Given the uncertainty of the future of leisure time and disposable income for your audience, how do prepare your organization and your strategy? At the recent convening at The Getty Center on leisure time and culture, the participants dived into that very problem through a scenario exercise prepared by our facilitator, Steven J. Tepper.
Scenario exercises are constructed around ”critical uncertainties” — the unpredictable dynamics that will have the most important impact on the issue at hand. For the Getty convening, ”time and money” provided the obvious matrix: will individuals have more or less leisure time in the future (on average), and will they have more or less discretionary income?
From these two spectra, you can construct a matrix with four quadrants (more time, more money; more time, less money; and so on), and project how that possible future might look, and how you or your organization would behave in response.
So, here are Steven Tepper’s descriptions of each of these possible futures. None of them will come true, exactly. But each offers an opportunity to ask ”what if?”. How would your organization respond to remain relevant, connected, sustainable, and dynamic? Or, would you respond by holding your ground? (Thanks to Steven for granting permission for this public reprint.)
The Leisure Class (more time, more money)
This is a world where people have the time and money to treat themselves to the very best that culture can provide. Luxury cruises, resorts, dude ranch holidays, and other ”full service” leisure experiences will be in high demand. People will want to fully immerse themselves and escape into ”leisure” paradises.JIT VIPs (less time, more money)
This is a world where people are willing to pay an extra premium for convenient access to culture. Everyone can be a VIP. They will pay extra to avoid standing in lines at the movies or at restaurants and will gladly pay for the ability to make last-minute decisions. Audiences will want to keep all of their options open as long as possible — ”just in time” leisure. This is also a world of ”drive-by” culture — as people will search out experiences that allow them to drop in or drive by without having to commit significant amounts of time.Cheap and Easy (less time, less money)
This is a world where people are looking for culture that will fit into their busy schedules, and will not cost them a lot of money. They will want culture on their phones, PDAs, televisions and computers. This will be culture that is heavily driven by advertising revenue and commercial sponsorship. And, ”leisure at scale” will dominate — with organizations trying to reduce costs by mass producing culture.19th Century All Over Again (more time, less money)
This is a world where people make and share their own culture. They have the time to invest in their own cultural pursuits but do not have the money to spend on ”professionally” produced and packaged art and culture. It is a world dominated by professional amateur artists. People engage with arts and culture locally, and the arts have a decidedly community feel about them. For those digitally savvy citizens, this is a world where you have the time to search the vast sea of cultural offerings, looking for ”free culture” or stealing culture that you can not get for free. This is also a world where ”mavens” rule — people who have the time and inclination to search out great (and inexpensive) cultural offerings and make recommendations to their friends and family.
How would we, a group of artsists, respond to — remaining or becoming — more relevant.
We would spend more of our (leisure time seems like an almost breath-taking fantasy) time making art and less time scrounging for money.
I suspect this conflict is as old as art and probably older than culture.
How to remain relevant is a day-to-day, hour-to-hour decision in terms of what side of the fence does one spend one’s ephemeral focus on. Our videos were recently reviewed in the New York Times. I was hoping to spend more of my energy behind the camera. But now find myself spending ALL of my time with human beings and can’t come away from it without feeling like the time is ultimately wasted. I’m not supposed to be angry at the “arts world” — it’s rude — but I’ve been told so many times by folks who look down upon us from on-high (management) that we shall soon be liberated by (technology, newly-found awareness, another MFA, another umbrella for the ubmrellas of arts orgs, even and maybe especially by money) via some imaginary rising tide that I don’t believe a word of it anymore.
The answer to remaining relevant is as old as evolution.
The real question is: how do you survive long enough to do what you do. I don’t really believe anymore that it can be managed. You do or you don’t just like you either do your “art” or you don’t. As a group of artists, we find that the bottom line (has nothing to do with venues or cash) remains in our steadfast insistence that human culture itself is less worthy that the art we make. Call it arrogant. But the culture is always there digging at us to spend our time with it versus remaining focused on what we do because we have to do it. Culture says: tend to us. But our art has a more visceral calling. We’re going to tend to that with our focus whether culture is there consuming or not. The culture (leisure or no leisure) is the entity that should be asked: how do you intend to remain relevant. To us. This is who we are. This is what we do. Take it or leave it. Culture (especially when it recognizes that the attention we pay to it is lip servicve) usually leaves it and what “the artist” becomes adept at is managing the crumbs on culture’s way out the door.
The artist managing his relevacy is managing an illusion and I would suggest the conflict between art and life is best “managed” by a group not unlike us by remaining determined to do whatever it is you do no matter what. No matter what. The dynamics change. But the conflict has been there ever since man found the time to stop being chased by the animals he painted on the walls of caves. That there is time in life to do and manage is too often another wall construucted (internally and externally) to prevent (or at least postpone) the confrontation between the artist and the plunge. Into doing what you do. Your management is relevant when it’s facing what you need to do, what has not been done, what has not been made — yet — and kissing culture’s ass speaks to ego and one’s relationship to humanity and network and not to that animal that claws behind your eyes and guts. Do you do what you do because you do what you do or do you do it for the world. No management technique, no technology, no amount of money, no access to an audience can help you annswer a question that internally only you know the answer to. It is a conflict between the public and the private and most people in the art world will tell you it has to be a blend. I used to believe that, too. And I can’t tell you why that has changed for me. But I now know this: if it’s truly great art you want to make (quite rare) the rest of it around you will only be mirage.
“project how that possible future might look, and how you or your organization would behave in response.”
None of those futures has anything to do with the real one which is rapidly approaching all of us and with which we are engaging every second. I mean our relationships with the living systems of our planet and grappling with what those systems have to do with our culture, our technology and our spiritual or creative lives. Global warming. That is just a name for the consequences of the choices humanity has made in the name of “culture” and gaining freedom from “nature” for the duration of classic western culture since the Industrial Revolution. That’s the only scenario today which is demanding the engagement of everyone, rich, poor, developed or undeveloped, 1st, 2nd, or 3’d world, plant, animal or human. It’s also rapidly removing the distances we’ve set in place between what we do and their consequences. I suggest that if cultural managers continue to try to manage their own professions by seeking out arts clients with money or leisure and then selling their arts organizations to them, their arts organizations will loose the true creatives who are actually working with what’s currently real. No, it isn’t a pretty reality. But that’s never bothered artists in the past.
This posting reminded me of an article I wrote a few years (when I was CEO of an independent Arts & Business Council before it merged with Americans for the Arts) on the subject of benefit events in the arts. Still relevant today, I think (sorry, longer than the average blog post!):
The Benefits of Benefits
By Gary P. Steuer, President & CEO, Arts & Business Council Inc.
Arts & Business Quarterly – Winter 2003
Copyright © Arts & Business Council Inc.
The benefit dinner. Everybody hates them but we all do them. Some readers may recall that a number of years ago the Rohatyns, a very generous philanthropic family, very publicly criticized New York’s gala dinner whirl, wishing that all that money could instead go directly to worthy programs.
This feeling of frustration and exhaustion about dinners is especially acute in New York City. Extraordinary, well-attended events are taking place not just every night, but several times a night, almost throughout the year, in a variety of venues from hip to traditional. New York City is undeniably the benefit dinner capital of the world, and an industry of banquet spaces, caterers, florists and consultants are supported by it. Other communities around the country face similar issues. Contributors everywhere are becoming increasingly overextended by the sheer volume of events they are expected to support.
People on both sides of the gala dinner world – those who put them on and those who support them – have been vocal about the negatives. How much staff time and expense goes into creating them? What a challenge it is to respond to the stream of invitations, determining how many you can possibly support, and how many you can possibly attend. Corporations struggle to balance dinner commitments with other philanthropic commitments, not to mention the challenge of actually populating their corporate tables with warm, appropriately dressed bodies.
In these challenging times, this negative chorus of voices seems to be louder. Well, let me be heretical. I think these benefit dinners – and I am perhaps self-interested because the Arts & Business Council Inc. mounts its own benefit dinner – serve an essential function in our community.
First, these events are one of the last remaining sources of unrestricted support for nonprofits. Somehow we have to pay our staff, our rent, our electric bill, and we need to develop new programs for which dedicated funding is not yet in place. The revenue from benefit dinners is essential to this work. Second, in this fast-paced world where technology has become such a dominant force in our communication, we need events like these to bring the community together. I think they have become a sort of civic secular ritual. When an event comes off successfully – the right mix of guests and honorees, moving and relevant remarks, memorable entertainment – it can be a powerful experience for all concerned.
Third, benefit events provide the opportunity to celebrate our accomplishments and set standards of excellence. If care has been taken in selecting the honorees – worthy of being recognized and relevant to the organization honoring them, it can provide much needed gratitude for their good work, as well as also offer extraordinary role models to colleagues and peers. People and companies need to know about the good work others are doing and be inspired to emulate them, to set their own bar perhaps a bit higher.
Finally, benefit events provide an organized way to introduce your work and your organization to a new group of potential supporters and champions. At every event, there are many attendees who are there not because they know about or even care about the organization that benefits from the event, but because the right person asked them, or someone important to them personally or professionally is being honored. And at every one of these events, all over the City, some of these people are experiencing the proverbial light bulb over the head – “Hmm, I didn’t know that. Maybe I/we should be more involved. Wow, they do great work. Gotta make sure to come to this next year. That upcoming show/exhibit sounds interesting.”
Gala events for arts groups are also a unique situation. We are, after all, about live interaction between audiences, performers, works of art and appreciators of art, about the value of communal experience. What better way to tell our story, to celebrate our accomplishments – and yes, to raise the funds we need to do our work – than to put on a show!
So here is my message: To corporate leaders grappling with whether or not to eliminate or reduce table purchasing in your budget, please reconsider. This is not in competition with the rest of your philanthropic and sponsorship investments, but an additional critical means of supporting your community and building your business at the same time.
To arts groups fed up with the challenge of mounting a successful Gala, stop thinking of it as just a fundraising event. Yes, there are more efficient ways to raise money, but think of your event’s programmatic and marketing functions as well. Use your event to its fullest. Tell the story of what you do and why it is important, and tell it in a compelling way that shows attendees just why your company is invaluable. Entertain and educate your guests in such a way that next time an invitation comes across their desk, they’ll give it a second look.