Beginning this month (September) I am undertaking a DIY (do-it-yourself) tour for my book Building Communities, Not Audiences. Having taken the print-on-demand route for publishing it, there is not a deep pockets (or even shallow pockets) publisher funding a tour. So, when I am going to be someplace anyway, I'm finagling ways to hawk it. This feels like a strange undertaking for me. Self-promotion (and I cannot construct a way to think about this … [Read more...]
Engagement Principles: Relationships
Katya Andresen writes a very good (if somewhat breathless–she has committed to posting every day) blog about nonprofit marketing, cleverly titled Katya's Nonprofit Marketing Blog. In a recent post, Thriving in the social media gift economy, she discussed some important social media concepts, comparing the market economy with the "gift economy," especially as it relates to social norms. (To paraphrase one example she gives, we bring a bottle of … [Read more...]
Things Change
I have always been a sucker for revelations about how social, cultural, and technological change has impacted arts experiences. I was blown away when (many, many years ago) I heard a presentation at the College Music Society's annual conference highlighting the fact that before the 20th Century, the loudest thing typical people ever heard (by far) was a symphony orchestra. No machines, no cars, certainly no jet airplanes. So the effect of hearing … [Read more...]
Focus Group or Story Circle
In my last post (Reinventing the Wheel), I talked about Roadside Theater's use of story circles in script development and relationship building. It was presented as one example of how arts organizations that have long focused on grassroots relationships have much to teach the rest of the arts community. In response, Roadside's director, Dudley Cocke, contacted me to amplify my point: Very few people have understood that all of Roadside's work is … [Read more...]
Civic Practice
Michael Rohd, the Founding Director of Portland (OR)'s Sojourn Theatre has recently posted an extremely thoughtful reflection on community engagement and theatre: The New Work of Building Civic Practice. As I've said before, I am aware of the danger of echo-chambering in the blog world, especially in this case since the things he says sound so much like my rants. But, as in the past, I simply can't help myself. Mr. Rohd identifies the central … [Read more...]
Bonus Post
I said I was going to only do one post a week through August, but here are two things that might be of interest. First, Julia Levy of CultureCraver (kind of an interesting concept: GoodReads for culture is the way I think of it) contacted me when she heard about Building Communities, Not Audiences and wanted to do an interview. Here is the result: www.culturecraver.com/craveable/entry/443233. And I just heard from Dorothy Gunther Pugh at … [Read more...]
The Farmer and the Cowman
As I grow up (an incredibly slow and painful process, especially at age 60), I find myself, in spite of myself, learning things. One of the most revealing lessons I've more fully grasped in the last year is that arts marketers and community engagement advocates can and should be the best of friends. On first consideration, this is far from obvious. The two have vastly different ultimate goals, vastly divergent frames of reference. Marketers … [Read more...]
Toxic Pond
In April, at the Rustbelt to Artistbelt conference in St. Louis, Bill Cleveland and I had a brief chat between sessions. As inevitably happens when we talk, the subject was the relationship between arts organizations and the communities they are designed to serve. I began my rant about the structure of the arts establishment being the successor to the patronage system and Bill reminded me that the "beholden to elite interests" framework (not his … [Read more...]
Shakespeare Festival St. Louis
EM's List Member Shakespeare in the Streets of St. Louis [This post is by EM's List Editor/Curator, Stephanie Moore] Shakespeare Festival St. Louis, founded in 2001, can be spotted in the schools, in the streets, and in the parks of St. Louis, Missouri. Through a variety of educational workshops and tours, community involvement, and the production of a full-scale Shakespearean play, the Festival connects with over 85,000 community members … [Read more...]
Change
Given my background in the "classical" music world, I have been for some time an admirer of Greg Sandow's blog, Sandow, although I will confess that I have not subscribed to it. That has changed. Mr. Sandow is in the middle of a series of posts addressing the need for transformation in the music industry that, in spite of the fact that I have been saying many of the same things here, I could not have said better myself. I try (unsuccessfully) … [Read more...]