You’re Sharing Too Much Information About Me With Me

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We are planning a reception next month so a few weeks ago we were checking the website of a printer we often use for postcards to get pricing for invitations. The next day I got a call from an account representative saying he saw we had accessed the website and wondered if there was anything he could help us with.

Now it happened that I had been frustrated by the fact they only printed in batches of 500. We needed about 650 and I didn’t want to be in the position of having to throw out 350 invitations. He was able to arrange for a print run of 650. By paying attention to the activity on their website, his company was able to meet my needs and get my business.

But I tell you, I was a little creeped out. In the future I will probably be mindful of how I visit that website because I know they are watching. Maybe in 5-10 years this sort of response will be so prevalent I won’t think anything of it, but right now it makes me uneasy to know that my visits are being so carefully monitored.

Forbes just had a piece about a similar situation with Target. The store monitors its customer’s purchases and is able to customize the coupons it mails to their homes. As a result, they were able to figure out a teen age girl was pregnant before her parents knew. The store got an indignant call from the girl’s father who later apologized when he discovered the truth.

Target is now more circumspect about how they print their coupon books. Forbes quotes an interview given to the NY Times,

“Then we started mixing in all these ads for things we knew pregnant women would never buy, so the baby ads looked random. We’d put an ad for a lawn mower next to diapers. We’d put a coupon for wineglasses next to infant clothes. That way, it looked like all the products were chosen by chance.

“And we found out that as long as a pregnant woman thinks she hasn’t been spied on, she’ll use the coupons. She just assumes that everyone else on her block got the same mailer for diapers and cribs. As long as we don’t spook her, it works.”

I am sure Target isn’t the only ones doing this leaving me to be paranoid about whether a promotion that resonates with my interests is a coincidence or a calculated insertion by a company.

Thomas Cott recently linked to a McKinsey Quarterly article (registration required) about how in the era of Big Data, arts organizations are lagging behind. I am sure the main reason is lack of funds to collect and process the huge amount of information required to create a profile of the local community/audience. I am also sure that it won’t be long before it becomes affordable to purchase the services/information from a company.

The thing I wonder is, now that arts organizations have started to realize how important it is to engage with their community, will they settle for a tool that allows them to create the illusion of engagement? I want to be high minded and idealistic, but my guess, given the style of marketing most of us currently or recently have engaged in, is yes.

We all know that it is a lot easier to send out materials we hope will appeal to people than to take the time to interact with them individually. If the opportunity to deliver content which data analysis says is highly likely to appeal to people is more affordable and less labor intensive than direct engagement, aren’t you going to take it?

Of course, to retain people as patron/volunteer/participant, you will have to engage them as a distinct individual. Otherwise people are going to realize that while it seemed as if you understood what they liked from the information they received, it is clear from the experience provided that is not the case.

While the budget administrator side of me hopes that day comes really quickly, the idealist side of me hopes it takes a long time for the price of Big Data services to become affordable so that we are forced to engage with our communities.

The practical side of me wonders what the hell the idealist is thinking. Why should the non-profit arts sector hold itself to such a high standard and intentionally take the road less traveled when all the companies competing for our communities’ time and attention aren’t the least concerned about such things.

Arts Funding and Diversity in Oregon

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The Oregonian reported this weekend that the city of Portland would start to tie arts funding to the diversity of the art organization’s board, staff and ultimately audiences.

Specifically, arts groups will be asked to increase the ethnic makeup of their staff, boards and contractors. Their audiences, too, may become more diverse through marketing and outreach. Organizations will also be expected to spend more of their budget — 30 percent being the ideal — on communities of color.

It appears the hope is that by shifting the composition of the board and employees, the type of programming will shift to be more inclusive. Though I think there is some potential for problems, I appreciate the intention behind the plan. Change the culture of your city through its arts and cultural institutions. The arts and culture community is probably a good place to start with such efforts because they are likely to regard the goal as a worthy one.

There are some practical problems as mentioned in the article. First, federal law prohibits making hiring decisions based on race.

Another problem noted is the lack of resources arts organizations have to perform the assessments and programs to which the money is tied. That said, the article notes there are plans for a new levy to fund arts organizations and arts education in the schools. This is encouraging because it acknowledges that the arts require a more supportive environment in which to operate and pursue these programs.

One thing I am most concerned about is that the programs offered to communities of color be appropriate to those communities and not simply extensions of activities which appeal primarily to Caucasian audiences. While some programs may be equally well received by all audiences and it is just a matter of making them more widely accessible, we already know that the demographics who have traditionally comprised arts audiences don’t view traditional arts programs has having relevance to them. There is a good chance that people outside of those demographics will perceive the programs as even less relevant to them.

Designing a program that is meaningful to different communities is possible. It just takes additional time and resources, two things arts organizations have in short supply. It is much easier to use a similar approach in all instances. Is there enough funding being offered by the city of Portland to make it worthwhile to customize programming?

However, since many arts organizations currently have no choice but to change their approach to their audiences and communities if they wish to continue operating, perhaps this is the most suitable time to implement this policy. If you are struggling to discover how best to engage your community, you might be open to considering expanding the definition of your community.

Do you think Portland’s plan can succeed? Not all the guidelines have been set, but do you think this is the correct approach.

One last thing to ponder. In the article Mayor Sam Adams is quote talking about the criteria they will use.

“Adams says organizations shouldn’t be intimidated by the measures. Increasing racial diversity on staff and boards and spending more money on communities of color will be just two of several factors that determine public funding. And when they are used, they’ll be interpreted flexibly. Different groups face different challenges, he says. “

I felt a little relief knowing there wouldn’t be a hard benchmark for funding. I think there has to be flexibility. On the other hand, I am a little concerned about how flexibly the criteria will be interpreted. It is one thing for private foundations to favor the same organizations with large amounts of funding. But there needs to be a higher degree of equity and transparency in the process of disbursing public funding.

Better to have clear guidelines from the outset about the type of outcomes are valued by the funding program than to sanction loose interpretations which allow the rationalization why an organization should be funded.

My perception is that this is the toughest part of funding. How do you allow for both a small organization that works with the same 20 people once a week for 9 months and a large organization that reaches 20,000 people once in the same time frame? Which is valued?

Now throw issues of race/ethnicity in as a factor and it becomes more complicated. (Yes, I am aware that diversity encompasses more than just race, but race is generally the most volatile aspect and is one of the stated criteria.) The stakes become a lot higher when you say racial composition matters and people can see where the money is going. If a medium size organization increases diversity by three on their board of ten and a large organization only increases their diversity by one on a board of 25 and the latter gets more funding in proportion to their budget, what will people think?

Does it matter that the one person on the larger board is more influential than the three on the smaller board and will potentially increase the reach and effectiveness of the organization? Well, I guess it depends on the way the funding criteria is written.

And as I said, with race as a measure, the criteria needs to be very clearly written as do the awards panel’s justifications. Leave too much ambiguity in the rules or the funding justifications and you open the whole process to accusations of racism, raising tensions rather than alleviating them. Funding for the arts is enough of a political issue as it is.

An Idea Eight Years In The Making (And Hopefully Not Nine)

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Thursday is the 8th anniversary of this blog. I made my first post on February 23, 2004. I wouldn’t normally call attention to an oddly numbered anniversary (though 8 is considered auspicious in China), however an idea I mentioned in my second post may come to fruition. Actually, the bulk of the idea was expressed in a letter to Artful Manager Andrew Taylor which ended up printed on the Artsjournal site.

In that letter I suggested that arts organizations emulate the overtly proselytizing comic book Chick Tracts. While I am generally offended by the tracts, I appreciate their use of illustrations to catch interest and their portability which lend themselves to easy distribution by handing them off to friends or leaving them in public places. I had suggested using the same format, albeit with a less heavy handed approach, to distribute information about the arts.

That idea has been percolating in my mind as I waited for the opportunity to put it into action. That opportunity seems to have presented itself.

If you recall on Monday I mentioned how I haven taken advantage of the enthusiasm my assistant theatre managers have brought to the job to implement some of my ideas. Well this is one of them.

The current assistant theatre manager had an idea to assemble a Student Media Art Collective (SMAC – her idea) to help us promote the performances at the theatre. Our intention is to have discussions about promotion, techniques and art in general. In time we hope to bring in some guest speakers to talk to the group about various topics. I have pretty much left it up to her to organize and run. I just approve the purchase of pizza, distribution of comp tickets and show up at the meetings.

I have to say, I have been pretty impressed with the way she has run it. Even though we want these people’s help promoting the theatre, she hasn’t really mentioned that at all. What she has basically done is created a place for people to meet, eat pizza and talk about their ideas. Today she had us drawing things on file cards and post-it notes.

We have only had two meetings. Between the first one two weeks ago and the one we had today, two of the people have already started collaborating on a project together. They aren’t ready to talk about it yet. From what I have glimpsed of the proposal the one guy wrote, it seems to be some sort of fictional speculation about the origins of chess as a game.

I like the energy that is developing so far. We have provided a forum for these students who are predominantly visual artists that hasn’t been available before. I think it has been good that we have let the participants talk about their ideas rather than pressing our agenda. It has helped people feel comfortable and share their goals with the group.

I had discussed my idea to emulate the Chick Tracts with the assistant theatre manager about a week ago and while I wanted to mention today, I decided to follow her lead in regard to whether we asked them to do something for the theatre. Near the end of the meeting, she invited me to share the basic concept with the group and a number of them really liked it. During the mingling at the end of the meeting, a few approached me with the ideas they had. I was surprised that many of them were interested in producing a hard copy format rather than a digital manifestation as I had suggested. Apparently having something physical to hold is valued a bit more than I had guessed.

I will follow up by sending out some links to some websites that might provide as basis of inspiration for my Arts Tracts. Then I will step back and see what happens in the next two weeks before we meet again. Hopefully something will have been produced by this time next year.

What Values Matter In Arts Grad Training Programs?

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This weekend Scott Walters quoted an extensive comment made on another blog about the value of MFA acting programs. The gist is, students are ill served by the programs which need to focus on training students for 21st century opportunities.

This struck a chord with me because I had recently read a Fast Company article about how UC Berkeley’s Business School started to screen applicants based on whether they embodied the school’s core values. The school had decided to embrace these values in the interests of creating a “reduction of overconfidence and self-focus, which are perceived to be excessively present among the business graduates and leaders of the top business schools.”

At the time I read it, I was idly wondering if arts training programs at the master level might do something similar to address any perceived (and real) problems with those they graduate. It had been a long time since I was in grad school so I didn’t feel I knew enough about the state of things write a post about it. Having read Walter’s recent post, I am no more certain than before since it is the view of a single unidentified commenter. I do feel fairly confident in assuming that, as with most things, there is room for improvement.

I will readily admit that given my ignorance of the state of things, I don’t have any concrete suggestions about they might be done differently. I will say that one thing that stood out in the Fast Company piece was that Berkeley-Haas instituted significant changes in their program based on their stated values and then required their applicants to adhere to them.

Most remarkably, they are not simply communication tools but drive operations from the curriculum, research priorities to staff programs, and faculty hiring. The curriculum, for example, has been extensively revamped in order to introduce elements of creativity, innovation, collaboration, ethics, and social responsibility.

They made sure they embodied the values before they required the students to do the same. It would have been much easier for them to decide to implement the change by altering their admission criteria and assuming that choosing the right students would result in producing the right graduates. But that is less likely if the infrastructure surrounding the students doesn’t emulate and reinforce the values the school wishes to cultivate in its graduates.

Successful realization of any goal is easier for any entity if all members are aligned toward attaining it. Probably the most powerful thing an arts training program can do to convince applicants that it can prepare them to ply their craft in the current environment is to point to a major realignment of priorities to that end.

As the commenter that Walters quotes, SayItLoud, notes, theatre training programs often cite successful graduates and places their students have worked or can intern at. As impressive as that is, the reality is the path those graduates took to success may no longer be viable.

What training programs may really need to do is say to applicants, “We’ve changed ourselves from top to bottom and what success requires now is to push you off the conventional path. This is not the place to pursue training in becoming a triple-threat, actor/singer/dancer. You may have become a video editor/painter/acrobat or a ecologist/architect/percussionist or all six plus four things we aren’t mentioning. Do your interests, values and practices align with ours?”

At the very least, it will get everyone thinking about the whole training process. Given that the current conversation is that arts organizations need to change the way they operate and interact with audiences, you aren’t leading students astray by telling them they need to obtain a wider spectrum of skills. Like as not, they will be the ones helping to drive the change with the types of works they develop.