Archive for Collaboration
Finding Inspiration at Childsplay’s Campus for Imagination and Wonder
Posted by: | CommentsYesterday, your Alliance for Audience/ShowUp.com staff team held a day-long retreat to coordinate plans for the coming year.
We spent the day at Childsplay’s Campus for Imagination and Wonder – in one of their classroom spaces where we could SPREAD OUT, TAKE TIME & THINK DEEPLY about how we do everything we do. (By the way, their spaces are available for rental!)
2 quick observations:
1) Childsplay’s offices & classrooms are housed in a former elementary school in Tempe. They call it a “Campus for Imagination and Wonder.” How wonderful to have a place whose very name speaks to the highest aspiration of the organization – as well as of the people who work and visit there. (Just curious: does any other Arizona organization have such an inspiring subtitle for their space?)
2) Something that has always impressed me about Childsplay is the sense of deeply shared commitment among its staff. The word “teamwork” just doesn’t do justice to the feeling. I’ve always thought of them as being more like ”invested.” Looking at Childsplay’s website this week, I happened upon the secret of that success:
“One of the underlying core values of Childsplay is the notion of ensemble. There is a resident group of theatre artists (our Associate Artists) who, in collaboration with the Artistic Director, are responsible for planning and creating the artistic products that illustrate Childsplay’s mission. But these artists do not create in isolation. Everyone who works at Childsplay — other artists, technicians, educators, administrators and trustees — is a part of this resident ensemble. This mindset guides the way our work is created, the way it is marketed and the way it is delivered.” - 2012 Strategic Plan
If you’ve interacted with anybody from Childsplay, you may have sensed this all along. I just never before realized it was so, well, purposeful. That’s truly inspiring! You’ll find it here: http://www.childsplayaz.org/company-staff.php
How can the Arts & Cultural Community Partner with METRO?
Posted by: | CommentsLast May, the US Airways Center and METRO light rail entered into a creative partnership which allows consumers who possess a ticket to any event at US Airways Center to ride METRO light rail at no additional cost, on the day of the event. CLICK HERE TO SEE METRO’S PRESS RELEASE.
Recently, I met with METRO executives to ask if such a partnership might be created with the arts & cultural community. They are open to the concept, but there are some concrete limitations:
- METRO has absolutely ZERO ability to enter in to such arrangements for ”goodwill” or even ”philanthropic” purposes. Their rate system is strickly regulated and such a relationship must be “revenue neutral” – meaning that they can’t sacrifice revenue.
- METRO’s agreement with US Airways Center is a PAID relationship – that is, METRO calculated the value of the number of riders who routinely use the system to attend events at the Center; and US Airways Center agreed to pay a certain % of EVERY admission to the Center to METRO to directly cover that expense.
- Even if we can figure out the monetary aspects of such a relationship, we would also need to figure out how to make such a process operational. Consider the fact that METRO needs to be able to easily enforce this policy – which means that its staff needs to be able to quickly determine if a rider has an authorized ticket. I imagine that US Airways Center tickets exist in 3-5 different formats (i.e. hard tickets, print @ home) – but imagine asking METRO to recognize all the different kinds of admission tickets that come from 10 (or 100+) different arts and cultural organizations all over the Valley. It seems obvious that a larger coalition of organizations would need to find a way to “standardize” this process as well.
What do you think? Is this a desirable objective? If so, how could we fund it and make it work? Please “Leave a Reply” with your comments/suggestions here: http://notes.allianceforaudience.org/2010/08/22/metro/
And if you’d like to be part of a task force to explore/advance this opportunity further, please write to me directly at MLehrman@allianceforaudience.org.
Define: “Audience Development”
Posted by: | CommentsWhat is your organization’s best one-sentence definition of the term “audience development”?
Chances are good that the phrase ”audience development” appears somewhere in your organization’s strategic plan – or in a recent grant application – or in the minutes of a Board meeting – or in a marketing analysis – or possibly in all of the above.
But how do you concisely DEFINE the term “audience development”?
Does the phrase mean substantially different things depending on the size or type of organization you are – or by the type of art you produce or present?
Let’s compare notes! What is YOUR ORGANIZATION’S best one-sentence definition of “audience development”? Please post it here: http://notes.allianceforaudience.org/2010/08/26/define-audience-development/ (Scroll down to “Leave a Reply.”)
For Alliance for Audience & ShowUp.com, here’s our best definition (so far):
“Audience development” is the on-going process of diversifying and cultivating audience participation in which all arts and cultural organizations must engage in order to ensure long-term viability.”
Prescott Museums Offer “3-for-1″
Posted by: | CommentsNEW THIS WEEK on the Prescott homepage of ShowUp.com look for the ”Prescott 3-for-1 Pass” that invites guests to visit the Phippen Museum, Sharlot Hall Museum, and Smoki Museum all for just $12.
Creating such a collaborative pass had been the subject of discussions among these museums in the past, but became actionable with the arrival of Alliance for Audience’s in Prescott last Spring.
Let’s applaud Cindy Gresser, Executive Director of the Smoki Museum, Kim Villalpando, Executive Director of the Phippen Museum and John Langellier, Director of the Sharlot Hall Museum for their creative leadership and collaborative spirit.
Finally, let me acknowledge Margaret Fallon, Alliance for Audience’s Director of Services, who worked with the museums to put Alliance for Audience resources in service to their objectives - and who would be delighted to hear from other organizations with requests to support YOUR collaborative endeavors.
More than a “Target Market”
Posted by: | CommentsLatino audiences are the “holy grail” of audience development efforts in Arizona.
The point was researched exhaustively and described compellingly in MPAC’s 2008 study: ARTS, CULTURE AND THE LATINO AUDIENCE: Latino Arts and Culture Participation in the Greater Phoenix Region, which opens with this statement:
THE LATINO ARTS AND CULTURE MARKET IS COMPLEX
It is large, vibrant and full of potential for the arts and cultural organizations of Greater Phoenix. It is also under marketed; the potential is currently not being realized. The research for this study, however, suggests ideas on how to attract and nurture a market that is now 30% of the metropolitan population.
CLICK HERE for the full report: http://www.mpacarts.org/images/stories/PDF/Arts_Culture_and_the_Latino_Audience.pdf
From a purely marketing perspective, this was (and remains) an incredibly valuable analysis. Yet, the report was written (as marketing analyses usually are) from the perspective that a “market” is a resource that exists to be tapped, mined or exploited. Terms like “full of potential,” “under marketed” and “how to attract and nurture a market” advance the theory that if we could just fashion the right message and deliver it effectively – that the pipeline will flow with audiences and their money.
In the aftermath of the signing of SB1070 by Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, this is an opportune time for Arizona arts & cultural leaders to re-visit the study and ask: Are Latinos purely a “market” to be targeted – or should we be aiming for a very different type of relationship.
Instead of asking how to attract Latino audiences to arts and cultural events – this seems like an important time to ask how the arts & cultural community can serve the Latino community. (And, not just the Latino community, but our entire Arizona community.)
My point is simply this: “Audience Development” involves more than elevating the arts and cultural community’s “marketing” presence.
You want to attract new audiences? You want them to feel engaged and passionate about the work you do? Then you have to rise to the occasion with the passions of the audience and the issues of the day. (The Kennedy Center’s Michael Kaiser made similar points when he spoke in Phoenix a several weeks ago.)
For better or for worse, Arizona is the epicenter of the national discussion on immigration. What can/should the arts and cultural community do? How’s this for starters:
- Charge artists, performers and educators to address the topic with the full power of their creativity and imagination,
- Produce & present high-quality and highly-relevant arts and cultural experiences and invest in inviting new audiences and making them feel sincerely welcome,
- Activate theatre spaces, galleries, lecture halls and exhibit spaces – this is the time to bring people together, to learn, talk and share,
- Empower your audiences – the entire reason you have invested in social media technologies (websites, e-mail lists, Facebook, Twitter, newsletters and more) – is to enable you to be agile in communicating with your audience. Use them now!
- Don’t be afraid. Even as staff members, board members, audiences and stakeholders may hold a variety of opinions – remember that our goal need not be to advocate for a particular position (though some certainly may, will & should). Nor is it the responsibility of the arts & cultural community to negotiate the solution to the problem. But it is VERY MUCH the function of the arts & cultural community to serve as a conduit of our community’s conversation.
Recognition, engagement and involvement by Latino audiences (and all audiences for that matter) is not a marketing function that can be purchased.
Audiences deserve to be earned. And the time for meaningful “audience development” is right now.
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To respond with your comments, please visit: http://notes.allianceforaudience.org/
To Connect People, Arts & Culture
Posted by: | Comments
Some jobs are too big to do entirely on your own.
You don’t grow your own food. You don’t build your own house. And you don’t treat your own major illness.
What’s true for individuals is also true for arts & cultural organizations. Some jobs, like raising the public visibility of our sector’s offerings and increasing rates of audience participation, are beyond the capability of any of single organization to affect alone.
That’s the whole reason for organizing an alliance for audience development – an independent collaboration of Arizona’s arts and cultural organizations established in 2003 to enable an incredibly diverse community of organizations – large & small, performing arts & visual arts, professional & community, cultural destinations and arts organizations, traditional and contemporary - to work together to pursue mutually significant objectives.
The need to make the most of scarce resources has never been greater. Interestingly, the opportunity for collaborative creativity and innovation has never been greater.
Please stay tuned to this new communications tool for dialogue & action whose goal is nothing less than to explore, shape, debate & learn new ways for Arizona’s arts & cultural organizations to join forces to pursue shared goals.
And, as always, please let me know whenever we may be of service.