Last week I was reading an article on Slate that talked about teachers who were making more money selling their lesson plans online than they were from their teaching jobs.
So before I go on, let me just suggest that if there are any educational activities your organization does that you feel are really effective or if you have any lesson plans that bring the arts to other academic subjects (or vice versa), you may want to make them available on the websites mentioned in that article. There may be a good market for such things.
My purpose in this post is somewhat along the same lines. I wondered if there might not be a need among arts professionals to share materials they developed so that others wouldn’t have to constantly reinvent the wheel.
In a way, it is something of a logical extension of the idea behind Drew McManus’ ArtsHacker website which gives advice and guidance to arts organizations. (If you didn’t know it already, I am a contributor to the site.)
I am not suggesting he monetize the site. There is plenty of need for the freely given and available advice it provides.
I suspect there might be a real need for other types of materials arts groups develop in the course of business.
Just off the top of my head, there is probably a need for good marketing content for different shows. Whenever I do research on artists or shows so that I can write press releases and web/brochure blurbs, I often find that people are using the generic descriptions provided by the artist or agent.
Often the blurb is about how great the artist or performance is, but not why an audience member might enjoy the show. I find this particularly true of Broadway shows which seem to have more content about the creators and producers than the show itself. My audience doesn’t know enough about various choreographers to care about that.
I am sure there are a lot of people out there who try to craft interesting descriptions designed to resonate with their local audiences, but they aren’t easy to find. Having this work collected in one place might be a boon.
Right now the best centralized sources are the table at conferences upon which arts orgs throw their brochures.
Granted, you wouldn’t be able to use someone’s release in its entirety. Every community has its own particular nuances that need to be addressed. I don’t imagine that the teachers mentioned in the Slate article are using lesson plans on the sites without making alterations to suit their students.
After a few years, this resource may actually raise the quality of promotional writing in the arts if press releases were available for download for a few dollars from a database indexed by show/artist and community demographics.
Once people start looking at the potential approaches one might use to promote something, they may be inspired to up their own game– especially if people are paying money for good material.
It may instill confidence in a number of people who start to see a high demand for their writing. Just because an event wasn’t well attended doesn’t mean you are a bad writer. The message may have just been poorly distributed.
(Though the negative potential is that instead of hiring marketing staff, a company might have an intern aggregate content from press release samples.)
Other things people might find valuable are ideas for events surrounding a performance: everything from dinner & show promos; coffee houses; young professional wine and cheese events and after performance talks, to an imaginative use of a speed dating format to meet the cast.
It may sound a little cynical, but I could also see a demand for providing grant report content from which people could crib information. Even though a lot grant reporting feels like it involves mindless reduplication of effort with minor tweaks, against this is an area where the example of effective writing can be valuable.
I would be reluctant to have people post their strategic plans for sale since they really do need to be invested with long, tedious hours of discussion and revision to be effective.
However, case studies on how an organization manifested their strategic plan could be useful. If you are having to write about it for some grant or foundation report, you might as well make a little additional money off the effort.
The one big issue I haven’t investigated or really thought about is the issue of copyright credit. I am not sure how the teacher lesson plan sites work it. I have seen copyright notices on educational handouts. Since classroom instruction isn’t as public a forum as press release distribution and web content, I don’t imagine there is any need to give credit to another teacher before a lesson on fractions.
Would you have to give byline credit on every press release noting all the people who contributed to it as some news outlets do?
A lot of potential in this idea, but much to think about.