In an era when our economy is in flux, and many are revisiting their penchant for buying more stuff, conceptual artist Jonathon Keats offers another way: buy the opposite of stuff. His upcoming exhibit on The First Bank of Antimatter (BoingBoing blog here, and here’s the exhibition site) suggests a mirror marketplace to reinvigorate our […]
Signs that you’ve stayed too long at the party
In this job market and this economy, it’s challenging to consider leaving a job. But it’s never a bad idea for any cultural manager to at least ask the question: Am I in the right place, doing the right work? CompassPoint’s Tim Wolfred offers six signs that it might be time to move on. Among […]
Of management metaphor and myth
Anne Midgette at the Washington Post offers a short slap in the face to those who suggest the orchestra conductor as a model of modern management (a la Roger Nierenberg, et al). Sure, in theory, conductors work to bring different talents together into a single expression. Sure, in theory, conductors engage a complex range of […]
The challenge of blending physical business with on-line
Slate’s ”The Big Money” blog offers a fascinating analysis of the new Barnes & Noble eBook reader, the Nook. Author Marion Maneker suggests that while the Nook is designed to compete against Amazon’s Kindle, it might only underscore the fundamental differences between Barnes & Noble’s business model and that of Amazon. In brief, Amazon is […]
Blogging the GIA
The annual Grantmakers in the Arts conference has long been a closed affair — gathering foundations and funders for several days of discussion, workshops, and panels to inform their work. The reasons for the closed circle are obvious: Funders can speak more freely about their challenges and opportunities if they’re aren’t being swarmed by potential […]
Rethinking arts economies and arts exchange
A breadcrumb trail of conversation (from Twitter to Flux Theatre to Stolen Chair) led me to Stolen Chair Theatre’s new initiative to support new works. Instead of grants and traditional subscriptions, they propose a community support system modeled on Community Supported Agriculture (CSA). Says Stolen Chair: Like the CSA model, Stolen Chair hopes to build […]
Calling all emergent leaders
I don’t spend much time on this blog talking about my day job, as I figure its a relatively commercial-free zone. But I do have a day job, directing an MBA degree program in Arts Administration in the Wisconsin School of Business. And that day job is entirely intertwined with all that I do online […]
Personal communications…in bulk
So much of an arts manager’s time is spent preparing written communications — thank you letters, invitations, editorials, complaints, and the like. Whether in the form of e-mail, postal letter, notecard, or treatise nailed to a church door, these writing tasks are relentless, filling our to-do list as fast as we can crank them to […]
Getting beyond the left-brain/right-brain debate
Experience designer and strategist Peter Merholz over in Harvard Business Publishing calls a ‘time out’ on our growing boosterism for ‘design thinking’ in the world of business — a la Daniel Pink’s Whole New Mind. Is creative problem-solving important to the process? Sure it is, says Merholz, but so are a range of other skills […]
Collaboration is a muscle
I often participate in working groups or task teams of arts and cultural organizations — collections of managers gathering to address a collective problem, or consider a collaborative solution. And I’m often frustrated that more than half of the conversation is inevitably spent framing the problem in narrow terms, with the rest of the time […]
