Americans for the Arts

There's been a lot of buzz lately about coaching and I thought I'd extend this invitation to anyone who is interested in finding out more about and actually experiencing peer coaching circles. You'll have an opportunity to find out more at the 2008 Annual Convention in June.

Finding time to rejuvenate ourselves is a constant challenge when we commit our personal and professional lives to nurturing others. Are you asking yourself the difficult questions about your career? Trying to find a life-work balance? Put yourself in a solution-focused state of mind for the annual conference at this Advance Workshop.

Personal Evolution: Peer-Coaching Circles Thursday, June 19 1:30 to 5:00pm at the Americans for the Arts Annual Convention in Philadelphia. Space is limited to 50 people.

The National Arts and Humanities Month website is fresh with new content in anticipation of October's activities. One of the new features is the National Arts and Humanities Month Events Map. The Wayfaring website hosts user-generated Google maps that track everything from the best places to go ice fishing to art district walking tours.

Americans for the Arts is encouraging you to share your NAHM events by using the map and create your own Waypoints. After the jump is a short tutorial to get you started.

While I am in Wisconsin and South Carolina this week, several partners are unveiling their local reports across the US. One such example is the Cultural Alliance of Greater Washington's press conference in DC on Monday afternoon. The Cultural Alliance sponsored the AEP3 report for Greater Washington, including: the District of Columbia; Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties in Maryland; Arlington and Fairfax Counties in Virginia; and the city of Alexandria, VA.

Again I am writing from Minneapolis where Theatre Communications Group is holding their national conference.  Today was the last day of the conference, and I am starting to get a little tired (mostly because I had one day of rest between our Annual Convention and this conference).  Thankfully I convinced my body to get up and going after a couple of cups of coffee, and I headed off to the morning plenary session entitled "Visions of Tomorrow's Theatre: A Roundtable Discussion."  On the panel this morning were the following people: Kristin Marting (HERE Arts Center), Clove Galilee (Trick Saddle), Joseph Haj (Playmakers Rep), Ruben Polendo (Theatre Mitu), Dan Rothenberg (Pig Iron Theatre), and Sean San Jose' (Campo Santo).

With the convention over, it's nice to part with the chaos that is Las Vegas and apply some of the advice and models offered during the leadership track sessions. During convention there were many conversations, but now it's time for the action. I think this is most important considering the arts is a sector that is criticized for commissioning many reports, but not leveraging more action beyond the thick reams of paper. Furthermore, many think that these reports only remind of what what we already know.

So this is an experiment in my real time thoughts during internet advocacy leader Matthew Gross.

Former head of the Howard Dean campaign's online activities. He changed the game. He's sharing his rule book with us. As Nina said in the intro - He's creating the landscape we'll be walking through.

After considerable Vegas stimulation and conference information overload, I'm still thinking about yesterday's Arts Education Innovator and Culminating Forum session with Sir Ken Robinson.  I first saw him speak in Lisbon, Portugal at the UNESCO World Conference on Arts Education and then lucked out months later by catching his address to the National Governor's Association on C-Span late one night. 

Sir Ken Robinson is an excellent storyteller. He's witty, concise and manges to expose deeper meaning through simple narrative. (Check out his new book:  "Out of Our Minds"). He makes a strong case for the potential of arts education to address global economic changes and the growing antagonisms between international cultural groups.  His discussion yesterday of a "climate crisis in human resources" struck a particular note since some colleagues and I had experienced a related phemenonon at lunch the day before. 

With a title theme like RISK AND REWARD, I can tell that the convention has really challenged administrators to move out of their comfort levels and challenge the "norm."  Rha Goddess' inspirational speech on identifying and sustaining emerging leadership was no exception.   I've been pretty faithful to the Leadership Track but in  my interest in attending some other non-Leadership sessions on the program schedule, I almost missed Rha Goddess.  I'm so glad I didn't. Her ideas really resonated with my post on cultural leadership.  She stated that "If your art is not your center, leadership IS NOT happening" and challenged us to handle ourselves and "hold space."

Feeling faithful...stuck to private sector tract.

Trends in corporate giving and Arts giving from small business. Corporations: volunteer program is the largest growing segment. Good news for cities and regions with BVA programs.

Members of the Corporate Volunteer Council in Los Angeles informed me that creating individual volunteer opportunities for their employees are difficult. It's much easier to sign up 500 people for an AIDS walk. It falls to us to make it easy for the HR departments to tap into their most important asset knowledge capital , allowing us to leverage their knowledge, advice and expertise into stronger, better run arts organizations. However give this a read before you take advice from a corporate type.

"You can't solve a problem with the same consciousness that created it"

~ Albert Einstein

During Jerry Yositomi's (Meaning Matters, LLC) Leading with Limited Authority session on Friday afternoon, over 60 people reflected upon a time when we independently made an intentional change in ourselves or a project. In our positions, how do we maneuver leading those with authority that supersedes are own?

When people don't know what to do, those charged to make changes in leadership are often resistant to innovation. We question our competency (is designing such a program financially feasible or are we educated enough about the decision at hand to make an informed decision?), capacity (is it realistic for us to challenge our leadership or is it even worth it?), values (both personal and professional/organizational), and confidence (although we want or need something to change, do we have the assurance that we'll be willing to take responsibility for the outcome, whatever the case?).

If we arts administrators thought we had a herculean task before us, imagine the plight of the placard-carrying savior seeking to shepherd the lost to atone for their sins as we walked along the Freemont Street Experience tonight. Little did she know we (and by we I mean me) were quietly judging the Barbara Krueger-esque (minus the art) aesthetic of her sign as we craned our necks to watch the specially commissioned Jenny Holzer truisms live on the biggest screen on the globe (self proclaimed.) As a jaded, ex-New Yorker who now lives in LA it takes a lot to impress me and a multiple block long LED light display filled with a few minutes worth of Holzer's truisms above head as the drunken gamblers stumbled along was just this side of transcendent. Thank you to all the Sinners who made that series of moments possible for me and the unwashed masses with their to-go cups.

Vegas, baby! Sin city, I wish her luck. Makes my work seem a little easier.

Meanwhile...back on The Strip...day one at the Flamingo, or really inside the flamingo.