Perpetually Curious

Third topic: Thank your mentor . Just as I have a multitude of turning points, I have many folks who have served as mentors at one point or another. A few of the people who have helped shape the path in my arts admin career, in no particular order: Paul Frellick : I've worked with Paul longer than I have with anyone else. Ever. He's been incredibly patient with me more times than I can count. Many of my mistakes led to major administrative changes at the theater (silver lining, right?) and he saw enough potential in me to keep bringing me back for more work. He's been quietly supportive about my personal and career growth.  Elizabeth Dell-Jones : I'm going waaayy back now, but Ms. Dell-Jones was my art teacher my senior year in high school, and she was one of the first adults to allow me--encourage, in fact--to take the lead on a project and turn an idea (for a student-made literary magazine) into reality. Her belief in me as a leader charged my self-confidence. 

Second topic: your Myers-Briggs personality type and impact on career It came as no surprise to anyone the day I found out I was an ESTJ . Extrovert. Sensing. Thinking. Judging.  From Wikipedia's entry: E – Extraversion  preferred to introversion: ESTJs often feel motivated by their interaction with people. They tend to enjoy a wide circle of acquaintances, and they  gain  energy in social situations (whereas introverts expend energy). [6] S – Sensing  preferred to intuition: ESTJs tend to be more concrete than abstract. They focus their attention on the details rather than the big picture, and on immediate realities rather than future possibilities. [7] T – Thinking  preferred to feeling: ESTJs tend to value objective criteria above personal preference. When making decisions, they generally give more weight to logic than to social considerations. [8] J – Judgment  preferred to perception: ESTJs tend to plan their activities and make decisions early. They derive a

Now that the semester is (almost) over and final papers are (mostly) done and I have (a tad) more free time, I thought I'd tackle NaBloPoMo: National Blog Post Month. Yes, I realize that it technically happened in November, but that month turned into an insanely jam-packed time for me and trying to fit in a daily post into everything else was just not going to happen. My hat is off to those who did, and do, on a regular basis. I'm also grateful that Rosetta Thurman linked to the BlogHer list of writing prompts for NaBloPoMo. While I could blather for thirty days on my own, this list provides boundaries for me within which to write. And, as my  professor Greg Lucas likes to point out at every opportunity, boundaries make for a better story. On to the first topic: Share your professional "aha moment" . My goodness, which one? Would you like me to work backwards or forwards? Do you have a few days and lots of coffee? How about I bullet point some, in no particu

"Rather, what is valuable is that one's life be actively engaged in projects that give rise to this feeling [a high quality pleasure], when the projects in question can be seen to have a certain kind of objective worth." I stumbled upon this book by complete accident. I don't normally go browsing through the moral philosophy* section in my major university research library, but this author happens to be a patron of ours, and I happened across it in the course of doing some other research, so I thought I'd pick it up. I was pleasantly surprised to hear so many of the arguments we arts folk make about why the arts are "meaningful" to a person. Wolf begins by positing that "meaning" exists somewhere between "morality" and "happiness", the normal two reasons for explaining why we humans do the things we do. Those two options still represent the reasons we do many things (pay taxes, have sex), but Wolf argues that the reaso

From the blurb: "Why do some companies thrive in uncertainty, even chaos, and others do not?" Sounds an awful lot like the np arts orgs world, doesn't it? Why is it some theaters succeed, balancing budgets, retaining audiences, basking in critical acclaim? While others stumble along, maybe having a hit or two, always wondering if people can be paid, eventually shuttering rather than enduring more stress? Collins doesn't set out to write about our world (unfortunately. Mr. Collins, if you ever do, please call me to be on your research team.) but his key findings--in all of his books--apply not only to the publicly traded for-profit corporations he studies but to the myriad sized and structured art centered, community building, nonprofit arts organizations we love. The companies he looks at in GbC all have the same traits: their leaders have Level 5 ambition; they have empirical creativity AND fanatic discipline AND productive paranoia; they stick with a SMaC (Specif

Me and Scott. The awesome level in this room was off the charts. This past week I've been able to meet two of my new favorite authors/speakers locally: Richard Evans, of EmcArts , and Scott Stratten, of Unmarketing . I have been reading their information for around a year now and was ecstatic at the opportunity to meet them both on my home turf. While they would likely find they have a lot in common if they sat down and talked it out, at first glance it doesn't appear that way: one is a researcher in the arts field, the other a marketer. However, both of them share key insights that apply to the new work of engaging customers. 1. Active Participation Richard talked about how marketing for innovative arts organizations is about engaging active participants with both the process and product of art. Scott makes the point that businesses don't define their brands, customers do. In both instances, it's about the value the customer places on our organizations that ma

I've been invited to participate in the National Arts Marketing Project Blog Salon about marketing the arts, in advance of this year's conference in November. As I'll be leading a roundtable discussion there on Customer Service in the Small Shop Arts Organization, I thought I'd write about how to keep audiences coming back for more. This post is just some thoughts and ideas about the topic, things to remember, or spark questions. -power of a name. How often are you greeting patrons by name, before they tell you what it is? -good service makes the whole event. Crappy service can mar good art. -building relationships takes time. -ask questions, then write down the answers so you can follow up next time. -share information with staff, up and down. -how are you hugging your customers? Once marketing gets them in the door, what actions are you taking to make them raving fans? -do you have a customer service mission? Not a list of rules, but a mindset about how custom

Confession time: my first love was writing. I was assigned "make a newsletter" in high school and absolutely fell head-over-heels in love with designing, writing, drawing, and printing the single-fold sci-fi 'zine (this in the days before 'zines were a thing). My friends wrote for it, too, and there was a book review and a hand-drawn title and everything important I could think to include. There are times I miss that format of communication. Short magazines can be not only incredibly gratifying to make but also extremely helpful to a particular audience. Like, say, tourists who are in town for one weekend and want to know what the cultural heartbeat is. My family and I recently visited the metro-Asheville area and picked up an abundance of monthly/bi-monthly/yearly printed magazines. Actual hard-copy, some glossy, some newsprint arts-and-culture magazines.* I pored through them, cover-to-cover, to find calendar listings, articles about restaurants, ads that looked c

What a phenomenal weekend at the Americans for the Arts annual conference, held in beautiful San Antonio, TX. I have so many anecdotes, stories, lessons, and meetings I want to process and share. It's been over 15 years since I've flown anywhere, 16 since I've worked a conference, and--unless you count a layover in Dallas when I was 8--I've never been to Texas. This had felt very magical, at times surreal, and I've had to think of it as my debutante ball in the arts administration world. The weekend had made me question what my path is and what the next steps are I need to take. I will share many of the stories and insights soon, after I've had a chance to reflect and, well, unpack (miracle of modern technology: writing this on my phone in an airport). For now, I just want to thank the folks who were instrumental in making this weekend happen: *Megan Cornett, director of Marketing, Admissions, and Communications for the graduate programs at Goucher, *Katja H

Todd Hawkins leading panel discussion for the Emerging Leaders.

Figuring out which sessions to attend next weekend at AftA12!

I've recently noticed that a lot of performing arts organizations like to throw around the adjectives "small" and "intimate" when describing themselves, their facility capacity, or their organization structure. The words always make me stop for a second and ponder whether folks are using them because they are accurate descriptions or because they just currently carry a certain cache within the nonprofit industry. When we're competing against a 600-seat for-profit presenting arts organization for our audiences money/time/attention/hearts, it sounds lovely to say "an intimate theater experience", as if the audience will be on stage with the performers. But any house over about 200 seats is not going to be intimate, unless there are only two rows around an arena-style stage. The same goes for "small" staffing structures: a nonprofit arts organization operating in a small town may feel like they have no staff compared to the city's univ

I don't consider myself a marketer, but I will admit that my love of deepening relationships with patrons does fall firmly within the aspects of marketing. Seth Godin says in  When Should We Add Marketing? : " Build virality and connection and remarkability into your product or service from the start and then the end gets a lot easier." That connection is what I'm interested in. How can an arts organization build connections from the start? It's not enough any more to assume the connection with the art itself will be enough to bring patrons back. We have to give them more: relationships with staff, with actors, with designers or directors, musicians, composers, writers, dancers, painters, sculptors, etc etc etc. Once we can open up and share the artists--not just the art--will we start to be remarkable.

http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a01053597f309970c016761301468970b I'm not certain how this "trackback" thing works, but hopefully if you click on that link, you can read about how Reddit users donated to a Kenyan orphanage. Really powerful stuff.  I don't have much time but I wanted to throw out this question: when it comes to fundraising for arts organizations, how can we be authentic? How can we strip down our ask to the most basic form, tell the most compelling story, and really connect emotionally with our donors?  Too often, we ask in a polished, guilt-laden way, because we feel we have to "keep up with the [nonprofit] Jones'". We do our donors, and ourselves, a disservice by trying to be something we're not.  We're artists, after all. We do things differently, artistically, every day. Why do we approach fundraising by trying to be like everyone else?

I have a mini post-it on my computer that asks "Have you written today? 5 mins", and has a little picture of a clock. I write a lot over the course of a normal day: emails, fb posts, homework assignments, discussion board questions, texts, and the millions of constant scribbles on every available surface.* Most of this writing is reactionary; that is, it's in response to someone else's writing. The post-it is really to remind me that I need to write new content, pieces that spur my own action, be that a blog post, a journal entry (it's been almost a year; I have got to update that thing!), or even an email to someone I may have lost contact with. There are so many things on my to-do list that will benefit from daily writing and committing words to paper will serve to spur the Universe to action quicker on all the goals I have. Writing to fans and friends should be something done on a regular basis, as well. How can you develop the relationship if you don't

I so wanted to go to the National Arts Marketing Project Conference this year. Okay, truth is I want to go to any  arts-related conference but they have this nasty habit of 1) falling on show weekends (thus I have to be at work) and 2) having a hefty registration fee (which I can't afford currently). Hence, I am very  grateful that the NAMP folks recorded some of their speeches, including the opening keynote by UnMarketing guru Scott Stratten. You can listen to the whole speech here . Today, I just want to share with you what I jotted down while listening. there is no such thing as a neutral  brand interaction. Seth Godin's Purple Cow . Unawesome is unaccetable .  We share experiences. Marketing is actions. Re-marry your current audience. What can you STOP ? What can you START ? What can you CONTINUE ? You can't ignore what you hate. Don't have a presence [in social media] but not be present. Get 'em in the door any way you can. Everyday awesome doesn&#

(Full disclosure: I usually have about one per week.) I received as a Christmas present Burnett's pithy classic The Zen of Fundraising: 89 Timeless Ideas to Strengthen and Develop Your Donor Relationships (Jossey-Bass, 2006). Burnett has written some of the most revered relationship fundraising books in the field and this one is a nice overview of how relationship fundraising should work. Every one of those 89 ideas would work as a standalone blog post, but I wanted to write about two of the over-arching ideas he puts forward, because the first is something I want to do every day and the second is, well, my whole raison d'etre. The first idea is salient, smart communication . I add the adjectives because this is not broadcast communication, trying to reach the widest possible audience at any possible cost. This communication is targeted, well-written, inspires, educates, and deepens the relationship between the nonprofit and the donor. These extend from everything to

New Year’s Resolutions: Checklists versus Commitments Great stuff over on Artsblog. I've tried to pare back my to-do list (by making master lists and then culling the daily tasks from there) to the three main focus areas in my life: home/myself, school, and work. 

My friends Danny and Jenny got married this weekend! I love life-transition celebrations. There is always an element of the Divine present.

Whether you know you're doing it formally, or just making a list in your head, everyone builds a case for support for something you want. A nonprofit arts organization should write a formal case for support at least annually. It should be constructed by everyone who has a stake in the organization's fundraising effort and, ideally, it should also be contributed to by those with the longest institutional memory (who are likely also your best storytellers).  [photo by my daughter] I'm a list maker and note taker. But I also find myself building mini cases every day: "Why More Hours Has An Exponential ROI", "Why I Need An Intern", "Why Moving Would Benefit Us". These are slightly more than just a list of pros and cons, or simple nagging items, but well thought-out, reasoned arguments as to how these things can benefit not only me, but are actually win-win situations for all involved. These secondary lines are not written out as formally as