Fun on the Fund Drive

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I was a guest on my local public radio station’s fund drive today. It was my second year, but as always I had a blast. I am sure it isn’t the same experience for everyone, but the time just flew by. I was ready to go another hour but they already had someone else lined up.

As a leader of a non-profit organization, these fund drives seem like such a win-win for both organizations. I was there offering tickets as premiums for membership and in return, I received the opportunity to raise awareness about my organization. I actually tried to be cognizant of how much I talked about us but the hosts kept feeding me lines opening new avenues of conversation.

I saw the whole experience as a game to see how I could turn something into a plug to become a member. The host commented on how adventurous and daring our programming was. Thanked her and talked a little bit about our philosophy and came back around and mentioned something to the effect of how supporters of the station were likewise adventurous and bold in that they were eager to consume programming that dealt with situations outside their daily experience.

I had been worried I would run out of things to say so I had prepared some notes in advance of my arrival making a connection between the tickets we were offering and the station. (Lead singer of a group voted among the distinctive voices of her country-the station is a distinctive voice in the community with few such alternatives–you can be a distinctive voice by declaring your support of the station.)

It turned out I need not have been so concerned. The program I was guesting on had fewer opportunities for pledge solicitations than the one I was on last year. I left the remaining tickets for the station to in future segments and then fed the host my notes so she could use them in future segments. No need for my ideas to go to waste, after all. (I have had interactions with her before so it the situation wasn’t akin to a waiter pitching his ideas to a film director.)

So I know this entry has mostly been about how cool and clever I am. I am, however, too lazy to make these same suggestions in a third person voice. “One should endeavor to be a gracious guest by preparing remarks that emphasize the desirability of becoming a member.”

Besides, I know that if I say I had fun playing word games, most of you will figure you are cleverer than me, (you aren’t by the way), and can do a much better job promoting your organization and membership to your public radio station and will help your local station in the (futile) attempt to do just that.

But in all seriousness, while I was sitting there waiting to go on air again, I starting thinking how much I wished there were other forums where the general public would direct their attention to hear arts people talk enthusiastically. There was an entirely different energy to our conversation than I have experienced at Q&As and performance talks. It might have just been the setting. Talking to each other without the immediate awareness of an audience likely changes the dynamics. If I could be sure I could translate at least some degree of the experience to our stage, I might consider asking the woman who hosted our segment to act as an interviewer for a show discussion.

Something for me to ponder.

Oh and if the idealism of helping out another non-profit in your community or playing clever word games isn’t motivation to go on a fund drive, how about economics. We saw a surge in ticket sales while I was on the air. One guy apparently drove to the theatre and began banging on my office door because he was afraid we would be sold out.

Hate Hazelnuts, Love Filberts

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In an illustration of the power of language in branding and naming, while having coffee this weekend a friend and I started having a discussion where he stated how much he hated hazelnuts and really preferred filberts. I ran with the joke and solemnly agreed that hazelnuts were over exposed. Witness the hazelnut creamer and syrups available here in the coffee house. Another friend was still up at the counter when we started the conversation so when she sat down and heard us seriously discussing how filberts, which tasted amazing, were being marginalized by the hype about hazelnuts, she sort of got pulled in. We did clue her in to the fact we were talking about the same nut, but not until we had a discussion about how the hype about the benefits of acai was selling smoothies of dubious nutritional value at that coffeehouse.

Of course, we all know that language is used to make things sound less negative. Like how there are those who refer to the dangerous chemical, Dihydrogen Monoxide as Hydrogen Hydroxide because the latter sound less threatening. But a little research will show that it is widely used as an industrial solvent and coolant, in the production of Styrofoam and poisons. Even in small quantities, accidental inhalation can cause death.

Of course, there are always people who will be smart enough to see through attempts to mislead them. When it comes to promoting our events and our organizations, a careful balance must be struck. I am a big proponent of avoiding trite phrases like those excerpted from movie reviews for the purpose of advertising the film. Yet if your language is too lofty, you run to the risk of creating an appearance of elitism.

I had a situation this season when writing text for our brochure. I described a show where a man must confront an evil force which has subverted the souls of better men than he. I later mention him having to resist the fell forces. A professor suggested I change subvert and fell because the students wouldn’t understand what it meant. Setting aside most of the reasons I thought that statement was wrong, I ultimately decided to keep the language because 1) our students aren’t the target audience for the brochure anyway; it receives much more use by the post-college age general public. 2) I didn’t think that given our educational mission I should be dumbing down a word choice that wasn’t that challenging to start with and could be derived from the context of the sentence.

Just the same, my concern about having language that might alienate people and pose a barrier to attendance made me think about the situation for awhile.

What If They DO End Up Loving The Arts?

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Barry Hessenius is conducting a massive six week conversation about the future of the National Endowment over at Barry’s Art Blog. When I say massive, I mean it. This week’s entry is so large (and won’t be complete until tomorrow’s Q&A) that I feel guilty about addressing such a comparatively small section of it.

Truthfully, it may be too large an entry for its own good. Few that could benefit from it may take the time to read it. There were many people whose thoughts I value contributing to the entry, (even with Andrew Taylor’s absence), so I did take the time to digest it.

On the topic of arts education, Ian David Moss who blogs at Createquity.com fleshed out the recently oft repeated question about the long term value of an arts education in a way that seemed very compelling to me. (my emphasis)

Before you call me out as the Grinch who stole music classes, let me explain. I think that the conversation about arts education is inseparable from the conversation about the professional arts infrastructure in America. The reason is simple: the kids who fall in love with learning to play the tuba or do a pirouette today are the adults who are going to be competing with each other for gigs and grant money tomorrow. If we are successful in our efforts and ensure that every child has the opportunity to experience all the arts they want to during their formative years, what happens to them once they get to college? The arts are a powerful drug, as addictive as nicotine for some. The arts encourage people to dream big, and we’ve developed a post-Baby Boomer culture in America that tells children to follow their dreams no matter what obstacles they encounter. That’s fine so far as it goes, but there needs to be a pot of gold on the other side of that rainbow. When music conservatories, playwriting programs, schools of art—institutions whose ranks and capital budgets have been swelling apace in recent years—blithely charge marginal students tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars and fail to offer them even the pretense of “real life” entrepreneurship skills, that’s as close to third-sector malpractice as it gets in my opinion.

[…]

Much of the literature that advocates arts education as a strategy for cultivating demand for the arts assumes that students who have invested thousands of hours of their lives in perfecting a craft during their formative years will happily set all of that aside as soon as they turn 18 and 21, become productive members of society with skills that they somehow picked up while practicing piano for four hours a day, and donate all of their expendable income to their local arts organizations. Really? Don’t you think that some of them might be a little bitter about having to leave their dream behind? Don’t you think some of them might continue on and spend their parents’ life savings on three graduate degrees in a quixotic quest for fame and glory that never materializes? Is this the best use of our collective human capital?

[…]

N.B. Upon visiting Ian’s blog, I happily found that he posted the above material with supporting links not available on Barry’s Blog.

I have discussed the idea of arts training programs graduating students into a glut market before. I certainly have to acknowledge Scott Walters and Tom Loughlin, theatre professors who often question their part contributing to this state. Scott Walters was part of the conversation on Barry’s Blog and alluded to Tony Kushner’s 1998 “Modest Proposal” to eliminate undergraduate arts degrees which he included at some length in a 2006 entry on his blog.

What I never really thought about was what the arts world would do if they realized their ambitions to engender an appreciation of the arts in a large number of young people. I don’t think his suggestion that the push for arts education is motivated by a desire to have more consumers rather than artists is completely fair.

Or rather, I don’t think operating on the assumption that not everyone will become an arts practitioner completely nefarious. No one expects every kid who participates in Little League, Pop Warner Football and various soccer leagues will go on to become a professional athlete after all the time they have invested in practicing. Though certainly a situation where a college athlete isn’t expected to devote themselves to their studies is not something to be emulated. And in fact, as Ian points out, lacking large scholarships to keep their debt down, artists have it worse if they leave college without any “real” skills to fall back upon. The purpose of all these youth athletic activities is to cultivate an appreciation of the various sports which translates into audiences for athletic teams throughout life. (Not to mention a lot of athletic apparel purchases if the national sponsorships by sneaker companies are any indication.)

Still, if we have trouble employing artists now with really crappy arts education, what will happen when we ignite kids’ imaginations and convince them the arts have value in their lives. Yes, there may be an increase in arts consumers if more people grow up valuing the arts, but young artists will be graduating and trying to practice their craft long before their fellow graduates acquire enough disposable income to support them. The one saving grace might be if the economy is moving toward creativity. In that case, the graduates would likely need much different training than they are receiving right now.

Not that it is okay, but the arts are not alone in misrepresenting opportunities. In the last year, I read an article that cautioned people about believing ads that say things like there are plenty of jobs in nursing*, computer programming, tractor trailer driving, etc. The piece evoked the Grapes of Wrath in noting that it was in the best interest of many industries to flood the market with many qualified applicants so they can keep wages low due to competition.

I am not suggesting that this is a situation the arts attempt to cultivate. Other than Hollywood or some of the old Broadway syndicates, I can’t think of any entities who would have both the perspective to recognize this and the influence to bring the situation about. If lower costs were a goal, regional theatres would try to attract more people to their areas instead of casting out of NYC and having to pay to house people locally. Though I suppose high concentrations of actors in NYC does keep prices down in its own way. In any case, given that Baumol’s Cost Disease makes producing art increasingly more expensive, the arts do benefit from having a surplus of talented people.

*Don’t mean to imply nursing doesn’t have the need given all the aging baby boomers. It is just one of those areas for which you hear there will be a lot of demand.

#@$#^%$#@%$# SPAMMERS!

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Well spammers recently co-opted a feature on our website for their own nefarious purposes. The result is, we have had to shut down a useful tool on our website until we can find a solution.

The feature enabled people to easily tell friends about a performance. A simple click of a link autofilled a form with the description text and a link to our events. It also allowed people to personalize the message with their own thoughts and remove our material entirely if they felt they could do the job on their own.

So you can probably see the opportunity for spamming. We recognized that it was open for abuse, including people looking to represent themselves as us, so we had all uses of the form blind copy us.

I had more than 4500 emails this morning. I was lucky there weren’t more, I am sure. Upon further investigation, we discovered that the measures we had put in place to thwart this sort of thing had been doing so quite well for some weeks now preventing spam from ever entering our mail queue. But the spammers found a way around it and so here we are being blacklisted by service providers.

This is quite annoying because while the feature wasn’t overwhelmingly successful, people did use it regularly to pass the word along to their friends. Now we have to find another method. Anyone have a suggestion? I imagine something with a RECAPTCHA challenge exists out there.

In the mean time, if you have a similar feature on your website but haven’t been monitoring its use, you may want to examine its recent activity.