I was really surprised to find my name tucked at the bottom of Barry Hessenius’ 2014’s Top 50 Most Powerful and Influential People in the Nonprofit Arts (USA) In fact, since I read his blog via Feedly and had caught up with my subscriptions on Saturday, I might not have read the post for another week if it weren’t for someone tweeting that Robert Bush from Charlotte’s Arts and Science Council made the list.
It’s not that I don’t think what I produce is worthwhile, it is just that I don’t perceive the old blog here as having that high a profile.
Now, of course, there is pressure to meet the standard set by the company I am listed in.
But Barry’s list dovetails nicely with the subject I intended to address today: cooperation and competition in the arts. Last month, Seth Godin observed that authors don’t compete with each other.
Yet, not only do authors get along, they spend time and energy blurbing each other’s books. Authors don’t try to eliminate others from the shelf, in fact, they seek out the most crowded shelves they can find to place their books. They eagerly pay to read what everyone else is writing…
Can you imagine Tim Cook at Apple giving a generous, positive blurb to an Android phone?
And yet authors do it all the time.
It’s one of the things I’ve always liked best about being a professional writer. The universal recognition that there’s plenty of room for more authors, and that more reading is better than less reading, even if what’s getting read isn’t ours.
It’s not a zero-sum game. It’s an infinite game, one where we each seek to help ideas spread and lives change.
Even though the limits of funding, revenue generation opportunities and audience free time make existence as an arts organization or artist seem like a zero sum game, my experience starting about 15 years or so has been that arts people are generally pretty supportive of the work of colleagues in both word and action. They will tell their friends about interesting events and invite them along when they attend.
That hasn’t always been my experience. About 20 years ago, I feel like there was a lot more “us vs. them, we do the real art in this town” attitude. It has seemed over time the people I have worked with have espoused this view less and less.
Which isn’t to say that people aren’t envious of other organizations’ funding base; think other organization’s programming needs to be more diverse; think the annual awards ceremony for their community is all political; and aren’t befuddled by the more abstract and conceptual extremes of artistic expression.
Godin cites the intense rivalry of Pepsi and Coke as the antithesis of the relationship authors share. I mean, be honest. Haven’t you held your breath a moment when pouring Coke into a cup printed with a Pepsi logo, imagining the cup will melt? Have you ever mixed Pepsi and Coke together, standing at arm’s length expecting a reaction similar to dropping Mentos into a bottle of diet Coke, if not an explosion? That is how apparent the rivalry of the two companies is to the general public.
It would be hard to imagine Pepsi or Coke tweeting about members of other companies showing up on a list of the most influential and powerful people in the beverage industry.
But watch who calls attention to Barry Hessenius’ list over the next couple days. I bet you will find that the majority of those who do, don’t work for the same companies and organizations as those named. There may even be former employers and co-workers celebrating the attention someone has received. As Godin noted, there is a recognition that the success of one enhances the prestige and fortunes of the many.
Hey did you hear that Nina Simon, Laura Zabel and Donna Collins made the list?
A few years ago it became apparent to me that one of the reasons “classical” music gets such a bad rap in the USA’s general public, is that there is not enough!
When many of my friends call and say “what shall we do tonight?” the list includes dinner, the beach, a movie, the mall, a game… never “a concert?” That’s because they are so few and far between, and/or so expensive, and/or so large (orchestras) that concerts are not even in the conscious mind. As we share each other’s work in normal conversations, more people become aware of live music, and concerts will become one of life’s everyday options.
The idea of colleague’s Social Captains is awesome, too: http://www.tcg.org/publications/at/issue/strategies.cfm?indexID=46
Yes indeed, Stephen. And the other thing to do, as I have mentioned in other posts, is to be talking about other’s work in normal conversations in normal places like supermarket check out lines. Now that I think about it, I did just that last Friday in the produce section. I got to talking with someone about a variety of things including concerts, workshops and kendo. I am not sure that we had a huge impact on people reaching past us for the tomatoes, but incrementally and cumulative effect may bear fruit.