

Barry

"And the beat goes on.................."

INTERVIEW WITH ROCCO LANDESMAN:

BARRY: What do you hope to accomplish in the next year; what will you use as the criteria to measure your agency’s success?

ROCCO: Since I arrived at the NEA, you have heard me saying two words over and over again: “art works.”

And as I have often explained, I use these two words to mean three things: 1) “art works” are the output of artists; the paintings, plays, dance, songs, operas, and books that artists create; 2) “art works” on audiences; the stuff that artists create has an effect on audiences – it transports us, inspires us, provokes us, and ultimately changes us, and 3) “art works” reminds us that arts workers are real workers with real jobs who are part of the real economy.

I announced last fall in Brooklyn, New York, that I would be going on an art works tour to see how art works in different communities across our country, and I have now been to Peoria, Illinois; Nashville and Memphis, Tennessee; St. Louis, Missouri; right here in Washington, DC, and soon I will be heading off to Miami, Florida, and Detroit, Michigan.

On each visit, I have seen the same thing: when you bring the arts, artists, and arts organizations into the center of town, you change the ethos of that town. You certainly improve the quality of life, as people like living near cultural activity. But recently, I have been reading the work of Mark Stern, Susan Seifert, and Jeremy Nowak; and I learned that there are at least three other things that we can prove happen when the arts move – literally and figuratively – to the center of town:

1. The arts are a force for social cohesion and civic engagement. In communities with a strong cultural presence, people are much more likely to engage in civic activities beyond the arts. Community participation increases measurably results in more stable neighborhoods.

2. The arts make a major difference in child welfare. To quote Stern, et al., "Low income block groups with high cultural participation were more than twice as likely to have very low truancy and delinquency rates."

3. Art is a poverty fighter. Artists form clusters; cultural institutions are built; people gravitate to them; businesses follow; businesses hire; and the virtuous cycle continues with arts jobs leveraging other jobs. When you buy a ticket to see a play, you are supporting the actors on stage. But behind those actors are administrators, designers, ushers, stagehands, costume makers, and just outside the building are parking lot attendants, cooks, and waiters.

These lessons, combined with the past two-and-a-half decades of work by the Mayors Institute on City Design (www.micd.org), led us to create and announce “MICD25,” a grant initiative that makes up to $250,000 available to cities that are using the arts at the center of a plan to create and sustain a livable community.

Over the next year – and over the balance of President Obama’s presidency – you will see us focus on the themes that are part of this initiative: artists as entrepreneurs; artists as placemakers; and the arts as central to public spaces in cities and towns.

We will continue to work with mayors on this because they are our natural allies. They see every day the myriad ways that art works in their towns and cities. But I will also continue meeting with other agencies to see where we can work together and how existing programs and funding in those agencies can be used to support the arts.

In short, over the next 3 (and hopefully 7) years, you will see the NEA working to make sure that the arts are at the center of our country’s cities and towns, that the arts are included in domestic policy discussions, and that the arts are throughout our public schools. If we can do even one of those things, I think I will count my tenure a success. Hopefully, we will do all three.

BARRY: Do you plan to restore direct funding to individual artists?

ROCCO: In many ways, this is the question for any Chairman of the NEA. My answer is relatively straight forward and short: we are the National Endowment for the Arts, and one of the best ways to support the arts is to support artists. I know this in a personal way through my friend Michael Eastman, a photographer who received a grant from the NEA early in his career, and he still points to the importance of that support to his career.

And there are endless other stories from artists who received individual grants. But at the moment, the NEA is prevented from providing direct funding to artists in most circumstances. We do give literature fellowships to writers and poets, and we have annual honors through which we give support directly to folk and heritage, opera, and jazz artists. But that’s it.

Taking up this issue isn’t at the top of my list for the next year, and it is not anything that I can change unilaterally, but it is certainly something I hope to take up before I am done with this job.

BARRY: How is public investment in the arts different than private support?

ROCCO: On a certain level, it doesn’t differ at all. Foundations and corporations are grantmakers, and we at the NEA are grantmakers. In fact, we are the largest, national grantmaker in the arts and reach almost every community across the country.

But an NEA grant has an impact beyond its actual dollars. Because our grants are awarded through a process that uses nationally seated peer panels, when an organization receives NEA support, it is taken as a sort of good housekeeping seal of approval. You can be assured that an NEA supported project is of “national, regional, and/or field significance,” and you can be assured that our panels are charged with making their decisions based on two simple criteria: excellence and merit.

An NEA grant can act as a spotlight for an organization and leverage other support – not just because of the matching requirements around our grants, but because other funders often feel more comfortable investing their dollars alongside public support.

BARRY: Do you think that the formula that allocates forty percent of the NEA’s budget to the states on a per capita basis should remain in place?

ROCCO: Absolutely.

To keep sports strong in this country, we need fathers (and mothers) to play catch with their kids in the backyard. We need gym classes. We need Little League teams. We need community and parks district leagues; we need farm teams; and we need Major League Baseball.

This food chain holds true for the arts as well. We need young people in this country to be able to experience the arts with the families, learn about the arts in school, get involved with local and community arts organizations, and eventually be able to participate in well known and highly professionalized arts institutions. Sometimes as artists, and sometimes as audience members.

As I mentioned earlier, the NEA invests in projects that have national and field significance. But in order to have a healthy arts community in this country, we need support for every part of the ecology it takes to support it. Our state arts agencies are able to be more closely connected with the local arts scene, and they can best make this investment. Partnering with the states is one of the most important ways the NEA helps to ensure that every American has access to the arts.

BARRY: I recently hosted a forum on my blog about the vision for and future of the NEA. Forum participants suggested that the agency move to address the needs of the arts infrastructure, and they suggested initiatives ranging from assistance in the improvement of basic and business organizational skills to the provision of technology, research, and professional development opportunities. How do you envision the NEA becoming involved; do you see a role for the NEA in this work? Perhaps the single most common suggestion from the forum was for the Endowment to expand its role as convener.

ROCCO: I want to thank you, Barry, for hosting those. We are actually using them as a jumping off point to inspire and provoke conversation within the NEA. One of our colleagues at the NEA read through the screens (and screens and screens…) of discussion and summarized each of the sessions. We have posted these summaries on the agency’s intranet and are encouraging colleagues to post comments, thoughts, and other response on an internal blog. We are also going to be doing some informal lunchtime discussions around the summaries of your forum because online technology is great, but it can never entirely replace actually being in a room with people.

As you know, I recruited Joan Shigekawa from The Rockefeller Foundation to be my senior deputy. One of her signatures as a grantmaker has always been to encourage conversation and shared thinking about innovation and the future. This impulse of Joan’s was readily apparent at this fall’s release of the NEA’s most recent Study of Public Participation in the Arts. Joan convened some 40 national service organizations and had them sit around a table with the NEA’s discipline directors to talk about the report, what it means for the arts, and how it should inform all of our work going forward. We webcast that session so that people from across the country could listen in to the conversation, and some 1,100 people across the country logged on to watch.

We will do everything we can to make sure Americans know that the doors, phones, and emails in the Old Post Office are wide open. We are encouraging everyone to engage with us in discussions about the future of the NEA and the directions of our grantmaking. Perhaps we might even be able to partner with you and WESTAF on a future forum about the NEA in which the actual NEA also participates.

BARRY: What do you view as the agency’s role in further promoting and facilitating advances for arts education in this country?

ROCCO: Arts education is one of the most important investments that this country can make to support the arts. Sometimes a young Belle Silverman sitting in her public school classroom in Brooklyn will grown up to be a Beverly Sills. Sometimes not. But even when that doesn’t happen, little Belle may grow up to be an arts teacher, a stage manager, an usher, a fundraiser, and hopefully, an audience member. To keep the arts going, we need all of those people and many more besides. Arts education helps ensure we will have them.

The first trip I took as NEA Chairman was to New Orleans. When I was there, we went to visit the Lusher School. Every day there begins with an assembly on the playground with an electric guitar and the kids singing and dancing to Fats Domino songs. From that point forward, the arts infuse every aspect of this magnet school. Yet despite that, Lusher isn’t really known as an arts school per se. It is known for its rigorous academics and the high achievement of its students.

This is where we should be headed as a country: the arts should be a fundamental part of any quality education. Americans for the Arts had a campaign some years back where they called for our schools to provide the four R’s: Reading, (w)Riting, (a)Rithmetic, and (a)Rt. I think that’s pretty much right.

BARRY: As part of such an effort and with your Broadway background and network of entertainment industry decision makers, would you consider brokering a meeting between leaders in the entertainment and nonprofit arts industries? …Such a change could mean moving toward project-based creativity and away from funding institutionally controlled creative processes.

ROCCO: I know of two major occasions when this has happened in the theatre – the First Annual Congress of Theatre met at Princeton in 1974 and convened the entire American theatre, from Broadway houses, to off- and off-off-Broadway companies, regional theatres, small collectives, etc., etc. As it happens, I covered that conference for The New York Times. And then almost three decades later, in 2000, ACT II (the second congress of theatres) met at Harvard. Ben Cameron (now at Doris Duke) and I have both written about ACT II (again in the Times), and it is interesting to look back on that, as neither of us was a grantmaker at the time.

There are lots of issues that come up around that intersection, but as the head of a public agency, I think specifically about the ways that the government has to support the commercial and the nonprofit. In general, the government supports commercial endeavors through tax incentives. Since nonprofits do not pay taxes, the same mechanisms do not work, and so we use subsidy. On a certain level, the NEA simply isn’t set up to work with the commercial sector.

However, that is too simple an answer. The average audience member doesn’t care about the mechanisms of support; s/he cares about the art being presented. It doesn’t matter if you are seeing Jimmy Scott at Jazz at Lincoln Center or at the Blue Note; it matters that you are seeing Jimmy Scott.

And audiences are increasingly able to curate their own arts experiences – from buying single songs on iTunes, to watching a single scene or even a shorter clip on a DVD, to running over to an art gallery when a friend tweets them about an opening that is especially worth attending.

If audiences are agnostic about the non/profit division, and if they are the ones in control of their own arts experiences, each discipline could only benefit from discussions with colleagues on both sides of the profit divide.

BARRY: Another oft made suggestion was that the NEA ought to develop better, deeper working relationships and collaborations with other federal agencies, and with other sectors. Where does this rank on your overall priority list?

ROCCO: This is absolutely at the top of my list, as collaborating with our sister agencies is central to ensuring that the arts have a role on the domestic policy agenda. When I spoke recently to the US Conference of Mayors, I said that I was a recovering Broadway producer, and know firsthand that theater is by far the most collaborative of the art forms.

I am happy to report that that same spirit of collaboration is a hallmark of this president’s administration. If there is a single, identifiable theme in this administration's domestic policy, it is that we need to do everything we can to promote complete, diverse, sustainable, livable communities. The federal agencies can only meet this challenge by working together.

I am meeting with Cabinet Secretaries and other colleagues, and we are discovering great potential for collaboration. Affordable artists housing might involve HUD. A city that wants to expand a limited tourist streetcar line into a real mode of public transportation connecting the arts district to the rest of the city might get a hearing at the Department of Transportation. The Small Business Administration might support the entrepreneurs known as artists. And so on. And so on.

It is my firm conviction that there is a current or incipient arts resource in every federal agency and that a focused, collaborative effort will produce meaningful results for our arts organizations.

BARRY: A policy debate is now underway regarding the degree to which certain art forms should be preserved whether or not there is a sufficient audience for them. What position should the NEA take regarding the funding of such “under-participated in” art forms?

ROCCO: I hate non-answers, and I promised myself that I would not rely on them when I came to Washington. However in this case, I think the real answer is that we need to perform a balancing act.

We have a responsibility to protect, preserve, and promote under-appreciated art forms. Both jazz and opera are showing declining audiences, for instance. Should we pull our support for them? Absolutely not. We should – and we do – work to make sure that Americans have access and exposure to great art works and great companies.

At the same time, we also have to support not just the traditional art forms that people often associate with the NEA. This agency funds jazz and opera, yes. But we also fund the blues, folk music, country, electronic music, hip hop, and musicals.

The same is true for all of the disciplines. We need to protect and preserve tradition, but not at the expense of shutting out innovation.

MoMA’s Alfred Barr described the ideal museum collection as being a torpedo evolving through time, with its nose in the present and its tail in the ever receding past. Yes, the art fields need to expand and evolve, but that doesn’t have to mean jettisoning everything that came earlier.

I am grateful to the Chairman for taking the time to answer these questions and share his thoughts with the field. I had a couple of other follow up questions to include, but his schedule and the recent east coast snow storms didn't allow inclusion of those questions at this time, and I didn't want to postpone publication. I am hopeful he will allow me to revisit some of these areas and share with me his further thoughts in the near term.

NOTE: Great Nonprofits.org is sponsoring an Arts Appreciation Campaign 2010 wherein people can nominate arts organizations they believe are having an impact on their communities. No prizes but extended exposure is the prime benefit. Go to their site for info.

Have a great week.

Don't Quit!

Barry

“And the beat goes on...............”

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MORE BIG ISSUES THINKING:

Everywhere across the country, I am seeing more discussions, gatherings and convenings of arts leaders talking about “tools, tactics and strategies” for expanding the public participation in the arts.

ARTS JOURNAL’S FIVE DAY BLOGATHON: Doug McLennan of Arts Journal and Bill Ivey hosted a fascinating online blogathon discussion last week on Ivey’s concept of the “Expressive Life” and how the arts might widen the nature of what arts & culture should encompass in American life. Some very smart people exchanged ideas over five days on changing the dynamic of the discussion – from the labels and frames we use for that discussion to what is at stake in expansion of the dialogue. While the discussion was largely academic and intellectual in tone, and while it predictably (and perhaps intentionally) rambled some, the longer range practical implications are apparent. Generally this type of inquiry is a luxury for the average arts administrator who has little time for anything other than the daily grind of surviving. But it is important. Very important.

Bill Ivey is almost single handedly on a mission to keep consideration of the implications of national arts & culture policy alive and continuing. The problem with reframing the debate about arts & culture is first to get larger portions of both our sector and the wider community to participate in the process, and second to come to consensus conclusions that will lead to action steps. Unfortunately, only a small portion of those that need to participate in the process do so, and we end up talking about it ad infinitum with nothing ever changing. We are talking about a huge, almost societal movement here that might take a generation or more to finally and fully effect. But it has to start somewhere. It is entirely possible that a whole movement can be spurred on by a single person – witness the growth of the “slow food” movement created really by Berkeley chef Alice Waters.

I personally think Bill Ivey is the right person to spearhead progress in our sector for a new movement that embodies all of the diverse considerations he’s already brought to the fore in his book, Arts Inc., and which contemporary discussions have, and are adding to the mix. But he will need some support along the way and somehow he has to figure out how to cede ownership to a widely diverse and geographically spread out group of constituents, supporters and stakeholders who will have to run with the theory and implement the nuts & bolts of it on the run. And we remain a long way from that reality.

I hope he might convene a whole bunch of leaders and thinkers across a diverse swath of our sector, and rather than conduct more large, unwieldy general discussions, I would suggest he might somehow divide some people into smaller groups – charge each one of them with some specific tasks over the next six months (e.g., one group deals with the options and recommendations for changing the lexicon and labels as part of the reframing effort; another group takes on the identification of both the key major issues that would be prime areas to address in the launch of a new movement and the absolutely essential players that might help move such a sea change in thinking and approach forward; still another group devises some options for how we might launch such an effort so that it would have ripple effects and take on a growth of its own and so forth). Then let him convene all those people together in one place and that group spends a couple of days reviewing the findings of the smaller groups, and then coming up with thoughts and concrete recommendations for specific action steps to move forward.

Somehow we have to get a handle on what is an absolutely enormous undertaking and break free of the paralysis of too much thinking and move to action. Of course, there would be dissenters and detractors from whatever plan might evolve from such an effort, but at least something concrete could come out of it and we would, at least, have a starting point that people could run with. Surely some foundation or funding source would support that effort.

THE SF DYNAMIC ADAPTABILITY CONFERENCE: Locally in San Francisco, I attended a gathering last week called Dynamic Adaptability - sponsored by a consortium of groups including the Wallace Foundation, SF Grants for the Arts, the Center for Cultural Innovation, Helicon (the Holly Sidford – Marcy Cady consulting collaborative), the SF Arts Commission, the San Francisco Foundation, and LINC. Some 600 of 750 people who signed up for the free all day event heard a number of presentations designed to stimulate and motivate arts leaders in new ways of thinking about engagement in the arts. I offer just a few, brief personal insights that I took away from this one gathering (admitting and acknowledging that others got more / less /different take aways). Perhaps the most salient take away was, according to Daniel Windham from the Wallace Foundation, that while attendance at mainstream arts events is down, artistic production and engagement is way up. The implications of that simple fact are myriad and pose huge challenges for the sector in virtually every area – from research to marketing to the very ways access to art is framed.

Here are some takeaways from that gathering:

• A presentation on brain research by neuroscientist and author Jonas Leher who talked about the non-rationality of decision making, and argued that emotion plays a role in almost all decision making; that our instincts guide our decisions, that we use ‘meta-cognition’ (the process of the brain adjusting thinking patterns based on what it knows and knows it doesn’t know about how we make determinations) without even knowing it.

Leher related numerous studies that demonstrate that intangibles impact the process of how we decide things, including:

1. Loss Aversion: Human beings are so averse to loss, that we often behave somewhat irrationally in our decisions. Example: if you flip a coin, there is a 50 / 50 chance it will come up heads or tails, but most people will not make a bet on whether the next flip will be one or the other until you give them odds of a payoff of $1.75 to 50 cents. The loss potential is so great that the reward has to be high to justify the risk. Similarly, and illogically, people tend to keep losing stocks and sell ones that are on the rise because they just can’t accept cutting their losses. Losses hurt more than gains benefit.

2. Marshmallow Test: Four year olds were offered a marshmallow, but told if they would wait 15 minutes they could have TWO marshmallows to see how long they were willing to defer their gratification. The kids who were successful in waiting the full 15 minutes used a variety of techniques to refocus their attention elsewhere to avoid the temptation.

3. Word Association: When subjects were given a standard kind of word test that required them to focus on a specific task (i.e., what prefix / suffix word goes with these three words: pine, crab and sauce), those who were the most successful were those who found some way to relax their alpha waves and step away from the intensity of the problem at hand. Thus, the notion that time spent away from a task is wasted time turns out not to be valid. Daydreaming uses more energy than a brain focusing on a specific task as creativity is a more complex activity. But insights are easier to come to when the brain is relaxed and not so focused on solving a specific problem.

The answer to the word game was: apple. PineAPPLE, CrabAPPLE, APPLEsauce.

Alas, while these examples and insights were both entertaining and informative, and certainly food for thought, Leher never really addressed the syllabus question for this presentation: “How can understanding the science behind decision making help us better engage our audiences.”

He did offer one statistic that I found startling (and somewhat frightening): Proctor & Gamble employs more PhDs than any other company in the world and has more Nobel prize winning scientists on staff than MIT and UC Berkeley combined. Now there is a great use of scientific brainpower at work, huh? Do we need more products like Swifter?

Finally, Leher opined that there may be a danger in younger people’s increasing reliance on technology for their exposure to art and that they might be missing the value of the experience of the direct relationship in having a more personal connection.

• Judilee Reed of LINC related some facts from a survey of artists it did last year, few of which were, by their own admission, surprising, though I thought interesting the finding that internet use is highest in exploring museums and writers.

• A study conducted by Wolf Brown & Helicon to be released this spring on Donor Motivation similarly yielded predictable conclusions: Donors supporting artists become engaged via four principal points (in no order): 1) a personal relationship; 2) a passion for the art; 3) an emotional or intellectual connection to the subject matter or issue; and 4) a connection to the culture or community involved in the project. And there are five primary values that motivate arts donors: 1) localism – a focus on community outside existing institutional structures; 2) humanism - valuing social goods; 3) distinction – a focus on world class art; 4) bonding – focus on beliefs that connect people; and 5) progressivism – valuing individualism and cutting edge arts & ideas.

A presentation including working artists Margaret Jenkins and Jamie Cortez raised a couple of interesting observations:

o Jenkins thought being surrounded by optimistic people was essential in these bad times. She also thought artists should be wary of false decoys – such as the notion that audience size was the right measurement of success. And she thought exposure to the work of an artist’s contemporaries was good for motivation.

o Cortez opined that ‘mission drift’ – the increasing phenomenon of artists having to spend more and more time away from creativity and more time in focusing on how to pay the overhead was a problem. He also wondered if artists spending more time teaching was perhaps somewhat of a Faustian compromise.

A thoroughly enjoyable panel on new ways to engage audiences and supporters, provided the following insights I found interesting:

• Artist Phillip Huang, a very charming and engaging young performance artist, did a fascinating experiment pitching a proposed artistic endeavor (Witness to Fitness) a performance of undetermined content on the street side of the plate glass windows in front of Bay Area 24/7 gyms where those exercising looked out towards the sidewalk. To be filmed & put on You Tube. He told the audience he needed $300, and extolled and cajoled those in attendance to contribute in a basket passed around. He invited a volunteer from the audience to propose an alternative performance piece and a young woman offered the Feminist Dressing Room project - a writer’s short story experiment invading the dressing rooms of women’s boutiques. The point was that fundraising need not be overly ambitious, that it should be fun, and that it can be spontaneous. The audience agreed and ponied up, on the spot, some $225 to Huang and $180 to the other alternative – literally tossing money from the balcony.

• Huang – hardly shy - also offered that in the new economy today’s artist gives away most of its product for free and that you don’t need a lot of money to create. He opined that artists should go narrow and deep – and not broad – because you want an audience desperate for what you offer. He also posited that most web activity is now about finding and expanding your tribe. And finally offered the observation (quoting his friend Kirk Read) that the most dangerous thing in the world is “well meaning, fearful people” – then concluded that 90% of arts administrators fall into that category. I liked him a lot as did, I think, most of the audience.

• Perry Chen, the founder of Kickstarter.com – a website that allows people to pitch projects to solicit small, individual donations, described the process of successful small online fundraising. Key is to offer small projects which are more exciting to people, and to offer the potential supporters something (involvement) in return. Successful users of his site tell a story of some kind and invite donors to become part of that story in some way. I think this is a good use of the web and I think he is onto something we can use.

I wondered if any of the content of the day was valuable to those who attended. While much of that which was offered was interesting , entertaining and encouraging – was it practically useful? Why, I wondered, did people attend this gathering in the first place; what did they expect to get out of it, and were their expectations met? , and so during the lunch break I interviewed a dozen or more attendees and asked them those questions. Surprisingly, there was a general consensus, at least among those I talked to (and I spoke with both artists and arts administrators – but tried to question only those people I didn’t know) – that the reason they came was that they felt somewhat isolated in their daily work (artistic or administrative) and that this kind of gathering allowed them to re-connect to the larger whole of our field, providing them the opportunity to feel less isolated. They came not necessarily because they thought they would leave with any real solutions to the problems they faced, but rather for encouragement, for motivation, for camaraderie – for making that elusive connection to those similarly situated to themselves, and for new ideas and new thinking. I thought that rather profound.

As a field we face a plethora of serious and daunting challenges and there appear no easy solutions (or, for that matter, any solutions) to some of those issues. This has created a situation that seems ripe for consideration of some fundamental, big issues and there seems to me to be a growing trend to move that ideal forward. Where it will end, or what, if anything, it will produce that will be lasting remains to be seen, but I think the process is valuable to us, and getting out of our complacency and questioning past assumptions, challenging long held tenets, and be exposue to thinking in different ways is a good sign. I came away from this conference thinking that we need more artists at our gatherings – and not just as performers - but as thinkers.

NEXT WEEK: The long awaited in-depth interview with NEA Chair Rocco Landesman.

Have a great week.

Don’t Quit.

Resubscribe to this blog now. Thanks.

Barry

“And the beat goes on..................”

THE ARTS INDEX:

Kicking off its’ 50th Anniversary, Americans for the Arts this morning released its long in preparation NATIONAL ARTS INDEX – an annual single number score that purports to measure the health and vitality of the arts in America (both for profit and nonprofit sectors). Think: Consumer Confidence Index.

The measurement is distilled from a huge amount of data and based on 76 separate indicators - grouped in four broad categories to arrive at an “Arts & Culture Balanced Scorecard”:

• “Financial Flows” include private and public support to institutions, pay of individual artists, and revenues of arts businesses and nonprofits. All of these are payment for artistic services and provide fuel for capacity to produce arts activities and experiences for arts audiences.

• “Capacity” indicators measure relatively durable levels of institutions, capital, employment, and payroll levels in the arts and culture system. Capacity and infrastructure transform financial flows into arts activities.

•"Arts Participation” indicators measure actual consumption of those activities, which may be in the form of goods, services, or experiences.

• “Competitiveness” indicators illustrate the position of the arts compared to other sectors in society, using measures of market share and economic impact.

The purpose according to the Report is to promote dialogue and discussion on the arts and its role in American life on multiple levels and fronts. It is an enormously ambitious effort and the sheer size of the aggregated data unquestionably raises questions the sector should address.

The Index covers a ten year span from 1999 to 2008, with 2003 set to a base score of 100. The higher the score, the better arts industries in America are faring.

According to the report: "The 2008 National Arts Index fell 4 points to a score of 98.4, reflecting losses in charitable giving and declining attendance at larger cultural institutions, even as the number of arts organizations grew. The 2008 downturn in the Index was not wholly unexpected. With 100,000 nonprofit arts organizations and 600,000 more arts-related businesses, 2.24 million artists in the workforce, and billions of dollars in consumer spending, the arts industries largely track the nation’s business cycle. A score of 105.5 would return the Index to its highest point, measured in 1999.

Key findings from the National Arts Index report (as highlighted by Americans for the Arts) include:

• “Demand for the arts lags supply. Between 1998 and 2008, there was a steady increase in the number of artists, arts organizations, and arts-related employment. Nonprofit arts organizations alone grew in number from 73,000 to 104,000 during this span of time. That one out of three failed to achieve a balanced budget even during the strongest economic years of this decade suggests that sustaining this capacity is a growing challenge, and these gains are at risk.

• How the public participates in and consumes the arts is expanding. Tens of millions of people attend concerts, plays, opera, and museum exhibitions, yet the percentage of the U.S. population attending these arts events is shrinking, and the decline is noticeable. On the increase, however, is the percentage of the American public personally creating art (e.g., music making and drawing). Technology is changing how Americans experience the arts and consumption via technology and social media is also up.

• The competitiveness of the arts is slipping. While the nature of arts participation is changing, not all arts organizations are equally adept at meeting changes in demand. The arts, in many ways, are not “stacking up” well against other uses of audience members’ time, donor and funder commitment, or spending when compared to non-arts sectors."

Note on the methodology: Doubtless critics will decry the use of a single number index to denote the health and vitality of something so complex and far reaching as the arts in America as too simplistic and as an exercise which may actually harm the arts in the longer term by pandering to popular media portrayal of the arts as just another marker in the dumbing down of the whole of society. To be sure any gathering of statistical data – and most certainly one as far reaching and ambitious as this effort – will inevitably and invariably have the methodology of how the data was gathered, analyzed, weighted and averaged criticized as being incomplete, biased and otherwise inaccurate and unfair, but I think those kinds of criticisms are both unfair and miss the essential point of this marker and the value its component parts provide and the opportunities they present.

First, like it or not, the media embraces and gravitates towards simplicity. The health of the film business cannot, of course, be completely measured by the annual Box Office of the Top 100 Film releases, but in some ways it can. And, as importantly, that marker allows for consideration of a whole host of issues germane to both the status and the health of film production in America. The same is true with this Index for the arts. It is simply a starting point and a convenient benchmark that will hopefully get us some media attention on the deeper issues relative to our future as well as facilitate and encourage discussion within our field on important issues. As a tool, The Local Arts Index, an offshoot of this national model, will, I think be very helpful to local planners and arts groups, and will provide us a common standard for measurement and evaluation that we have heretofore lacked.

Second, while the 76 separate indicators are subject to criticism by virtue of what is included and what isn’t, as well as how the data for each indicator was collected, weighted and compared to other data within each category, such criticism largely begs the question of the value of the data collected, weighted and compared – which I think is enormous. While I am not an academically trained statistician or experienced in data analysis, the framework for this index seems comprehensive and relatively equitable to me. It will provide us with a wealth of centralized data heretofore unavailable to us, and promote the dialogue Americans for the Arts hopes it will. Moreover, I am assuming that like other indices this one will, over time, morph as more sophisticated techniques are available and applied, and a wider range of considerations is developed in the composition of the indicators and the analysis of the data. In short, data collection is always a work in progress.

It seems to me that the value of this Index is precisely that the data leads to a number of inescapable conclusions (some of which may finally lead to a consensus of opinion across different strata within our ranks as to how to proceed), as well as a myriad of other conclusions on which there will legitimately be disagreement and debate – which we will need to consider and address. I have had access to this data for a month now, and I am only beginning to get into it. There is a lot here to consider and much for our sector to digest and I anticipate it will indeed help to jumpstart local and national discussion.

Rather than try to delve too deeply into the specific data findings of the Report, I urge all of you to access it for yourself . Read the summary conclusions, review the 76 indicators and consider all of the questions the Report puts forward as issues we need to consider given this data. To be sure, there are many, many more questions than those in this Report and that, I think, is precisely the point.

Have a great week.

Don’t Quit

Barry

“And the beat goes on.......”

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IN THE FACE OF THE TIGER:

California’s funding for the arts continues to be in crisis mode. There is yet again a huge deficit facing the state, and the prospect of new funds on the state or municipal levels is all but a non-starter. Foundations portfolios have lost value and budget cuts to their funding allocations continues (witness the letter from Hewlett to grantees advising them that their Performing Arts Program - cut 40% over the past two years – will remain flat at that level, and that the foundation will end its support for national arts service organizations, scale back on any new research or initiatives into the arts education arena, forego any other kinds of new initiatives, and will only accept letters of inquiry by invitation. Corporate giving continues its downward track, audiences are shrinking and individual donor giving is good for some, not for most.

The California Arts sector’s financial underpinning may be worse than many areas around the country, but it is hardly alone. In the face of this daunting funding calamity, advocacy has become particularly challenging. The sector is asked to rally to this emergency or that crisis - not to make any headway, but to keep draconian elimination of programs and services from happening. In terms of public funding the supply continues to shrink, the demand continues to increase, the competition gets more fierce and we remain less organized than other sectors and still without real political clout. And so arts advocacy could hardly get more difficult in that environment.

Last week the California Arts Advocates invited 100 leaders / thinkers from around the state to gather in Sacramento to engage in a Visioning Retreat – a two day affair to try to jumpstart a state wide dialogue and conversation on how the arts sector might envision making itself indispensable to the daily life of the average citizen.

I am seeing more of these “visioning” gatherings around the country as the times dictate that traditional advocacy and lobbying is not likely to succeed. Faced with the prospect of spinning our wheels, more of us are turning to tackling the even harder challenge of how to change our fortunes over the long term based on our (at least perceived) value to the average person in our local communities. At least at this gathering, there was a clear understanding that such an undertaking would take a long, long time to affect. But the prevailing feeling was that such a Herculean effort had to start somewhere. The unspoken feeling was, I think, that if we aren’t likely to succeed in the short term goals of convincing government decision makers to increase our funding, then we still need to do something – anything – so as to keep our coalitions alive and nurture our own. And so maybe addressing the biggest issues is the right thing to do at this point in time.

I think this is exactly right for the most part.

The Sacramento gathering started out with consideration of the changing composition of California demographics, then moved to small discussions of what a dynamic, relevant, meaningful sector that resonated really well with the average local citizen might look like. I think the organizers of this event – and similar ones that seem to be taking place across the country – are to be commended. They are trying to help us to stay joined together, to focus on something tangible (even if grandiose) and to feel empowered.

The problem with these efforts is the practical challenge of moving forward. How do you sustain momentum? How do you take a somewhat esoteric exercise and package the process so that you can replicate it and actually engage a large number of people in an ongoing conversation – first within your sector, but then (and more problematical) to the larger community? Given the challenges and demands everyone in the sector faces – how do you launch a real dialogue that will take root and last in the community? I think this particular gathering might have spent more time on the practicalities of that specific task. I am afraid that the goal of making the dialogue real got somewhat lost in the mechanics of trying to envision the scope of the problem and the form the solution might take. Unless there is some grappling with the specifics and logistics of fomenting a real dialogue it is very difficult to sustain a conversation despite the best of intentions.

But in the overall scheme, that is a minor criticism. There is much to be said about the effort itself – the involvement of those that originate it, of those they invite to join them, and of the process of moving forward. Advocacy needs involvement to stay alive; it needs some focus, the periodic sense of victory and empowerment to avoid paralysis borne of ennui.

I was one of the original founders of the California Arts Advocates back in the mid 1990s – itself a reincarnation of any earlier advocacy effort. I know how difficult arts advocacy can be - a grossly underfunded, exclusively volunteer effort that simply has too many challenges and too few victories. I have the greatest respect and admiration for those who are selflessly and tirelessly dedicating their time and energy into the current advocacy effort in California – given the times a largely impossible and thankless enterprise. The ones I know personally who are now guiding the Arts Advocates - Brad Erickson, Deborah Cullinan, Daniele Brazell, Dalouge Smith, Terence McFarland, and Kerry Adams Harper together with their board colleagues and all the participants across the state are doing a quite incredible job to keep the hope and reality of arts advocacy alive. And the same is true of other dedicated people in our ranks across the country.

I hope that those local collective efforts to launch conversations and dialogues across the sector about how we might envision a way to finally, and more fully, be considered by the public as an indispensable part of daily living in our local communities take root and grow. I hope we spend more time talking about the mechanics of how we might launch and keep those “big picture” conversations going, and how those conversations tie into arts advocacy and its future – because I think that will be key in accomplishing the goal. And the process will be a long, long one for changing public attitudes is no easy task. I hope too that in the not too distant future, arts advocacy can again return to the more mundane, practical job of trying to influence decision makers in our favor and that we keep in mind the importance of political clout to the task. Vision by itself will never be enough for successful advocacy.

COMING UP ON WEDNESDAY OF THIS WEEK – Americans for the Arts new ARTS INDEX.

Please remember to re-subscribe to this blog when you get the email invitation to do so, or go to the new site and enter your email address in the subscribe box.

Have a good week.

Don’t Quit.

Barry

“And the beat goes on...........”

Some of you have already gotten an email notice asking you to re-subscribe to my blog as we switch over to a new platform. The rest of you will get the notice in the coming week to ten days. When you get the email notice, it takes only ONE click (two seconds) to continue as a subscriber. That's all you have to do.

You can go to the new site now and check out the new layout and subscribe in the appropriate box now if you prefer.

That will keep notices of BARRY’S BLOG coming to you. Otherwise you will automatically be Unsubscribed.

Here are just a few of the Blog Posts I am working on for the coming year - Don’t miss out on these 2010 BARRY’S BLOG entries:

1. A late January major interview with Rocco Landesman, Chair of the NEA.

2. An in-depth focus on the new Americans for the Arts potential game changing research: The Arts Index.

3. The Annual Top 25 Most Powerful & Influential Leaders in the Nonprofit Arts Sector.

4. The Annual Year End Predictions of trends in the field.

5. A multi-week online Forum with national leaders on one of two subjects:

• Arts education, or
• Technology in both the creation and presentation of art.

6. At least three major in-depth interviews.

7. Several Roundtable Discussions

• The BLOGGER’S ROUNDTABLE - featuring a half dozen or more of the sector’s principal bloggers discussing why they blog, what they hope to accomplish, the ups & downs of blogging and the role blogs play in arts & cultural administration and policy formulation.

• ARTS ACADEMIC ROUNDTABLE – featuring directors of major arts administration degree programs on the future of professional development and training for new (and existing) leadership.

• The MILLENNIALS ROUNDTABLE – a candid discussion with young Millennial arts leaders from around the country about their workplace experiences, role in policy making and the ups and downs of trying to carve out a career in a down economy and a boomer generation world.

Here are just some of the topics I hope to focus on in future blogs in 2010:

1. Multicultural Arts Provision in America at the end of the first decade of the century - Short shift or fair shake? - an exploration of the economic and other challenges facing the nonprofit multicultural arts communities and how they are faring in addressing those challenges. Are they getting support or are they on their own.

2. Some consideration on the CompARTmentalization of the nonprofit arts sector. How and why do we let others define us?

3. The arts and the business relationship re-examined. When will we figure out that it's a waste of time to ask for business support and cooperation until we figure out what they want and how to deliver it? How do we even get past the business world's gatekeepers?

4. Arts Administrators as Sisyphus: Does anybody (beside us) really care about arts & culture in America anymore. Why or why not? Confessions of burnt out arts administrators. Ten reasons why NOT to quit.

5. Spinning Wheels Got to Go Round. Making the case for NOT making the case. We don't need to justify ourselves, we need political and media power.

6. "Destigmatizing the arts as a charity case” – How do we change the perception of support for the arts as an investment, not a hand-out?

7. Cha, Cha, Cha Changes: The new Demographics profiles revisited. What are the results, if any, of awareness of the new data? What are the likely impacts and implications for us of the 2010 Census and what do we need to know and do now.

8. Chicken Feed to Living Wages. How do we move towards paying both artists and arts administrators living wages? Not competitive wages, but just minimal living wages?

9. What about Me? Notes from the small, rural, suburban, newer, diverse and underfunded, undervalued and underappreciated arts organizations in America. All but forgotten?

10. Five things I wish someone had told me about arts administration – advice from seasoned veterans from around the country.

11. Job or Profession? Consideration of why arts administration is (in certain quarters) not considered a profession. Where is the authoritative, credentialed, academically rigorous National Nonprofit Arts Journal? Where are the White Papers on policy issues? Where is the certification for professional administrators mechanism? Where is the ongoing continuing education of the field? Where is the relationship between the university academic degree in arts administration program and the working administrator field? Where are the unions or trade associations?

12. Organizational Crisis Intervention -- when arts organizations face meltdowns (financial, audience collapse, board of director infighting, artistic director passing) what kind of crisis intervention resources are available, and who is providing those services?

And here are five of the more theoretical questions facing us as a sector that I hope to address in future blogs this year:

a. How the high tech companies like Google, YouTube, Facebook and ones not yet in existence will co-opt and soon takeover -- if not the role of the nonprofit performing arts in America, then at least the public face and distribution of the art forms (e.g. the Goggle Youth Orchestra). What are the implications of such a scenario for arts in America.

b. Will the future of corporate philanthropy in the arts move towards exclusive sponsorship of specific cultural institutions (e.g. - Pepsi's SF Opera) and what are the implications of such a development?

c. Is word of mouth replacing all other advertising for audience development - at least among Millennials?

d. Data mining revisited -- why are the arts so slow to get on the bandwagon? Aren’t we missing the boat given the valuable information just waiting for us to develop and exploit?

e. The consequences of a failure to address the needs of the arts organization infrastructure. Real life problems and costs of the sin of complacency and omission.

That’s just a small sampling of what I hope to provide in blog posts on BARRY’S BLOG this year. I can promise you some surprises in form and content and in the expansion of this platform and its’ role in arts & culture public policy formulation.

Thank you very much.

Have a great week.

Don’t Quit

Barry

“And the beat goes on................”

In Memoriam: I was saddened to learn that Peggy Amsterdam, President of the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, passed away last week. Not only was she one of our smartest, most effective leaders --someone who not only saw the big picture but could both envision and implement the actions needed to address the issues -- she was simply a very kind and decent human being. She was a friend, and I will miss her terribly. Godspeed Peggy and thank you, thank you for all that you did for the arts in America. This is a loss for the whole sector. We need more Peggy Amsterdams in our ranks.

My favorite politician of all time, Winston Churchill (from whom I took the “Don’t Quit” tag line I end my blogs with), was counseled by a friend - after he (Churchill) had been defeated in a bid for public office early in his career - that it “was probably a blessing in disguise”. Churchill responded: “Damn fine disguise.” That is precisely how I feel about 2009. There may have been a silver lining to last year somewhere, but I’m glad the year is gone. Now it’s time to move on.

FIVE EASY-TO-KEEP NEW YEAR’S RESOLUTIONS THAT WILL REALLY HELP YOU IN 2010:

1. Make a list of the five biggest items on your agenda for the coming year, and then delegate most of the decision-making authority on one or two of them to staffers, including your junior level employees. If you are a Mom & Pop organization with little to no staff, assign the projects to an outside source or to volunteers. If you have a Millennial Generation person in your employ – turn a big ticket project over to them. An obvious choice is in communications and marketing. You can insist that they check in with you for periodic review, but don’t micromanage them. Explain your hope for the desired outcomes, but then let them run with it. I know it’s difficult to relinquish control, but I can promise you three results: 1) you will free up extremely valuable time you will need for the most important big ticket projects on your plate (admit it, you are trying to do too much); 2) you will more than likely be surprised and pleased with the work they perform and the results they achieve, and 3) you will reap the benefit of increased staff morale and enhance the reputation of your organization as a place young people want to work.

2. Taking a page from Michael Kaiser’s advice book – make a list of ten people in your community who might be in a position to really help your organization this year. Such a list might include local business people, funders (be they corporate, government or foundation), people in the media, a local marketing major domo, an elected official or stakeholder or anyone else whose skill set, pocketbook, community standing & reputation, network or whatever could benefit your organization. Then assign each of those names to a separate member of your Board and charge that Board member with the job of cultivating a real relationship with that person over the next six months. Have them report on their progress as a regular part of upcoming Board meetings. The goal is not to necessarily ask that local target for anything, but rather just to cultivate a relationship. You can ask for what you need after the relationship is flourishing. If you do that now, you can reap the benefits later in the year.

3. For the first two weeks of the year, practice the art of listening. When in conversation, resist the temptation to interrupt the person talking and to too early chime in with your thoughts and reactions. In fact, wait until the other person is finished talking, then slowly and silently count to five before you say anything. Often, during that pause the other person will fill the void and add more. Let them. Parse your response to as few words as you possibly can. You really don’t always have to say anything, even when you have a lot to say. Do this for just two weeks, and I guarantee you your take on things will change significantly. We live in a culture where everyone wants to talk, but almost no one listens anymore. We hear words being said, but we don’t hear the meaning behind them. Try as hard as you can to understand what the other person is saying to you. And reserve your comments, judgments, opinions and reactions until later. Try it and see what changes it makes. You will be surprised.

4. Make it a point – and get in the daily habit – of complementing and thanking the people in your organization. Call someone every week (staffer, donor, Board member, volunteer, stakeholder) and personally thank them for their efforts and contributions to your organization. Call it Karma or good public relations or whatever you want, but I assure you that you will be most pleasantly surprised at the net result of reaching out to people to say thank you. It’s something we too often forget. This is a good resolution whether you are Chair of the Board, Executive Director, artistic director, intern or janitor.

5. Take some time off every single week. It doesn’t have to be much, but make it a regular practice to stand back from what occupies seemingly every minute of every day all week long. All of us (and falsely I think) think we have to be workaholics to get to the finish line, and in the process we end up far too close to the daily grind. What happens is we can’t see the proverbial forest for the trees. You will make far better snap (and long term) decisions if you allow yourself the regular glimpse of the bigger picture, and you will get far less bogged down in the (really meaningless and irrelevant) minutiae and details if you stand back.

Do these five things for two months, and I assure you your work life will be better on any number of fronts.

And if none of that works for you, here’s a tip I learned from my dog: If you open your eyes really wide and then stare silently at somebody long enough, they will give you anything you want.

Don’t forget when you get the notice this month to re-subscribe to the blog as we move to a new platform, please take the few moments to do that right away. I appreciate it.

Have a great week and a great year.

Don’t Quit.

Barry

“And the beat goes on............”

NOTE: As we begin to transfer over the subscriber list for BARRY's BLOG to the new software platform in January, you will soon get a notice in your email box asking you if you want to subscribe to the new platform. If you don't you will be taken off the subscriber list and you won't get notices of new blog postings. I don't want that to happen, and so please spend the few moments it will take for you to stay a subscriber when you do get the notice. I very much appreciate your staying with me.

A LOOK BACK AT PRIOR YEAR END PREDICTIONS:

I usually end the year with a blog inviting a cross section of national arts leaders to focus on what they believe are the mega issues and trends that did, and will, impact the sector in the past and coming year.

As we move to the final year of the first decade of this century, I thought it might be interesting and instructive to look back at the past five years of these predictions and see how our intrepid observers and pundits did. (You can read all the predictions and observations by clicking on the December blog for each prior year under the Archives section on the right hand side).

Not surprisingly, there are several key core challenges facing our sector that repeatedly and consistently wind up on any list – be it of our challenges, priorities, or core issues – including:

• audience development
• expanded and changing public participation in the arts
• funding and revenue generation
• advocacy
• arts education.

Several other issues are now, and have been throughout the second half of this decade, also on our lists – including:

• the transition to embracing new technologies,
• leadership succession issues, incorporating the management of the different generations in our workplace,
• the (arguably) outdated nonprofit organization model,
• shifting emphasis to community based arts models

Looking back on 2004, the 2005 year panel recognized that revenue was an issue, and that there might be economic problems ahead, but that insight was based primarily on the fear that the costs of the Iraq war would ultimately negatively impact the arts by relegating them as a low priority for national public funding. We didn’t take the dot.com collapse as a harbinger of any greater economic collapse. Generally prognosticators were optimistic and confident new research and tools had put the sector right on the cusp of meaningful audience development progress and a fundamental change in the dynamics of how we would increase our audiences - an optimism that was not borne out by subsequent reality. Observers that year did note that advancing technologies were responsible for moving “passive audiences to (become) more active producers of the arts” and saw that trend as being significant. The panel also early on identified generational issues as being important in the future.

In 2006, even though there were the beginnings of the tectonic economic shift that we would see by decade’s end, we still didn’t see the collapse coming – nobody did. Panelists did correctly identify the early declines in demand for the arts and the corresponding increase in the ways the public could access the arts. We didn’t however, yet note the precipitous decline in audiences for performing arts events that was happening even while our optimism remained high. And we were still optimistic in 2006 – thinking less in terms of survival and more about the grander issues of expanding participation, advancing arts education and increasing appreciation for our value.

Participants did question the level of our marketing expertise and savvy and hinted at our lack of sophistication to compete in the private sector arena for the scarce time and dollars of a changing public. Panelists also begin to think in terms of the implications and possible impacts of changing technology and, in particular, of social networking online realities. While this panel re-echoed the importance of generational succession as a challenge facing the sector, we still did not yet fully appreciate that the issue was bigger than succession, and really involved the management of four different generations working side by side in the workplace.

In 2007, there continued optimism that we would be successful in making the case for the value of the arts to public (and private) decision makers. The importance of advocacy was recognized, yet despite the growing success of real political power as demonstrated by the Americans for the Arts PAC: The Arts Action Fund -- we continued to think advocacy was principally about making the case for our value and less about political clout. A tenet we stubbornly cling to still.

We had no real understanding of the fundamental changes in the global economic situation that was invisibly happening all around us. Nor did we see back then the extent to which our audiences were already shrinking. While we accurately saw that there had begun a shift in both the creation of, and the access to, art from the nonprofit arts organization ecosystem to outside that sphere, we didn’t yet have any handle on how to respond to the changing creation and consumption model that was underway. At the end of 2007, we did began to recognize that the way artists related to the nonprofit arts organization ecosystem had begun to change and that we were increasingly dispensable to a growing number of artists – especially younger ones.

At the end of 2008, we, like the rest of the world, were finally fully aware of the impact of the economic collapse. We knew firsthand the devastation the meltdown had wrought (and that would likely continue in our sector for the near term future). However, we weren’t terribly accurate in our thinking as to what our sector response would be to the new challenges. We thought there would likely be more mergers, consolidations and collaborative responses to the new economic reality. That largely has not happened. We did accurately predict the cutbacks in budgets and the downsizing of our organizations, and even that there would be a significant number of organizations to close their doors.

On the technology front, we were overly optimistic that we would embrace new technologies – to improve our marketing, catch up with shifting audiences and get a handle on expanding participation options. That has largely not happened. The one area we accurately predicted as a viable option to dealing with the new challenges was in a re-focus of our efforts to the local community level. We saw that as viable and we were right.

Last year’s election and the Obama Campaign model generated considerable excitement and optimism in the sector that real “change” was in the air, and certainly systemic, dynamic change seemed, if not inevitable, then, at least, possible. Early hope that we might somehow replicate the online success of aggregating huge numbers of small and individual supporters has fallen by the wayside as somehow we seemed content to wait for it to just happen of its own accord. It did not. If there was a window of opportunity to tap into that feeling across America, it was a very small window and we neither had the know how to even begin to capitalize on it, nor were we in any position to do so in terms of people or infrastructure. While we celebrated the inclusion of the arts in the stimulus package and believed that under Obama our fortunes would now change, campaign enthusiasm is axiomatically very difficult to sustain in the electorate post an election, and much of that energy has dissipated under the weight of the continuing economic plight, the seemingly never ending American foreign involvements and the threat of those that want to harm us, and, perhaps most of all, the now more pronounced than ever partisan divide that increasingly makes cooperation and working together virtually impossible. Again, the reality of our sector was survival mode and nobody was charged or empowered with the formal pursuit of any of these larger enterprises. The Administration, it seemed, has larger and more pressing matters on its plate.

RE-CAP:

So over the past five years we have accurately identified some of the larger societal changes, shifts, and trends that have impacted our sector. Faced with truly draconian alternatives in this new dessert, we expressed confidence that this was the time to really “think-out- of-the-box” and for us to get creative in our responses to ever greater challenges, but the wearisome task of day-to-day survival seems to have been so time consuming and daunting that our responses have really been relatively pedestrian and traditional and not particularly creative and ground breaking. We are busy trying to hold-on and our ideas on how to do that have not been game changers. We haven’t been able to craft a grand plan for arts and culture in America for the future as some on my panel would have hoped; indeed we haven’t really done more than talk about grand planning. Progress on moving arts education forward (in terms of universally available K-12, sequential & curriculum based, teaching) long recognized as critical to future audience development, and indeed to public support for the arts, continues to stall. Alas, as seems to have become the norm, while we early on recognize the potential importance of changing trends, we are slow to respond to those insights in concrete ways with specific strategies, and therein, lies, I think, one of our major problems: The track record of our ability to respond to that which challenges us – either offensively or defensively – in a specific, strategic way simply isn't very good. We are arguably too slow to respond to threats or opportunities; we don't have any mechanisms in place to react quickly and decisively - at least not on a sector wide basis, and we continue to pay the price for that reality.

While we have recognized for some time that there is a divide and disconnect between making and consuming art in the new technologically empowered private (or amateur) sector as compared to our nonprofit arts organization ecosystem, we have yet to get any kind of handle around how we can deal with that challenge and it continues to loom ominously out there like some dark star. At the same time, we now have verifiable studies that confirm that our audiences continue to shrink, yet our reseach hasn't provided us with real clues how to stem that downward spiral in the short term. And while we know our traditional funding and revenue streams – from philanthropic and public sources, earned income, audiences, and from individual donors -- are all undergoing sea changes, we still don’t yet know where all this is going or where we will end up, and we have only band-aid solutions so far. If the bleeding gets really worse, many of us may be in big trouble.

So, we had it right some of the time, and wrong some of the time.

Here is my take on some of the challenges facing us for the coming decade:

1. Audiences will continue to decline at least short term, though in the overall scheme of things they may actually increase if you factor in all the new ways the public can access art. The challenge for us is twofold: 1) how to maximize the exposure of all art to the widest audiences, and, 2) how to generate meaningful operational income revenue from audiences – however they may be categorized. Research that does not address these two objectives directly should give way to research that does - at least while audiences continue to decline.

2. Both public and private funding (apart from individual donors) will continue to fall short of the demand for it, and the sector needs to develop a general “policy” for the priority of the allocation of institutional funds. What is it we want to accomplish on the grand scale in both the short and long term? We also need an effort across all discipline and geographic lines to evaluate all existing revenue streams and develop real world strategies for all types and classifications of arts organizations and individual artists to be financially stable over time. We need the proverbial new model. Without a plan and some options, most organizations will flounder and struggle to keep afloat.

3. We need to move to specific training for the management of the generational divide within our workplaces and to make work in our sector more attractive by expanding the delegation of authority as we transition from one generation to the other. This is very important, but it isn’t rocket science; we have the answers. We don’t need to talk anymore, we need to act to make sure everyone fully understands the issues and is then trained to deal with them effectively.

4. We need to continue to identify and recognize the changing ways artists expand how they create art, and how their audiences consume that which is created. If we serve art then we must serve artists – and we must serve them, at least in part, on their terms in their worlds. Our survival as arts organizations likely depends on it.

5. We must finally recognize that advocacy is more than just making the case for our value, and that political clout is essential to influence decision making that impacts us. It is time to understand that without political power, decisions are more often than not likely to go against us – and that includes funding decisions and decisions about arts education in the schools.

6. I suspect there will be more research and data to refute some of our claims of the past decade – from the direct value of arts education to the impacts of Richard Florida’s “creative class”, and that this new research dispelling some of our arguments will force us to be more rigorous in the future in developing evidentiary support for what we claim. We will need, I think, to re-evaluate our positions and do better at how we defend ourselves against those who would question our arguments.

7. If we don’t figure out how to seriously organize the whole of our sector to massively mobilize (AND succeed in co-opting other sectors to join our effort) in support of K-12, sequential, standards & curriculum based classroom arts education, I think the movement will likely stall for the whole of the next decade. Despite official designations to the contrary, nowhere is art thought to be a core subject. We have to make it a core subject – legally as well as within people's consciousness – and in that order if we wish to succeed. This is a losing game without substantial political clout - which we do not have. Arts education that is not mandated will forever be subject to outside parental and community support to survive. At the core of the belief that the arts are just a frill is that arts education is not on a par in importance with math and science. This is more than an issue of educating the public. It’s highly political.

8. If we continue to drag our heels in facing the challenge of mastering new technologies and how those technologies impact the way art is created, distributed, accessed and marketed, we are likely to face a whole new (and far more profound and complex) round of even greater technological advancement. If we have no success on which to build, exploiting and managing whatever is coming next will be that much more difficult for us. We need an immediate national grand strategic plan to move forward in this arena, and part of that plan must include a huge provision for expertise and training to empower our communities and organizations to move forward.

9. Arts organizations will face ever greater competition -- within our sector and between our sector and the private arena. We need to dramatically improve our professional development and training programs so that our leaders - at all levels - can compete as effective managers. Basic, ad hoc, sporadic, occasional options simply will not cut it in the next decade. What we need is a veritable Marshall Plan for professional development – to address everything from recruitment of talent to basic and advanced skills preparation IF we are to have any chance to successfully compete (as business people) with far better trained private sector leadership. We remain inadequately trained as professionals, and we still have little provision for mechanisms to learn from our own past experiences and former leadership. Working in the arts remains much like the movie “Groundhog Day”.

10. Presenters will be faced with increasingly difficult perimeters in which they can turn enough of a profit to survive. Management of ‘bricks & mortar’ venues will increasingly be tested as viable when in competition with virtual options (especially with the Millennial generation). Presenters will need substantially more financial, research and marketing support if performance arts events are to remain a public option. And they will likely have to figure out new ways to take art to their audiences.

The biggest challenge of all, in my opinion, is will we find the means to tackle the big issues as a sector? Will we be able to fund real efforts to deal with these issues beyond just talking about them? At this point we have virtually no legacy of funding sector wide efforts to address sector wide issues. We fund arts organizations - locally - and principally for their programs and overhead. We do not fund sector wide efforts to deal with major issues. The only real exceptions have been convenings and research.

We face the following:

• The continual decline of our audiences
• The continuing decrease in our public and private funding revenues
• The continuing migration of younger generational management talent to other sectors
• The stagnation of arts education as a perceived luxury within curriculum priorities
• The increase of political decision making against our needs and interests
• Falling increasingly behind in adapting to and exploiting technology
• Fewer performances and exhibitions

Big challenges, but I absolutely believe we have the skills sets, talent, and knowledge storehouse to successfully deal with each of these issues.

But will we? If funders are not willing to put up the necessary funds to address these issues – including paying for the talent – from within and from without our field – to lead these efforts, all will likely fail. None of what needs to be done can be a volunteer effort or left to individual organizations – none really have the time, resources, skills or talent to do that. And none of the problems we face will solve themselves. It will not happen by magic. I would hope we would at least fund convenings that will deal with the question of how we might address these challenges. Not just more talk, but a concerted effort to arrive at an implementable action plan.

Wishing you all a Happy New Year, and that 2010 smiles on all of you.

Don’t Quit.

Barry

"And the beat goes on................."

Moy Eng was the Program Officer for the William & Flora Hewlett Foundation for the past eight years. As she exits that post, she sat down with me for this interview.

MOY ENG EXIT INTERVIEW:

BARRY: As you look back on your eight years as the head of the Performing Arts Program at the Hewlett Foundation, what stands out to you as the major challenges to the arts sector in America? What are the principal lessons you have learned about our sector over the past eight years? What are you pessimistic about ? What are you optimistic about ?

MOY: Over the past decade a number of important environmental factors have occurred that profoundly impact the ways in which art is created and how people engage with it: demographic trends, technological breakthroughs, and widespread interest and engagement in good design and in culture. Just as an additional note, my view is deeply affected by the place where I’ve lived and worked for almost a decade: San Francisco Bay Area, more specifically the heart of Silicon Valley.
A bellwether state on issues affecting the country, demographers suggest by 2050 California will be increasingly younger and older. Hispanics will become the majority with slightly over 50% of the population, followed by whites at 25%, Asians 15%, and African Americans and those in the US Census Other category the remaining 10%.

Over the past decade, 24/7 connectivity has become reality. Living in (Shifting between) real and virtual time/space is oxymoronically natural in our lives. Technological breakthroughs enable us to be connected to each other and to address our needs and desires immediately with often a device as large as your or my hand. Often most coveted devices such as an IPhone, Alessi household appliances, and HP minibooks designed by Vivienne Tam and Tord Boontje infuse high functionality with sleek visual design, making visible an individual’s desired identity. And, well-designed everyday objects have helped to increase public expectation of excellent design in what we buy and use.

Perhaps the most important impact is they make it possible for everyone to make art – mixing and remixing samples for new work to making business cards and CD cover images to documenting our lives with videos uploaded to YouTube (where 20 hours of new content is uploaded every minute) to composing, recording and mixing your own music on your laptop.

As a consumer the ability to satisfy your music fix has never been so easy or so affordable. For instance, you can purchase a track within a few clicks for less than a dollar or go to one of the P2P networks and download it for free. In fact, the industry estimates that for every track that sold 20 tracks are downloaded for free. For a musician, it has never been so easy to work on music with colleagues across time and geophysical place, share your music with your friends and colleagues, secure new fans exponentially, and attract investment and visibility from influentials (the local club owner to multi-media producers).

Technology has democratized the opportunity to learn and express one’s creativity, enabling a proliferation of DIY trend and creativity to an unimaginable degree and blurring the lines of who is an artist or not. And…most important, the democratization has eroded the market value of art, music and ideas in that they should be free; i.e., subsidized by an economic model which make the exchange/transaction appear free of cost or shared for free between individuals or through a social network. The impacts can be seen most dramatically in entertainment sector encompassing what used to be the recording industry, Hollywood and gaming and its unsuccessful scrambling to date to find a competitive edge or even an innovative economic model amidst a transformed and highly fluid sector.

BARRY: One of your major accomplishments was in creating an infrastructure for moving arts education forward in California. Yet despite having created that apparatus for advocacy and (involving arts educators, school superintendents, nonprofit arts leaders and others)the state’s arts education budget allocation has been left to each District to determine how to spend, and the result has been many (if not most) have chosen to spend the money on things other than arts education. What are the missing pieces that still need to be in place before we finally have a (stable and protected) pool of funds that will be spent directly on arts education? When we talk about the importance of arts education, more often than not, we reference its pivotal role in developing future audiences? Does its role in that regard trump other reasons for supporting the concept? What other lessons have you learned from your experience in this arena?

MOY: First, let me clarify that the Hewlett Foundation works in a variety of sectors from education to global development and depending on the program and its priorities, regionally, statewide, domestically, and internationally. The performing arts program focuses its support primarily on the San Francisco Bay Area. Since 2004, the performing arts program and the education program have collaborated on an effort to increase arts education for California’s more than 6 million public school children. More than $9 million has been awarded to support efforts in policy research, including the signature study by SRI, An Unfinished Canvas, a statewide survey of arts education in California, advocacy, and model programs and initiatives such as Music National Service and Alameda County’s Alliance for Arts Education. Efforts led by California Alliance for Arts Education in partnership with mainstream education leaders and groups, arts education, business and community leaders have resulted in over $800 million in the state education budget for arts education in a three-year period.

Looking ahead the question is do the state’s leaders have the political courage, will and determination to create a better system through which to provide a student centered, outcome oriented, comprehensive education (math, science, English, social studies, physical education and arts/media) to our children. An education that will produce critical and creative thinkers, compassionate, lifelong learners, and productive members for the 21st and 22nd century workforce. Since the enactment of Prop 13 and ESEA (No Child Left Behind) legislation, the curriculum has narrowed to the few subjects being tested. Numerous subjects including arts learning have fallen by the wayside, except where the strong convergence of educators, parents and funding revitalized arts education beyond one or two model schools such as in Los Angeles, Alameda, Santa Clara and Orange counties.

Recent developments with the high school graduation requirement and influx of education funds mentioned earlier have fueled some hope into California’s highly regulated, complex and stressed system. And, with the poor economy and California’s dysfunctional governance with regards to budgeting all issues are taking a beating, even education which comprises approximately 50 percent of the state’s budget! Recent gains made in increasing arts in the schools are eroding, such as in LAUSD, which plans to fire 50% of its arts teachers this year. While understandable given the size of the budget gap, it is demoralizing to the field. LAUSD’s 10-year old initiative (fact check), under Richard Burrows’ leadership, is a national model. Furthermore, the state funds allocated for arts education can now used for other purposes.

The fragility of these gains remains me of the ebb and flow of prosperity. However, the crux of the issue is not solely what could we do to figure a stable and protected stream of (designated) funding but…ask ourselves why and what in arts learning is essential for every child and how those elements uniquely contribute to the development of a young person. And then, to really make arts and creativity learning a core part of a schoolchild’s day (and not just inspirational rhetoric) will take:

• significant, steady and reliable money including general education funds, designated money, and private sector contributions-smallest percentage, I hope of this last element)
• additional policy(ies) and regulations such as a nuanced assessment of arts learning focused on student outcomes not solely outputs at the federal and state level that are linked smartly to an overall vision and suite of outcomes for our schoolchildren
• performance incentives for educators focused on outcomes, not just inputs and/or outputs
• research at the federal and state level that tracks/monitors/disseminates outcomes to the people who need to know in order to continue to make the education of our children even better
• professional development for educators and teaching artists
• again, money – lots of steady money.

Teaching any subject takes a serious commitment of resources (financial, human and time) and doing it on the cheap is not possible for any subject, ask any teacher whether s/he is a math, science or social studies teacher. In 2006, California Governor Schwarzenegger, his staff and legislators made a courageous and excellent first step with $100 million commitment which is $15-20 per student. Perhaps we should consider what it optimally would take to support such a vision: $500 per student starting in FY 2012/13?

BARRY: Given that foundation portfolios have lost value, resulting in less available funds to support arts organizations in 2009 (and predicted to drop further in 2010), what do you think will be the major impacts to the arts ecosystem? What should arts organizations do now to adjust and adapt to likely declining revenue streams (at least from funders)? And how long do you think it will take to recover from those impacts?

MOY: The nonprofit arts sector will continue to be significantly impacted by the poor economy. As with other businesses (for profit and nonprofit), companies will need, if they have not already done so, to focus on their core business whether it’s arts learning, development and production of new work or preservation of a traditional art form. For the Hewlett Foundation, staff was asked to reduced its grantmaking budgets from its 2008 base by approximately 40% by 2010. We asked the same question of ourselves at the performing arts program. What is most essential to which we should devote our reduced budget?

As with past recessions, arts companies in the nonprofit sector hunker down to survive. While there is an increased sense of the need to share resources, to collaborate, there is little appetite for deeper collaboration or mergers. There surely will be companies that will not survive the declined revenue streams and audiences.

You ask how long I think will take to recover from those impacts. It’s hard to say. The easy answer is when the economy improves. I think that the hypercompetitive environment for discretionary time and funds will continue for the near term and with the significant environmental pressures, there will be entrepreneurial and resourceful individuals who will find innovative ways to make and share artwork. The Hewlett Foundation budgets using a 3-year average and is committed to supporting the performing arts in the Bay Area. So…watch this space in calendar year in 2012 and 2013. For other colleagues, it’s much more difficult to say. You see some have reneged on their grant commitments and are moving forward with much grantmaking in this area. For other foundations, they’ve used this time to examine what is most important and no longer fund in the arts. For other colleagues, they’re committed to the arts and when the endowment returns improve, it’s probable the arts will benefit from the improved economy.

BARRY: I wrote in a blog last month that I think GIA (Grantmakers in the Arts) has the potential to marshal the resources necessary to facilitate real collaboration in address the big issues that face the entire arts sector – issues that often have gone unaddressed. Do you think the foundation and wider funding community will finally pony up the resources to tackle those big issues, and what would be your advice as to how to make that a reality? Where are the best potential intersections of funders and others in the arts field to engage in real, productive collaborations in the future?

MOY: Among funders, collaboration is a deeply held value and promoted practice especially in times of economic scarcity and where there is a singular opportunity(ies). However a successful collaboration requires:

• Leaders who identify and share common goal which requires a partnership/collaboration to achieve it
• Sense of urgency; i.e., a time sensitive opportunity
• Favorable political, economic and/or social environment
• Excellent communication (internal and external)
• Commitment to allocate the resources (human, financial, time) to fuel the collaboration.

If it’s short-term, the singularity of the opportunity must be even greater than usual, given the challenging financial resources at this time, such as the educators and arts learning professionals working on ARRA funding opportunities (Race to the Top and I-3) and reauthorization of the ESEA (No Child Left Behind).

For the long-term, large scale issues which would very much benefit from a national cross-sectoral collaboration coalescing the sharing value of public (and private) sector support for:

o Arts and creativity learning in and out of school
o Laboratory for the development and creation of contemporary art and art forms
o Preservation, promotion and stewardship of traditional and indigenous art.

This last bullet is a particularly challenging one. For example, in the San Francisco Bay Area is populated by more than 7 million people representing over 120 languages and cultures. If we as culture policymakers and funders aspire to support artistic expression representative of the aesthetic and cultural breadth in the region and opportunities for relevant and meaningful cultural experiences for Bay Area residents and visitors, the questions are what (cultures) count, why, and attract investment. For a country that will grow increasingly diverse ethnically, culturally, racially, how do we collectively think, discuss, and act on this rich challenge.

BARRY: How can the funding community best promote cultural diversity and support the multicultural arts community? Do you think the balance between foundation support for the larger, established cultural institutions and the smaller multicultural arts organizations is fair and equitable?

MOY: How do we address decades of historic power, influence and money going to big western European organizations? I think the question is a more nuanced one, not driven by a dated and destructive dichotomy driven by us (non-white artists and groups) and them (mainly white, Western European arts groups) debate. With the California and the country becoming increasingly diverse, ethnically, racially, gender, physically, the deeper challenge is how individual and institutional funders can honor and build on their values and histories, examine larger trends such as demography and potential impacts in this area, and determine a way individually and collectively that forges and fosters a richer, more dynamic sector of contemporary and traditional art and seductive incentives for making art and creativity part of our lives.

BARRY: Is there a role for the funding community to play in brokering meaningful alliances with business & industry, and what is that role? Why, in your opinion, have we had such a difficult time developing partnerships with business & industry and in capturing more support from that field?

MOY: Right now, the issue for business leaders is how to focus the schools to educate students with “21st century workforce skills”: creativity, innovation, critical thinkers, collaboration. For those of us who see the world through an arts “lens”, gawd, how obvious is this that arts learning would be a critical inclusion in the school day! But…alas, it’s not. Business leaders do not see the connection between arts learning with acquiring skills in problem solving in a creative way or seeing the world in new ways in order to re-imagine and solve a long-standing problem in a new way, or in fostering respect and collaborative skills to work effectively and collaboratively in a team of strong, diverse individuals. With solid research that suggests such outcomes as a result of arts learning and possibly the institution of nuanced outcome-driven assessments of student learning in arts and creativity, this area might be a gateway to a strategic engagement with industry leaders.

BARRY: Advocacy continues to be on everybody’s list of important priorities. What do you think is the role of funders in enabling and empowering the arts to gain more effective political clout?

MOY: For you, Barry, it definitely is. More broadly, advocacy is an important priority for some, not for everyone. You have to believe in the political system and the potential to change it and the value of public support for nonprofit arts. The challenge is never before (I feel) has there been so much access to engage in art as a result of technology. People including political leaders and policymakers make their decisions about getting their “fix” based on their own interests and quite simply what grabs them viscerally and intellectually. They do not place a greater weight on purchasing art made by a nonprofit sector artist versus a commercial artist. There may been a strong case to be made in attracting public support if the nonprofit sector will continue to focus as an:

• Research and development department or laboratory for the development and production of new work such as Angels in America and the building of a distinctly American canon and arts forms (jazz, modern dance, spoken word) (INNOVATION)
• Space to preserve, pass on and promote traditional arts (Kathak dance, Western European classical music, Mexican mariachi) (TRADITION)
• place to foster lifelong learning in the arts and creativity (CREATIVITY)

BARRY: For years we have talked about redefining and reinventing the nonprofit business model and structure. What do you think might replace it and how would that new model look and work?

MOY: It’s already happening. Fractured Atlas’s for-profit software development company provides services and support for the nonprofit arm, San Francisco Symphony’s collaboration with Google and its own media company, artists pooling funds to purchase property which some of which is rented out (which may subsidize) the remaining space for use by the artist investors, increased need by artists for fiscal sponsor agencies to attract funds and provide basic infrastructure needs without establishing a standalone nonprofit organization. The obvious path for a 501©3 for an artist to attract support is over. Companies are usually started by a vision of an artist(s) and are led at least in the early years. For some a founder has stayed on for much longer (Randall Kline at SF Jazz and Jim Nadel at Stanford Jazz Workshop). For the large majority of artists who have chosen to artmaking as the primary focus of their lives, grant money is typically too modest, requires a lot of paperwork, and is not enough to survive on. And, more importantly seed funding for start ups, even those with dynamic founder/leaders and a fantastic idea, is not only rare but arts foundations are best equipped to fund organizations well-past proof of concept with an established, successful history (funding, established audiences, etc.). And, venture capital kind of expertise is needed to actively seek, find and invest in such new ideas, knowing there is a fairly high ratio of failure to success when doing so.

BARRY: If you had one million dollars to spend tomorrow to advance the arts, what would you spend it on?

MOY: Right now, ummm…it’s a tossup:

$1,000,000 to support efforts to increase arts learning in school:
• By strengthening policy incentives as part of the reauthorization of ESEA (No Child Left Behind)
• By developing and testing more widely nuanced assessment(s) in arts learning in California
• By building advocacy of California and national education policymakers and parents/community leaders

$1,000,000 to test cool ideas in music, digital media and arts participation by individuals under 25 and over 50.

"And I heard him exclaim, as he drove out of sight, Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night.

Don't Quit.

Barry

“And the beat goes on..............”

YES VIRGINIA, THE ARTS DO MATTER!

Delaine Eastin, former California Superintendent of Public Instruction, use to tell a story about how she would ask an audience how many of those who were present were artists. In a typical audience of 100 people, five or six hands might go up. Then she would tell that audience that when she asked the same question in a kindergarten class every single hand would go up – every single time.

Little kids instinctively think of themselves as creative, as artists. Somewhere along the line that becomes uncool, and by the sixth grade far fewer hands go up. I wonder how much of that thinking is the result of the relentless barrage of messages that the arts are just a frill, a luxury, an elective subject – not really important; in the overall pantheon of priorities, the arts don’t really matter - not like math & science, not like fame and fortune, not like gossip and celebrity, not like sports and business, not like war and discord.

I get so tired of that message – frequently hidden in other messages, but as often directly said. Witness the moronic Congressmen whose response, when the arts were included (in a very minor way) in the jobs stimulus package earlier this year, was that ‘the money should be used for people with “real” jobs.’ Duh?

I am getting to the point of being beyond angry, because, frankly there is no outrage against this myopic, erroneous, fallacious and dangerous thinking – certainly not in the public, and honestly, not enough from ourselves. We’re so use to it that it hardly even surprises us anymore. As the Vietnam experience taught my generation, after awhile you become numb to body counts, and news of events and circumstances otherwise shocking and unacceptable, become mundane and all too common if repeated frequently enough. So it is with the ever continuing message that the arts are simply not that important.

We continue to counter that message as we must, but lord, how long will it take us to put it to rest? All I want for Christmas, Santa Claus, is for the world to celebrate and embrace the joy of the arts. Or maybe just that the brain dead idiots who simply don’t get it, would just shut up for awhile. Please.

A few days ago I came across a copy of the old (1897) New York Post editorial (click for the original)in response to eight year old Virginia O’Hanlon’s plaintive inquiry as to whether or not Santa Claus was real. It struck me that the question wasn’t much different than if a child today were to ask if the arts are real or important. I found that the Post editorial, with really just a few changes, could answer that question as well as the one about Santa Claus.

With apologies to the Post, here then is my rewording of that famous editorial, as it might apply to the innocent question: “Do the arts really matter? “

"DEAR BLOGGER: I am 8 years old.
"Some of my little friends say the arts aren’t important; that they are just a frill, and that they don’t matter anyway.”
"Papa says, 'If you see it in BARRY’S BLOG it's so.'
"Please tell me the truth; Do the arts matter?”

VIRGINIA O'HANLON."

VIRGINIA, your little friends are wrong. They have been affected by the skepticism of a skeptical age. They do not believe except [what] they have been conditioned to believe. They think that nothing can be important which is not comprehensible by their little minds. All minds, Virginia, whether they be men's or children's, are little. In this great universe of ours man is a mere insect, an ant, in his intellect, as compared with the boundless world about him, as measured by the intelligence capable of grasping the whole of truth and knowledge.

Yes, VIRGINIA, the arts do matter. They matter as certainly as imagination, wonder, joy, curiosity and creativity matter, and you know that those things abound and give to your life its highest beauty and meaning. Alas! how dreary would be the world if there were no arts. It would be as dreary as if there were no VIRGINIAS. There would be no childlike faith then, no poetry, no dreaming, no spark, no reflection of beauty, no romance, no color to make tolerable this sometimes gray existence. We should have no enjoyment, except that prescribed by those who see everything in black and white and never question anything. The eternal light with which childhood fills the world would be extinguished.

Not believe that the arts matter! You might as well not believe in fairies! You might get your papa to hire men to make a list of everything that is quantifiable, everything that can be neatly assigned some place in the order of our world. And the arts might not make that list, but that doesn’t make them less valuable, less important. The most important and valuable things in the world are those that neither children nor men can see. Did you ever see fairies dancing on the lawn? Of course not, but that's no proof that they are not there. Nobody can conceive or imagine all the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world. But it is the job of the artist to try.

And that Virginia is why the arts exist – to give form and voice to all that inspires awe in us; to allow what abides in our hearts an expression we can share with those about us; to frame the loftiest of our aspirations, question our assumptions and challenge our complacency, and to remind us of both our frailties and our decency. The arts are as real as the sun on the horizon every morning, as important as the dew on the meadow in early winter and matter as much as the blooms of the flowers each spring – as real as love and joy and hope. Do not be deceived by those who think the only things that matter can be categorized as only utilitarian. They don’t even know what true utility is Virginia.

You may tear apart the baby's rattle and see what makes the noise inside, but there is a veil covering the unseen world which not the strongest man, nor even the united strength of all the strongest men that ever lived, could tear apart. Only faith, music, dance, poetry, beauty, love, can push aside that curtain and view and picture the supernal beauty and glory beyond. Only the arts do that for us Virginia. Is it all real? Do they matter? Ah, VIRGINIA, in all this world there is nothing else real and abiding; and not much else that really matters in the end.

The arts are what we leave for those who come after us Virginia. Like ideas themselves, the arts are a gift that transcends time; a gift first to ourselves, then to our legacies. They are what separate us from all the other life forms we share this orb with. It is who we are Virginia. Long, long after all the rest is gone – the politics and wars, the technology and advances of the moment, the changing beliefs and concerns, the celebrities and gossip of our age, the ups and downs of history – long after all of that Virginia, the arts will still be here – standing alone to give pause and testimony to the majesty and grace of humanity – a reminder of what we did right, of the promise of our future and all that is good within us; a testament to our hopes and dreams Virginia.

No arts! Thank God! the arts live, and they live forever. A thousand years from now, Virginia, nay, ten times ten thousand years from now, the arts will continue to make glad the heart of childhood and of all of us all throughout life.

And nothing Virginia is more important or more meaningful than that.

Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah and Happy Kwanza to all.

Don’t Quit!

Barry

"And the beat goes on................"

THOUGHTS ON THE ARTS FAILURE TO DEVELOP A CHRISTMAS SEASON SELLING STRATEGY

Christmas is the retail holy grail. Manufacturers and retailers gear up for a hefty percentage of their annual sales during the post Thanksgiving through Christmas sell-a-thon. No matter what you are selling in America – cars or clothes, electronics or candy, movies or books – the Holiday period is critical to your annual sales projections. Everybody is in the game. For some, like the toy industry, the November / December sales account for over half the total annual volume. Why then don’t the arts have more of a holiday strategy? I don't get it. Why have the arts essentially abdicated even vying for what might be its rightful piece of this lucrative marketplace?

Except for maybe ballet companies with their Nutcracker performances (which may, in fact, account for a sizable percentage of their annual performance revenues), and perhaps some symphonies or other music groups that do count on holiday performances, for most of the arts, Christmas is just another time of the year. More emphasis is likely put on trying to solicit end of the year philanthropic gifts than trying to market goods and services as part of the holiday crush.

Shouldn’t we be thinking more outside the box on this and perhaps consider positioning the arts (visual or performance based) as more of a “gift” item and a thus a perfect holiday product? We talk so much about collaboration, why then aren’t there slick catalogs (sponsored and paid for by a consortium of local arts groups) sent direct mail that attractively tantalize gift givers with a menu of local based dance, theater, music and other arts performances (single or ‘series’) as well as museum and other exhibition options? Why isn't there a local Holiday Arts Website offering arts gifts online?

Why isn’t there a “sampler” arts gift card that would give the purchaser a choice of one or more performance across discipline lines during the winter and spring period – perhaps one dance, one theater and one music performance? Or a Dance Gift Card Sampler - with a choice of one ballet, one modern / jazz and one ethnic dance company performance? Why don’t we do more to position the arts as a very good children's gift option for the holidays? Why don't we package different and varied arts performances into appealing bundles? Why aren’t there cross promotions between the arts and say the credit cards (American Express, Visa etc.) or even certain large retailers (Macy’s Walmart)? Why don’t the arts rent some cheap available space during the holidays (much as retailers now do for Halloween) and aggregate local arts organizations and artists for one stop Holiday shopping? We see more “green choices”, more social justice donating options – all kinds of sectors getting into the holiday competition. Why then do we remain so on the sidelines during this key retail period?

There is yet another new online retailing website that is seemingly doing well this year – www.groupon.com. This site employs local based social networking with retailing, and takes the discount “coupon” idea a step further (hence the name). The idea is simple, it offers local “deals” with substantial discounts and if a threshold floor number of site visitors (it has a huge email list and site visits already) accept the offer then the deal is a go. Actually a site called Woot.com has been doing a version of this kind of retailing for awhile. So a Symphony might offer 250 tickets at a 30% discount, and if 250 purchasers accept -- then the deal is done. I assume the site gets a percentage or fee. The customer gets a deep discount. The Symphony sells tickets it might otherwise not (and not just for current performances – but perhaps for performances scheduled in the near term future), and perhaps gets new first time audience members. Win – win. The arts should not only be jumping on this opportunity, we should be exploring what other kinds of social networking retailing opportunities we might create for ourselves - including such things as corporate sponsored subsidy of free or discounted admissions - e.g., Target Stores' Free Tuesday Museum Days.

Last year I asked why there was no arts “gift” card available in my local supermarket along with the now scores of other cards – from restaurants and movie theaters to department and specialty stores. A couple of you pointed out that there are, at least, versions of such cards in some of our markets. I still don’t see any individual (or consortium type) symphony, opera, theater or dance company gift card in my area. And again this year, if there were one I would certainly give it as a Christmas gift.

So why don’t we do more of this? Why haven’t we positioned the arts as a key Holiday retail product and built on that premise each year? The only reason I can think of is that no one organization thinks it has the time or other resources to develop effective entry and participation into this highly competitive market, and there are no national organizations or funders that see it as their role to either take this on or help facilitate local efforts. Will no one even try? Do we really need huge investment research studies about how consumers perceive arts experiences to take a gamble on basic level entry into this market? If we will not even take a shot here, that is a shame, because I think we have a highly competitive product, and that if we just spent more of an effort to position that product and market it effectively as part of the Holiday retail game, we could make this retail period work for us. Consumers are looking for other gifting options – and we are actually relatively affordable. “Give the gift of the experience of art” could be a very marketable strategy if we just worked on it in groups. We already have networks (mailing and email lists, newsletters and blogs, and point of purchase audiences) that we could effectively exploit to build a retail customer base target group. We have the product. I think we have the market too.

Too late this year of course, but come February it would be a very good idea for local area marketing people across all the arts disciplines to sit down for a meeting and talk and brainstorm about how they might work together to position their products for the 2010 Holiday Season. Perhaps local arts agencies could help facilitate that kind of gathering. What do we have to lose – other than huge sales?

NOTE: In mid-January Westaf is switching this blog to a new platform that we hope will allow greater options in the layout and look as well as tracking of the number of people who read the blog.

Because of spamming regulations, when we switch over, all current subscribers will be asked to re-subscribe. You will be sent a notification with an easy click button so that re-subscribing to the blog platform switchover will be very simple and easy.

I hope all of you will do that. I want to keep you as subscribers. In blogs coming before the end of the year, I will also put on a link so that you might subscribe to the new site before January. Thank you. I appreciate your support very much.

Have a nice week.

Don’t Quit!

Barry

Hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving.

“And the beat goes on..............”

RESEARCH & DATA:

Last week the NEA held an online Cultural Workforce Forum, “a convening of researchers reporting on current studies in measuring and understanding the work habits and the economic condition of working artists in America.” A really excellent summary of the findings on that Forum can be found on Ian David Moss’ Createquity website.

The data reinforces many of the conclusions we have long held:

• Artists are underpaid in relationship to other workforce segments

• Artists are less likely to have adequate health care coverage

• Artists work multiple jobs to support their artistic endeavors

• Artists are concentrated in urban centers

• Artists are more likely to be self-employed

• Women and other minorities are under-represented as a percentage of working artists

• Our research methodologies and survey sampling techniques remain simplistic and somewhat flawed, and we need to rethink our data collection ideas, categories and preconceived notions.

The summary of the data reported is just a piece of the overall research available (or soon to be available) in the pipeline on a host of topics germane to the arts & culture sector – including additional research on the artist workforce, the economic impact of the arts, funding, audience attendance figures, philanthropic giving and other areas. Added to the research of universities and national arts organizations, some generic, some discipline specific, is an even broader swatch of data collected by foundations, state and local governments, and independent arts organizations. For example, the state arts agency umbrella organization, the National Association of State Arts Agencies (NASAA), releases an annual report on per capita state support for the arts. And Americans for the Arts will release the National Arts Index in January – a new highly distilled annual measure of the health and vitality of arts in the U.S. As a sector we are conducting ever greater and more sophisticated data and information.

What we need, of course, is a single clearing house for the sum total of all arts & culture research -- a repository we lack. It would be enormously helpful if the NEA or some other body (existent or newly created) could identify, gather, organize and cross reference all the data – on an ongoing basis. And perhaps last week’s Forum is a good step in the right direction.

But beyond that we need to figure out what purpose all this research serves. What can we use it for, what practical application can it have to better our lot? Thus, I think the most salient observation coming out of the NEA Forum, as Ian noted in his blog, was: “The points that Joan Jeffri and Paul DiMaggio were making: it’s easy to get caught up in the data collection aspects of this research without really taking a step back and asking what it all means.”

What can we do with this data, what purpose does it serve? Data about the degree to which working artists are not able to make a living wage, do not have adequate health insurance, do contribute to the economy et. al. all help to identify and point out the needs and contributions of the artist workforce. Do we use that research to rally support for new clarion calls for more financial support, or do we use it to rethink existing programs to specifically address those needs with the resources we already have? Or is there some other purpose?

Scores of possibilities loom:

• We can use the data to attract media attention to our plight.

• We can use the data to fashion more convincing and effective messages for support.

• We can use the information to clarify our understanding of our own field, including what we consider a working artist to be.

• We can use the data to identify the most pressing needs and demands of artists and the organizations that serve them.

• We can use the data to pinpoint where we need to allocate existing funding given our priorities.

• We can use the data to evaluate and measure past efforts and programs to address specific challenges.

• We can use the data to refine and improve future research methodologies and to improve standardized data collection and analysis. For example, we have yet to resolve in any meaningful way the distinction (whether real or imagined) between amateur and professional artists. And we have yet to categorize in any practical way generational differences in accessing art.

• We can use the information to identify intersections with other sectors that might be logical points for potential collaboration and cooperation.

• We can use the data to guide our efforts to reach the public, audiences, donors and stakeholders.

• We can use the data to validate and verify new concepts and trends that seem, on their face, useful. Thus the Creative Indices based loosely on Richard Florida’s theses might be looked at anew to see if they hold up and are truly useful to us.

• And perhaps hundreds of other uses – which need to be determined.

I think we can finally claim that research and data collection in the arts & culture sector (including all the various permutations and offshoots of such a vaulted effort) is finally coming of age for us. But that begs the real questions – which are: So what now? How does all this research help us? To what practical benefit can (should) it be put to? And whose job is it to figure that out? How can this mega data storehouse be applied to benefit the individual artist, the individual arts administrator and the individual arts organization? How do we move from collecting raw data (counting heads as it were) to creating a framework to use that raw data to guide our decision making? Who will pay the cost to mount such an effort? Is it worth it? What good is it to fund research if no one will fund the effort to figure out how to use the research? Who but some large academic institution, some well heeled national arts organization, some major foundation or coalition of foundations, or the NEA itself will tackle this challenge? And should they?

As a field we need to get a handle on all of this. We have made progress in moving towards a more sophisticated, albeit vivisected, data gathering effort. Now we need to take the next step and at least begin to fashion some apparatus and infrastructure that will deal with the harder challenge of making good use of what we find out. Otherwise, we are really just collecting information in a vacuum. Nice to know, but not terribly valuable.

And that effort should not wait too much longer – the data is piling up.

Have a great week.

Don’t Quit

Barry