Tuesday, January 16, 2018
The Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival just started a couple weeks ago. Despite temperatures which hover in the -20s, they are expecting about 1.5 million visitors before the festiva…
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 02:59PMWednesday, January 10, 2018
Apropos of my post on Monday about physical objects being valued more than digital copies, there was a fairly long piece in The Guardian about how a paperless society hasn’t been achie…
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 08:55PMTuesday, January 9, 2018
I recently published a short piece on ArtsHacker about how important the leadership of non-profit board chairs was to the success of the organization. Much of the information was draw from a…
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 06:55PMMonday, January 8, 2018
Roger Tomilson tweeted about Harvard Business Review article that provides some food for thought about how people might experience arts and culture. I’ll jump right to a quote since th…
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 07:10PMWednesday, January 3, 2018
As soon as I saw the first four lines of a post Seth Godin made last month, I knew what I wanted to write. Then he wrote a lot of it for me. Want to go visit a nudist colony? I don’t k…
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 07:28PMTuesday, January 2, 2018
Head over to CityLab and read an interesting piece about how Minneapolis health clinic used pop-up art stations to provide services in their community. People’s Center Health Services hire…
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 07:20PMSince the board of directors is ultimately responsible for the governance and direction of a non-profit organization, the role of board chair is rather crucial. Recently Non-Profit Quarterly…
SOURCE: artshacker.com at 03:00AMMonday, January 1, 2018
For those of you looking to make resolutions in the new year, (or just appreciate good illustrations of concepts), I offer Edgar Allan Poe’s thoughts on Procrastination as illustrated …
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 02:54PMWednesday, December 27, 2017
CityLab recently had an article that resurrected the subject of a debate I have been having internally and with others going on two decades now. The article is about efforts people are makin…
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 08:24PMTuesday, December 26, 2017
Community engagement is a common topic in the arts and culture industry. We talk about how important it is. We talk about successful programs that have been executed. However, there is rarel…
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 01:54PMWednesday, December 20, 2017
If you feel like you don’t have a clue how to run a successful non-profit and are just winging it, you probably know that you are in good company. If you are wishing there was a book s…
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 06:04PMTuesday, December 19, 2017
The National Center for Arts Research (NCAR) released the results of a study last week that, while not the most cheery news to release during the holiday season, is not terribly surprising. …
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 05:42PMMonday, December 18, 2017
For over two years now I have been talking about Arts Midwest’s Creating Connection initiative to build public will for arts and culture. While readers have had an opportunity to revie…
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 05:18PMWednesday, December 13, 2017
You may be aware that Google offers the opportunity to take virtual tours of museums, world heritage sites and other landmarks. This past summer, Wang Yuhao, the CEO of Aha School, set out …
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 09:36PMTuesday, December 12, 2017
There is a story I first saw in Non-Profit Quarterly that has been bothering me for a couple weeks. San Diego based arts organization ARTS (A Reason To Survive) is apparently in danger of cl…
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 09:18PMGiven the concerning lack of transition planning for leadership, there is increasing discussion about how general non-profits should adopt a shared leadership model, in some cases citing the…
SOURCE: artshacker.com at 03:00AMMonday, December 11, 2017
Recently Artsy had an article in which they noted that, “…TIME Magazine described (Georgia) O’Keeffe in 1940 as the “least commercial artist in the U.S.” The article, whi…
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 08:54PMThursday, December 7, 2017
If you hadn’t seen the press release floating around social media, Springboard for the Arts announced that they partnered with the microlending platform Kiva to provide artists a loan …
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 01:05AMWednesday, December 6, 2017
About three years ago, I heard about the PorchRokr Festival in Akron’s Highland Square neighborhood. I had since learned that there was a whole series of Porchfests that have sprung …
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:36AMTuesday, December 5, 2017
Back in October I wrote a couple posts about the newest iteration of the Culture Track report. The operative word there is iteration. The study is conducted every three years in an attempt…
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:06AMMonday, December 4, 2017
It is often stated that front of house operations are among the most important for a performing arts entity because it is the first point of contact the general public has with the organizat…
SOURCE: artshacker.com at 03:00AMWednesday, November 29, 2017
When discussion turns to how audiences were once pretty raucous but are now expected to sit quietly, you get the impression that those times are long past. Those who are plugged into the ope…
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 10:12PMTuesday, November 28, 2017
There was a pretty interesting article and ensuing discussion on a Harvard Business Review article about providing and receiving feedback on creative projects. As much as I have written abou…
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 09:48PMMonday, November 27, 2017
Earlier this year, I wrote about studies funded by the Wallace Foundation that helped Ballet Austin gain some insight about their audiences. Recently I discovered the Wallace Foundation had …
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 09:24PMThursday, November 23, 2017
I am going use the assumption that everyone is focused on traveling for Thanksgiving and not on reading blog posts as a license to be admittedly a little lazy here and not dwell heavily on a…
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 01:33AMWednesday, November 22, 2017
The Shelterforce website had an interesting article about some data collection techniques being used for Creative Placemaking efforts. Author Keli Tianga’s description of a crowdmappin…
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:54AMMonday, November 20, 2017
If you are gearing up for Giving Tuesday and getting all sorts of great promotional materials out in circulation, you may want to consider what potential donors might see when they start to …
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 06:24PMIf you are like most, you may view the 990 filing for your non-profit organization like you view filing your income taxes–an annoying, burdensome task best handled by an accountant. Th…
SOURCE: artshacker.com at 03:00AMWednesday, November 15, 2017
I would swear sometimes that Seth Godin is spying on me and then writing blog posts based on what I am thinking at the time. Or maybe he is just good at writing stuff that you can easily pro…
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 10:48PMTuesday, November 14, 2017
I was perusing the Arts and Letters Daily site and saw a link to a Weekly Standard article discussing how the idea of curation has evolved from PT Barnum’s American Museum to a profess…
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 10:18PMMonday, November 13, 2017
This video tweeted by Massachusetts Math teacher Kim Spek made me very happy today. h/t to Sarah Carleton Perfect statement illustrating the intersection of science, math, theater and wonder…
SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 09:54PM 
