Category Archives: strategy

Public engagement through the arts

I have enjoyed seeing how Canada Council for the Arts has joined the conversation about public engagement in the arts.

The latest addition is this report Dialogues: Public Engagement in the Arts (link to PDF)

Reading it, I noticed that much of my own work in recent years has become entwined in this national conversation:

  • As lead investigator and author of the Value of Presenting study, commissioned by CAPACOA on behalf of Canada’s presenting networks.
  • As part of the research team for the Canada Council’s ground-breaking Dance Mapping Study’s Yes I Dance survey.
  • As workshop leader and presenter at the Creative City Summit and CAPACOA conferences which were cited.
  • And references to the Value of Presenting study were part of the discussions at several cited events including Culture Days Congress, Wasan Island meeting initiated by the J.W. McConnell Family Foundation, and the Power of the Arts National Forum, co-hosted by the Michaëlle Jean Foundation and Carleton University’s Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

I have been enjoying collaborating with CAPACOA to continue to bring to life this research and champion the lessons learned and apply them on the ground.

I believe now is a good time for the performing arts sector as a whole and individual arts organization to think about whether they are seeking “public engagement in the arts” or public engagement through the arts”.

The Council’s working definition of public engagement in the arts is “Actively engaging more people in the artistic life of society notably through attendance, observation, curation, active participation, co-creation, learning, cultural mediation and creative self-expression.”

Public Engagement through the Arts

Public engagement through the arts aims at something somewhat different — and more. It alludes to some of the community and societal benefits we are continuing to realize and are beginning to understand better.

  • We are learning that attending performing arts improves health outcomes – there is plenty of evidence that participating in the arts via art therapy or choir practice, for instance, has proven health benefits; that attendance by itself does, too, I learned through looking at a much broader range of health sciences research cited in our report.
  • We  can see that there are strong correlations between civic engagement, like volunteering, and attending performances and festivals, thanks to Hill Strategies‘ reports.
  • Canadians believe social cohesion, pride in community, understanding each other within and across cultures and backgrounds all accrue as a benefit of attending live performing arts events, of bringing the community together, and bringing energy and vitality into communities.
  • My work on a needs assessment and feasibility study (PDF) for the formation of Sistema Canada as a national network for Sistema programs that can galvanize and grow a movement across the country allowed me to learn about how these programs are designed to help children and youth realize their full potential through ensemble-based, intensive music learning. These children are not becoming musicians, even though some might well, as much as they are becoming citizens.

The question I am pondering is this: what does it look like to design programming, curate arts experiences, behave in communities, contribute to solving community problems, create engagement in, with or through the arts, in order to engender some of these broader benefits? Can performing arts organizations design to obtain or increase these benefits in some way?

Certainly, I see opportunities for both approaches (the in and the through) to create lasting and important benefits. I do not believe one is more desirable than the other necessarily.

A lived experience

As someone who attends a lot of shows – for fun, not work – I wonder what, if anything, would change if the underlying purpose shifted toward my whole community more often.

There are examples of such effects already. One that amazed me was Northern Scene last April organized by the National Arts Centre. Ottawa has never felt more vibrant and exciting to me than when 250+ Northern artists, spanning the full range of cultures, heritages and backgrounds, were in the city. Attending shows and meeting people has left me with an indelible sense of the North I just have not had before. It left me knowing more, a knowing that is in the bones more than the head, about the country I inhabit and the awesome and endless variety of people and experiences. I have attended other Scenes featuring other Canadian regions before, but the Northern Scene felt to me like a cultural meeting of minds and hearts beyond anything I could have anticipated. It made me want to go North and see and learn.

In short, I was highly engaged through the arts with the North. And, perhaps not surprising, I am going to spend time this year in both Nunavut (for work) and Yukon (for pleasure). I will see. I will  learn. I will experience. I will be. And that, I am truly excited about.

Value of Performing Arts Presentation – So, what?

Since the release of the final report of 2 years worth of study, consultation and research to shed new light on the individual, community and societal values, benefits and impacts of performing arts in the lives of Canadians and Canada, I have had many opportunities to turn toward the So, what? and the Now, what?

The Value of Presenting is living research that I apply in my consulting practice every day, spanning from brand strategy and audience development with Magnetic North: Canada’s Theatre Festival to strategic planning with Alianait Arts Festival to ongoing consulting with the National Arts Centre.

A large part is giving public presentations and leading workshops. This winter is rich with travel to help presenters and the whole presenting ecosystem contemplate a few ideas – and share my perspectives based on this extensive research and my strategy and marketing practice:

  • Audience development: A roadmap to engaged audiences and vibrant communities
  • Performing arts for all: Utopia or Destiny?
  • The opportunities and challenges that the rapid evolution of communications technologies hold
  • How to lead audiences to new artistic experiences

Here is a list of 2014 workshops and conferences, that are being organized this winter. As event webpages appear I will add links to session and registration information:

In all of this work, I am discussion a vision of vibrant communities fueled by performing arts and its community-engaged partnerships.

Making information accessible

Long, comprehensive reports, however enthralling, are, at best, read by a minority. That’s why I have been preparing smaller, focused supplementary reports for the Value of Presenting study.

A report on Francophone minorities in Canada: La diffusion des arts vivants dans la francophonie canadienne (PDF)

A Special Report Rural Northern Presenting (PDF)

And the presentation in Powerpoint format I used for a couple of webinars to discuss this information with rural and Northern presenters earlier this month:
Presentation Rural Northern Presenting Highlights (PDF)

A special report on Dance Attendance Supplementary Analysis (PDF)

These reports go beyond the Interim Report that spawns them by deepening the specific information from our survey of the Canadian public.

Additional segment reports will be published over the spring to help Canadian presenters and anyone interested see themselves more clearly in this sector-wide study.

Media coverage in articles and interviews is summarized in this post.

Interim report: Value of Presenting revealed

This spring my life has been dominated by writing. The result is a major milestone for the Value of Presenting: A Study of Arts Presentation in Canada.Value of Presenting

In this Interim Report of Findings I consolidate the facts and figures on the value and benefits of performing arts presenting in Canada gathered over the last year through two national surveys (288 presenters and 1,031 Canadians), participation at conferences, leading dialogues and interviews with the presenting field and those found in the literature. Additionally, it presents a profile of the performing arts presenting ecology as a whole and highlights how several groups of presenters are distinct; for instance, those presenting works for aboriginal communities, francophone minority (those operating outside Quebec) and those in rural and remote communities.

The Interim Report of Findings:
http://www.diffusionartspresenting.ca/2012/05/07/interim-report-of-findings/

French-language executive summary:
http://www.diffusionartspresenting.ca/2012/05/07/rapport-interimaire/

The supplementary report on francophone minorities and presenting in Canada, with additional data:
http://www.diffusionartspresenting.ca/2012/05/07/diffusion-francophonie/

Writing is both solitary and communal. My thanks and appreciation go to the project manager at CAPACOA, Frédéric Julien, for reviewing everything and co-writing the French report. And my colleague, Pierre Lacroix, who has been leading the consulting work with the francophone communities and co-wrote the French-language report.

Over the next year, I will continue to explore the implications of these and other findings with the presenting field across Canada. In March 2013, we will publish a final report on the Value of Presenting in both English and French.

This next week, I will lead two webinars for rural and Northern presenters to review findings and begin conversations on the “So, what” part of this work. For webinar information: http://www.diffusionartspresenting.ca/events/

Economics of fear reloaded

Back in early 2009 I was struck by the incessant credit crisis coverage that had been going on since Lehman’s Brothers collapse in 2007, and before then if you had been paying attention to the sub-prime mortgage asset-backed securities issue. I thought it had to have impact on how people would behave in terms of consumption choices.

Economics of Fear and Sustainable buying practices

Now it’s late 2011, and we have just come through 5+ years of unending credit crisis, recessions and now debt crisis news coverage.

The coverage of “the markets” – those mysterious beyond-human-beings-making-decisions markets – is like a game show or maybe an endless cricket game, just a lot faster:  like hockey where the spectator never quite “sees” the puck but can infer it from the players motions.

The headlines are unhelpful at best to illuminate the issues – headlines are there to “sell papers”, or in online vernacular “secure eyeballs.” (It’s good to remember the motivations each industry has in its activities.)

Yesterday’s news of German Bond Auction not selling out is a prime example of disinformation moving faster than light (Neutrino pun intended): How many in the public who consume headlines know what a bond auction is, how it works and who the usual buyers are? If you read beyond the headlines you might learn a few other facts:

They come from the bottom of a Wall Street Journal article headlined: “German Bond Sale Spurs Worries”

  • “Germany had never tried to sell a 10-year bond that paid only 2% interest, and the historically low yields appeared to depress appetite among the traditional circle of buyers.”
  • “Germany sold 3.644 billion Euros at 1.98% average interest.”
  • “Germany traditionally auctions bonds, rather than operating a syndicate of primary dealers to place them with investors. The Finanzagentur, the government’s issuing agent, then gradually feeds the bonds it doesn’t sell into the secondary market. This system means that there is no pressure on banks to bid for the bonds or risk their relationship with the sovereign. Moreover, banks across the Continent are trying to reduce their holdings of sovereign bonds, or at least not take on extra exposure, Mr. Krautzberger said.”
  • Take a moment to check out the interactive feature in the article that shows how German bond yields have declined recently …

No doubt it sounds like the Finanzagentur miscalculated and underestimated the political sentiments and headlines that could follow if they did not sell out and the concerns they might raise.

Bringing it home I have two questions for you: How much are the headlines affecting news-spectators decision making about their own debt, credit, income, savings and spending? And what is your organization’s strategy to adapt as consumer behaviours keep shifting ever more online/mobile which has shifted traditional power away from brands and toward consumers and the platforms they use?

In the face of uncertainty what’s your strategy?

The economic, financial, political and social pressures playing out the world over (Arab Spring, summer and fall, EU sovereign debt, US Congress debt failure) do not mean we all disappear from the face of the earth any time soon.

These massive disruptions simply have become normal.

You do not need to act globally to feel the effects of uncertainty on your business. This is the time for organizations and individuals to re-evaluate their specific situations and build new contingencies, develop new strategies, uncover opportunities for value innovation. Your capacity to analyze, understand and adapt will shape your outcomes.

This is the time for the kind of iterative 360 degree research and strategy process I use in my practice, and others use in theirs. It is by examining internal and external factors and helping people evaluate various dimensions rigorously that together we can shape a powerful direction forward. More than hope it provides pathways for decisive action, grounded in fact and using built-in measures to recognize when course corrections may be necessary.

A few questions

Are your customers particularly stressed due to the financial market turmoil? Which customer segments are more affected and how?

If you are in the B2B sector, are you aware of your business customers current concerns and how you can enhance their opportunities?

As a for-profit or not-for-profit corporation how are you taking account of changes in your environment, in your customer base, among stakeholders? Have you re-examined the assumptions in your 1-, 3- or 5-year business plans, yet?

Are you part of an industry / a sector that has been struggling already to maintain a resilient customer base? Have you accounted for and created strategic responses to the alternatives challenging your products or services in the market today? Have you examined how your products and services are essential – or hard to replace – to your customers?

How are you perceived in your community? How have you been managing your brand in order to create value and trust? How are you evaluating your impact on your community?

How have you responded to the massive changes in consumer behaviour due to the internet and now mobile technology? How have you leveraged the new opportunities that come with online and mobile communications and what are the next opportunities?

These are a few of the questions worth considering. It’s in part the impetus for the series of thought pieces I have been sharing on value innovation in the performing arts, a sector I care deeply about. The process is the same no matter the sector.