Perpetually Curious

Upon checking in at Pittsburgh, participants were given a tote bag full of goodies, including a real paper notebook and a real wood-encased pen. I was pleasantly surprised, as I always feel like the only person in the room not using a laptop to take notes. At our first Emerging Leaders preconference session (with the incomparable Margie Reese and Maryo Ewell explaining our place in the history of community arts), I saw many more attendees using the notebooks provided or--like me--had brought their own pads/paper/writing implements to use. Worlds collide. Being (mostly) Millenials, we also proceeded to pull out our smart phones to tweet the conference session. Folks would jot a note, then tweet the next profound statement, comfortable switching between both written forms. During networking sessions, we exchanged paper business cards, then went and connected with each other on LinkedIn. Throughout the conference, this happy mingling of traditional and newfangled continued. A sess...

I realize six months is a bit too long to go without writing a blog post, even if Unmarketing recommends only writing when you have something worth sharing. I've shared a lot over the past six months, just not here (mostly on Facebook and Twitter). I've also LEARNED a lot in the past six months, which is why I haven't posted at all. It's been an insane period of receiving information, gestating and applying information, meeting people and making new connections, and trying to carve out time to think bigger systems thoughts and figure out what I really want to be doing with my life|career|home|self|family (not necessarily in that order). Now that we're in summer, and I have a brief blessed moment between when I am done with classes but my daughter is not yet out of school (you parents know what I'm talking about), I will be turning my attention to this communication method, attempting to figure out what I want it to be and what my audience wants it to be. Want ...

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 ...

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...