Thanks For The Virtual Relationship

I started my current job in May, however I came to interview for the position right before Thanksgiving last year. As you might imagine, I count that date as an important milestone. Given the proximity of this “anniversary” to Thanksgiving, there were a number of cards and loaves of pumpkin bread being distributed to those who welcomed and assisted me in the transition to my new job.

I probably missed a number of people in the process. One person I whose participation in my job search I did want to recognize is Drew McManus. I use the term “participation” because while Drew did directly contribute to my getting this job, he also more indirectly helped with a little experiment I was running.

So this entry is actually less about saying how wonderful Drew is (though he is), as reflecting on what it is we actually value about employees and coworkers.

I actually started my job search a few years back and I asked Drew if I could use him as a reference. At the time, we had never met in person. And as of right now, our only in person meeting was a couple hours for dinner during a lay over I had in Chicago when I was returning from a job interview.

I wanted to see if it was actually possible to get a job based on the recommendation of someone whom you had never met or worked with directly. I listed Drew about third or fourth on my reference list behind people who had actually supervised my work directly on a daily basis.

While it is true to say that we never really met, we have communicated quite often over the years via email and a number of times on the phone, soliciting each other’s advice and discussing the arts environment. We would coordinate on cross-blog projects. I would frequently alert Drew to problems with the website hosting the blog and there were a few times I expressed criticism of some of the changes he was proposing.

So in many respects, our relationship was similar to that of many workplaces where coworkers assist and comment on each other’s work and labor to advance the interests of the company, in this case the Inside the Arts page.

The Adaptistration blog has passed its decade mark and Butts in the Seats will reach that point in February. In some respects, Drew is more familiar with the quality of my work and thoughts on arts administration than my previous four work supervisors. Since I am faithful about scheduling blog posts to cover my absences during vacations, he knows a bit about my work ethic.

Yet we work in a field that emphasizes in-person interactions with our customer base. We want people experiencing the arts in close physical proximity with the performer or actual piece of visual art.

There is a 10 year section of my life’s work that does not exist physically. There are people who have published fewer pages of incoherent ramblings than I have who are recognized poets and authors (or gotten tenure). I can’t quite say for sure if those 10 years of effort even helped me get this job or not.

Do you really want to hire someone who values interactions and creative content that are generated virtually for a job that is so much about the physical experience?

I think most everyone would agree this is pretty much indicative of the new normal and has been for awhile. Even the novelty of this story has waned from what it might have been four or five years back. I have interacted with Drew and others so frequently and so regularly it is difficult to remember or even believe that we have only met physically for two hours.

To some degree, the situation was almost akin to the blind auditions orchestras hold. My value was being discussed based largely on the quality of my work for the benefit of the project and not colored by office politics, personal affiliations or the size of the tip I leave when we go to lunch.

The common joke is that you never really know if the person on the other end of the computer is who they represent themselves to be, but this is also the stuff upon which relationships and trust are, and will be developed.

Even though Drew was last on my list, he received a surprising number of calls and apparently carried on fairly decent length conversations. And I actually got called out for some in-person interviews afterward. I don’t know whether his conversations helped my case, but they clearly didn’t hurt.

One thing I take from this is that while the opportunity to view performances online can undermine the value of live attendance in people’s minds, this experience has shown me that it is possible to develop a seemingly deep relationship with them as well. All the information you put out there on your website and all the interactions you have on social media can make people feel as if they have visited your performance space and experienced an event there, even if they haven’t.

I won’t argue that it isn’t a shallow, illusory relationship which may crumble quickly upon contact with the real life situation. But I think half the barriers to participation audiences encounter are mental and anything that removes or diminishes those perceptions and makes people feel as if they have the ease of a longstanding relationship with you is helpful.

Though again, the image that you put out there has to match the reality fairly closely. You can’t promote yourself as Disney if the reality is the Jersey Boardwalk after a hurricane.