Next week, I’m traveling with a group of my MBA students to the Arts Presenters conference in New York, where they will be presenting a special session commissioned by the association. This will be our third go-around in this initiative, in which we unleash a group of curious graduate students on a key trend, question, or issue in the performing arts. The students get great hands-on experience exploring vexing questions. The conference and its participants get a research-focused seminar session (few and far between in association conferences). And I get to learn cool things from smart people. It’s a win-win-win.
This year’s effort explores how and where performing arts professionals ”learn” — that is, find and engage resources to resolve work-related challenges and expand their knowledge of their craft and their environment. The full session description follows:
LEARNING TO LEAD
WHERE AND HOW DO ARTS PROFESSIONALS EXTEND THEIR KNOWLEDGE AND ADVANCE THEIR CRAFT?
Association of Performing Arts Presenters Annual Conference
Sunday, January 13, 9:30 – 11:30 am
Hilton New York and Towers
In a continually evolving industry and a rapidly revolving world, how do Arts Presenter members solve new problems and forge new skills? Do they learn primarily from structured offerings like academic training, conference workshops, executive education, and community leadership initiatives, or more through informal networks, self study, weblogs, listservs, and on-line research? Join a team of graduate students and special guests as we explore the current ecology of professional development, and the strategies that might make it stronger. This third-annual effort of the Bill Dawson Research Internship Fund will honor Bill’s life and work by connecting essential research to professional practice and by stretching what you know about how you learn.
If you’re attending the Arts Presenters conference, please come to the session to lend your voice and your insight to the conversation. Even if you can’t make the discussion, we hope you will inform the research by completing our on-line survey before January 9.
TAKE THE ON-LINE SURVEY
It’s only 15 questions long, and it will help the student team understand the resources and networks you use to advance your craft.
This brings to mind a fascinating article I read in the NY Times last week:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/30/business/30know.html
The basic premise is that the more we become an expert in our field, the harder it is to come up with innovative solutions. We become bogged down in our own expertise and industry jargon.
A few years ago I essentially invited myself to attend the bi-weekly meetings of another department with whom I work closely. It has been very helpful for all parties in problem-solving and in enhancing events with another dimension from another department. While our senior leadership meets weekly for inter-departmental discussions and problem-solving, the rest of us have little opportunity for cross-department problem-solving. The result is that we know very little about what other departments do, which can foster a competitive and/or antagonistic environment (i.e. “Are they really necessary??”).
As a conservatory trained musician, I have found Stephanie’s point to be very true, and I would like to offer up my personal solution to overcoming the myopia our industry experiences from time to time. After years as a teaching artist, I decided to pursue a general management MBA to learn about other industries problems and solutions. I am by heart and trade an arts professional, and every day in class I think about how what I’m learning in my classes can be transferred to the arts. This education has helped me to see the world from a non-musician’s point of view, which is enlightening, as well as very healthy.