This week we will be featuring conversations with leaders working in communities. Rachel Hamilton is a theatre educator and arts access advocate who enjoys creating performing arts opportunities in and with communities. She has developed drama programs with young people in schools, museums, community centers and healthcare settings. She currently works as the Associate Director of Education at Nashville Children's Theatre. Katy Moonan works in Massachusetts directing Family Literacy programs for a literacy nonprofit called Reader to Reader … [Read more...]
Reading List: Hacks
This post appears as a the first of an occasional series of tricks and tips you may find useful in tackling your daily challenges. Does your team ever get stuck in a creativity rut? Do you think you need a license to be creative, especially if this isn’t part of your job title or job description? Do you need a shockabuku? Even the best teams get stuck once in a while, but you don’t have to be on the artistic side of the organization to be creative. What you do need to do is practice. In this HBR blog post, brothers Tom and David Kelley of … [Read more...]
Becoming Indispensable
Editor’s note: As part of our online discussion around The Summit at Sundance, we have invited participants in The Chief Executive Program to frame each of our problems to solve. Here, Basma El Husseiny takes on the problem: Maximize the cultural field's value in the eyes of the public/society. While articulating the value of what arts organizations offer to society in specific quantitative terms is necessary and important, most people will not be able to see the connection between these terms and the change they would like to happen to … [Read more...]
Raising the Tide of Value
Editor’s note: Over the next two weeks, we’ll feature posts around the final convening of our Chief Executive Program, The Summit at Sundance. We invite you to participate in an online discussion of four major issues facing the cultural field. In this post, Dallas Shelby introduces the last of the problem statements. Why do the arts matter? Why does creativity matter? Why do you matter? What value do we create? We should all be able to answer these questions, and the easier it we can make it to do so the better off we will be. We may be … [Read more...]
What value does the arts create and how do we articulate it?
Watch this video featuring Deirdre Prins-Solani, an independent heritage and cultural expert in South Africa and Salzburg Global Forum for Young Cultural Leaders faculty member, talking about the interaction between the sacred and public spaces and how that tension creates value. Add your voice to the discussion. Use the comments below to weigh in with your thoughts on how we in the arts create and articulate value. … [Read more...]
Creativity! Innovation! Right Brain! I’m sorry, am I making you uncomfortable? Or, why we desire but reject creative ideas.
The gents at Freakonomics point to a fascinating study - and paradox: The irony is that as a society, we’re constantly talking about how much we value creativity. And yet, the study implies that our minds are biased against it because of the very nature of its novelty. Going forward, perhaps it’s not that we need to get better at producing creative ideas, but at learning how to accept them. Freakonomics » Why We Desire But Reject Creative Ideas The Bias Against Creativity: Why People Desire But Reject Creative Ideas. (original study) … [Read more...]
Sparking creativity in teams: An executive’s guide
Creativity is not a trait reserved for the lucky few. By immersing your people in unexpected environments, confronting ingrained orthodoxies, using analogies, and challenging your organization to overcome difficult constraints, you can dramatically boost their creative output—and your own. Of greatest interest are 'create constraints' paragraph ending article (natch) and sidebar on technology with Ray Kurzweil. Imposing artificial constraints (not unrelated to scenario planning) can be an especially powerful tool given the nature of change … [Read more...]