The Little Things Are More Engaging Than You Think

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If you are like me, the changes in the economy and people’s expectations about their interactions with the arts probably has you avidly watching for the new theories, techniques and technologies that may be relevant to your operations. Faced with uncertainty and rapid change, it is easy to forget that there are simple little gestures which we repeat over and over whose performance our audiences value. The explicit, big gestures using the newest techniques may pique interest and get them in the door, but it is going to be the small, mundane things that help keep them.

Some of these are passive things that are part of the organizational culture which we barely recognize we do. They don’t require a lot of time and energy but result in constructive activity. It can be something as easy as just leaving the door open as an invitation for something to happen.

I met today with one of the architects working on our facility renovation. I am anticipate we will be having a lot of these sort of meetings which cover small changes that will have a significant impact on the way audiences experience our facility.

One thing I talked to him about was putting more outlets in our scene shop. This isn’t to accommodate more power tools, but rather to accommodate the gathering of students and others. At the moment, the table area we typically use for meetings, lunch and effecting repairs has started to turn into a learning commons. Students are plugging in so many computers and other devices that they have extension cords crossing in front of the staircase to my office which I subsequently trip over.

I realized this afternoon that this gathering is actually the result of a decision I made three years ago to make the area more welcoming. Prior to that, on days we didn’t have classes or activities in the shop, I would leave the shop door locked and the lights off. All the better to show how ecologically responsible we were by keeping our energy usage to a minimum. Students were theoretically supposed to enter through another door to attend classes but often passed through the shop if the door was open.

As enrollment grew over the last few years and I saw exterior gathering areas becoming more crowded, I started to leave the lights on and the door open on a regular basis. Over that time, the number of people seeking a place to study or chat grew (granted, a little strange given that scene shops are noisy places, but there you are.)

Now we have faculty from visual arts and music who don’t normally teach in our building coming in to eat their lunch. The area has become something of a learning commons and collaborative space for students and faculty. I have students designing a poster and postcard for the show next month running up to my office with their thumb drives to get feedback on their work. Before the hammering started this afternoon, one of the music teachers was pounding on the meeting tables to teach a percussion sequence to a student.

I don’t know how long this may last. I can definitely attribute some of this activity to the dynamics between specific students and that may disappear when they graduate.

I can’t directly link any increase in attendance to this gathering of students so leaving the door open hasn’t helped my revenue situation much in a time when that is increasingly becoming a concern. However, since no one on staff has to design a poster or postcard for the next show, we are able to spend that time in other pursuits. When it comes time to distribute the materials, I bet the students will be interested in helping given their ownership of the piece. This afternoon, the students helped populate areas of the theatre during a photo shoot we were doing in support of a space naming campaign we hope to launch fairly soon. Potentially, their presence might yield income if those images are used in the campaign.

I know this sounds a little vague and hard to quantify. What I am advocating for is basically not forgetting about the assets you have to offer to your community and making them available for use by your constituencies. Some activities may take a little more effort than just leaving doors unlocked and lights on. For example, even though you want to go home, you leave the concession stand open, the lobby lights on and the restrooms open while people stand around chatting and chatting and chatting because the welcoming environment creates an intangible, but valuable positive impression of the organization even though it isn’t as effortless as it may appear.

In some cases you may be able turn a weakness and inaction into a strength. Don’t have money for landscaping? Plant wild flowers that attract butterflies. The front area won’t seem as much a rambling mess with butterflies flitting around.

What you do may not even be connected with your physical plant. Maybe the diner everyone on staff eats at all the time can turn into the site of an impromptu consultation session on how to create haunted houses and wire up holiday displays. That sort of thing reminds everyone that 1) Your organization contributes to the economy by patronizing area business; 2) Enhances the value of the diner in the community; 3) Makes people aware of the knowledge and expertise represented by your organization. I am sure there are fourth, fifth and beyond reasons, but note none of these have anything to do with specifically trying to attract people to your shows. Yet they engage your community at the cost of making a little extra effort at a place you were going to anyway.

It is key that you treat these sort of activities like giving someone a gift– you can’t have an expectation of something in return. If there are positive results, it may take years for it to manifest in a manner you can attribute to your efforts but it may not do so in the way you anticipated. Just as in personal relationships, what you value and want from your friendship with someone may not be the same as what your friend perceives as the valuable aspects of their relationship with you.

Better ROI Than Thou

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The Los Angeles Times has a video of the change over process between the LA Opera productions of Cosi fan Tutte and Eugene Onegin.

My first reaction was how cool the magic of theatre is that such transformations can take place in a short time to generate the illusion of two different places.

Then I started to think about the cost and whether it was all sustainable. They only repeat the same production once so this change over requiring 45 stage hands happens about 4 times a week- Onegin on Saturday, Cosi on Sunday, Cosi on Wednesday, Onegin on Thursday, Cosi on Saturday, Onegin on Sunday. Then I look at the design elements and wonder if they really need to have 800 gallons of water on stage for one act only to drain it and expose the Plexiglas for the second act.

Next I looked at the prices, $270 for orchestra down to $40 for an unobstructed view in the back of the balcony ($20 for an obstructed view). If they cut back on some of the design elements and changed the production schedule, they could charge less and be more accessible, right?

But you know, while I was thinking all this, I was also feeling a little torn. I felt like my grandmother who, having grown up during the Depression, would scowl at us for not washing aluminum foil and Ziploc bags so they could be used again. Was the only reason I was having critical thoughts like this because that is how those of we in the non-profit arts are brought up to think?

Opera is all about spectacle and that is what people expect from the experience. People complain about the high cost of rock concerts and Broadway shows, but there are few people arguing they have to lower the prices to make the shows more accessible. Usually the accessibility argument for rock concerts is about keeping companies from buying up huge blocks of tickets, not that the original price was too much. People complained that the Broadway previews of Spiderman were so expensive, but people kept buying and buying.

So if the demand is there, what business is it of mine whether the LA Opera is operating in a way that requires them to charge so much? The rotating schedule might actually make better financial sense for them after all. I worked at a theatre in a community with a high tourist rate where the rotating repertory schedule actually helped increase their audiences.

Yet, while it does have significant private support, Broadway shows and rock concerts don’t depend on public support the way non-profits like the LA Opera does. So the question is, do we in the arts mount bold productions that employ technology cleverly to bring our audiences delight. Or do we worry that people wanting to reduce the funding the arts receive will use groups like the LA Opera as an example of why the arts don’t need funding since they can afford to operate at such high standards.

Some of this fear comes from the hostile reception the idea of public funding for the arts receives. It is also reinforced by the practice of private funding sources. The big measure of not for profit effectiveness right now is low overhead. I can’t recall where, but I recently read a quote from an influential politician/business person who said if anything could be funded, it should be the arts because they generate such a great return on the investment.

While I am glad to hear this message repeated by people not working in the arts, the pressure to have low overhead and great results for the investment tends to create a mindset where an organization views themselves as more virtuous than a better funded one because they bring the arts to under served populations and children on a shoe string budget. Who needs hostile politicians when we are all too willing to cast a “better-ROI-than-thou” disapproving eye on each other?

That’s all well and good, but this attitude is what also contributes to few people taking an arts career seriously because no one gets well paid.

Is In-n-Out Burger more virtuous than Wendy’s because they have a smaller, leaner operation? Sure, for profits and non profits have different reasons for operating, but few people praise a commercial enterprise as being virtuous because their cost controls have kept them small.

So does it matter how much the LA Opera is spending?

Info You Can Use: Does Friending A Candidate Endanger Your Non-Profit Status

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The Non Profit Law blog linked to a really great publication put out by the Alliance for Justice that explains whether your online activity might run afoul prohibitions in your 501 (c) 3 status. This is the clearest explanation of these issues I have read.

“This guide aims to answer the questions nonprofit managers most frequently face regarding the Internet and social media.”

The document covers situations that don’t involve online activity, but really it is the social media element that comprises the uncharted territory that people aren’t clear about. The document makes a distinction between lobbying, which a 501 c 3 non-profit can do and supporting a candidate, which they can’t.

Though sometimes the distinction is very subtle. For example, you can make a post on Representative X’s Facebook account, “Rep X, support the arts by voting Yes on Bill 123.”and that is direct lobbying. If you post a slightly different message, “People of My State, tell Rep X, to support the arts by voting Yes on Bill 123, ” and that is considered grassroots lobbying because it is a general call to others to take some action. If you post, “We love Rep X because she supports the arts and voted Yes on Bill 123,” that is promoting a specific candidate.

Except in some very specific circumstances, you can’t link to a candidate’s website. In fact, you can’t link to any website that promotes a candidate and you are responsible for making sure the content of the site doesn’t change since you first linked to it.

For example, you are doing a renovation and link to the website of the company that is providing you with sustainable wood as a way of proving to your constituency that you are acting responsibly. If the supplier changes their website to criticize a candidate’s stance on logging, your organization might be in trouble.

There are also restrictions on allowing employees to use company equipment, even on their time off, to express support for a candidate.

In answer the question posed by the title of this entry, no, you can’t friend a candidate on Facebook or follow them on Twitter. They are free to friend and follow your organization. Even though etiquette suggests you follow them in return, the IRS suggests you don’t.

About the only time you are safe to have a promotion of a candidate on your website is if you allow Google to place ads on your website and have no control over what they are placing.

There are a lot of other questions answered in the document as well. Since a lot of 501 (c) 3 organizations are associated with 501 (c) 4s which have looser restrictions, they provide some detailed guidance about how closely connected their activities can be. The guide also deals with setting policies for renting your mailing lists, guest bloggers, moderating blog commenters, using photos, hosting videos.

It is clear that there are going to be a lot of nuances specific to the activities of different organizations. However, if you have had questions about what is permissible as lobbying and prohibited as campaign support, and don’t have a tax lawyer immediately available, this is a good place to start to find your answers.

Can Devotion To The Arts Be Considered An Addiction?

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Since I tend to travel to China every other year or so, I have started taking a class in Chinese.

The class has taken over my life.

It used to be that the rule of thumb for college classes was 3 hours of home work for every hour in class. In recent times, it has been scaled back to 1-2 hours per hour in class. My Chinese class seems to be old school because I spend about 10-12 hours a week doing the homework. I usually finish home work for Tuesday on the Saturday before and then start the homework for two Tuesdays hence on Sunday morning. Every morning, I wake up and do 1-1.5 hours of homework before heading off to work for the day. Saturdays I usually do several hours of work.

I figure I have to keep this schedule because our production season is starting very soon and will keep me from completing the homework before Monday or Tuesday unless I start 8 days early. What is slowing me down is writing everything in Chinese characters. It is like reproducing pictures rather than writing letters. If you write the letter J and don’t dot the lower case or cross it as an uppercase, no one will care. You leave a dot or line out on a Chinese character and it is a different word.

The thing is, I love it and anticipate taking the more advanced class next semester. While my pronunciation of the tones is probably off, I can grasp the vocabulary and grammar rules pretty well.

But it has gotten me to wondering– can I afford another time and energy consuming obsession alongside my career in the arts? I also wonder if my enthusiasm for learning the language comes from a similar place as my enthusiasm for the arts. While I was a good student when I was younger, I was never as diligent as I am with this class.

I have written a number of times on the idea that people in the arts are sustained by the emotional satisfaction they get from their jobs. This can lead to decision making which values devotion to the arts to detriment of their professional and personal development, financial situation, relationships and health.

Now given I actually have time to have something non-arts related monopolize my time is probably a sign that the amount of time I devote to my arts career may be at a healthy level. Or that I have merely displaced other portions of my life to accommodate both activities. (The pile of dirty laundry and unwashed dishes does seem higher lately…)

My brain may be releasing chemicals into my pleasure centers in relation to both arts and Chinese class, but I don’t think it comprises some sort of addiction. Still, I wonder if there is a tendency among arts people to exhibit personality traits common to those prone to addictions. If anyone has seen any studies, about arts people having addictive personalities, I would be interested to learn more.

In any case, it is something to which I will have to give more thought.

After I finish my Chinese homework.