Civic Reflection

An interesting website came to my attention today regarding a practice called Civic Reflection. According to the website, it is “is reading, thinking and talking with each other about our life in community and three fundamental human activities that nourish that life: giving, serving, and leading.”

Looking over the website, I am not quite sure how this practice will help nonprofits and other civic groups more effectively than some other sort of meeting or retreat. The group claims it does. I have a suspicion that its value is in the fact that the practice addresses problems obliquely and doesn’t allow people to set an agenda where blame is handed out and solutions sought.

The website addresses this:

Initially, out of habit, people often think of a problem they want to fix. How can we diversify our boards? How can we get people to give more? These are good questions, but civic reflection is not intended to answer them. It will not tell people “how to” do anything. What civic reflection can do is help participants explore the “what” and “why” -the assumptions, struggles and hopes underneath their questions-deepening their own imaginations and mutual understanding in the process. When people pose “how to” questions (How can we lead the community through change?), listen for the “what” and “why” questions underneath (What leads us to change? Why do we fear change?).

I was initially a bit skeptical about how valuable this process might be to a non-profit given that time constraints don’t normally allow for conversations whose purpose is not to find solutions. In thinking about it, I wondered though if some of the problems non-profits face spring from an Us and Them anxiety– Will they fund us, will they ask me for a donation, will they like our show, will I like/understand this show.

The purpose of this practice seems to be to make everyone Us by removing these barriers and making everyone talk about something else like the human condition in hopes of people developing an empathy and understanding of one another.

The importance of removing these barriers to understanding are found in their FAQ section.

Should there be separate discussions for donors and fundraisers to keep the conversation from getting “awkward”?

No, as long as the ground rules for the conversation are clear. It is imperative to state at the outset that -This is a fundraising-free zone: There will be no solicitations-and no pledge card at the end! With that rule in place, civic reflection can allow a rare and needed conversation to take place across the funding divide. It can help donors and fundraisers to talk with one another about the profound complexities of giving and receiving and to develop greater understanding of their shared work.

Should there be separate discussions for trustees and staff? Executive and other staff?

Again, this is a rare opportunity to build conversation across dividing lines about the purposes of an organization-and to help staff and trustees come to know each other in a fuller way as persons. Therefore, staff should be included if possible. At the same time, it is unwise to allow the executive director of an organization to handpick participants among senior staff. All staff at the same level of responsibility should be invited. (But be neither surprised nor dismayed if not everyone accepts.)

It all sounds great in theory, but I would think it would be difficult for a non-profit to find the time and energy to devote to something like this on a regular basis. People tend to want to walk into and out of a meeting/retreat with answers and a plan of action.

In business like relationships, people’s desire to understand the other guy tends to start and end at the point they do or don’t get what they want. People tend to only want to know things that they think will help them do their jobs and discard/ignore those things that typically won’t help. (The website implies though that knowing these other facts can enhance a business relationship.)

Perhaps we are conditioned into this behavior by TV programs that wrap up problems within the confines of a time period and by technology which allows us to access information and goods round the clock. Opened ended contemplation can seem to be more of an amusing luxury than immediate value.

The website says that the fear that the practice is a waste of time is one of the 3 main impediments to participation. The other two are “They fear that they are not ‘smart’ enough, especially if they did not enjoy literature classes in school. They fear that they will be manipulated emotionally for the purposes of the group.” The implication being, don’t knock it til you sincerely try it.

I would be interested to learn if anyone has tried Civic Reflection in any forum, be it non-profit or other, and what your impressions were. Let me know.

Art, by Mob

I came across and article from Slate I was reading way back when I started my moveArt Mobs. The author, Clive Thompson explores the power mobs have had recently, especially in relation to the arts.

While many artists draw influences from many sources, the common wisdom is that art created by committee, rather than by a unified single vision (albeit sometimes shared by 2-3 collaborators) is usually crap. Thompson’s article shows that in some cases, that isn’t necessarily so.

Witness Wikipedia, an online encyclopedia written by grace of contributions of the masses, which in three years has exceeded the size of the venerable Encyclopedia Brittanica. (It has nearly triple the number of articles and double the number of words)

Thompson also cites the generally successful mob creation of letters via voting whether a pixel should be white or black. On the other hand, when faced with less concrete concepts like creating a face or a goat, by voting pixels black or white, the mob had a hard time creating anything that resembled..well..anything.

Likewise, the person who intitiated Wikipedia has tried to get mobs to write textbooks. Some projects are doing okay, but most are not because of the lack of a unified vision and voice.

These are really intriguing experiments and results. But the application for the arts manager can be fairly simple in some respects. You can solicit all the feedback about programming a season you want from as many sources as you want, but in the end, one central vision must make the determination regarding what will appear on stage. If you try to please everyone or as many people as possible, you end up with an utter mess.

Andrew Taylor said something similar in his Simple Truth 1 posting and a follow up when he says of a presenter who put out a call for programming ideas that would work in his performance space.

“Given the simple truth that audiences buy expectation rather than performances, and given that consumers can’t really say what they want until they have it, and often not even after that, Law is looking in the wrong place for inspiration.”

Some Good Experiences

Continuing to talk about my time at the Western Arts Alliance Conference last week. There were a few things that the membership seemed to enjoy. Or at least those who spoke up at the annual meeting did.

The first was how things were scheduled. The Resource Room where all the agents and artist reps were wasn’t opened when there were showcases or seminars occuring. When the Resource Room was open, it was only for 3-4 hours at a time.

There were a number of benefits people cited. The first was that the agents only had to stand for 3 hours at a time. Another was that it helped being able to attend the seminars and showcases so they could discuss trends and see what sort of talent was out there. With the break for seminars and showcases, the people who were booking acts felt energized and were ready to talk business again. Also, watching performances provided some inspiration about what they might like to present. The bookers returned with fresh ideas and were prepared to approach people they hadn’t thought about presenting before.

The other thing I really appreciated was that there was a code of ethics published about how, where and when an agent could approach a presenter about the acts they represented. Well, actually, a lot of places have that code, I should say rather I appreciated that most people adhered to it.

I was button holed a couple times, but for the most part, agents left business at the resource room door. I ended up having lunch and dinner with a few agents and it was nice not worrying about being pressured to present their clients while my mouth was full.

In fact, the conference sponsored a dine around where someone volunteered to choose a restaurant and organize the logistics of getting a group of folks to dinner. People signed up on sheets when they arrived so the host could get a head count and then off we went. So that night I actually ended up eating with about 5-6 agents and another 5-6 presenters. The conversation was so general that I didn’t know any of them were agents except for the host and I only knew he was because the sign up sheet identified him as such.

So just some tips for you conference planners and attenders out there to make your experience a little more pleasant.

I’m Off…

As mentioned before, I am off to the WAA conference this week. I am pleased to note that there will be a session on income taxes and international artists. Given my crash course in tax treaties lately, I will be attending that with some interest. Maybe I will find out some new things to pass on to my liasion here at the university.

I went into work today despite the holiday because I will be out of town for a week and really don’t want to have my work pile up too much. The vice-chancellor had been taking about starting an arts administration certificate program so I emailed him expressing my interest in contributing to its development.

Given my *cough* strong feelings about how such a program should be structured, there is a fair chance I could eventually disassociate myself from the program I help develop. Exploring the decisions that go in to developing it, whether I agree with them or not, would be really fascinating for me though so I don’t really mind that I could end up muttering curses under my breath one day.

Stay tuned to find out how it all comes out–the tax stuff and the AA certificate program.