Wednesday, August 22, 2012
The trick to sustaining an artist career - or really a career in any field - is to balance risk and survival. To get ahead you have to take risks, but the risks can't be so big that they end…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 10:58AMMonday, August 20, 2012
How would your marketing change if you assumed the audience is smarter then you are? Think about how smart/skeptical you are about marketing messages. You see the commercials linking light b…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:30AMThursday, August 16, 2012
You've got 1000 people on your email list. Your open rate is 15% How many people are REALLY on your email list? Of course you know the answer is 150. That's the actual number of people who y…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:30AMMonday, August 13, 2012
To effectively market what you have, you must be able to see it clearly. It's one thing to try and "spin" the public, it's another thing to try and spin yourself. You must be able to see the…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:21AMFriday, August 10, 2012
I admire people that are willing to tackle a difficult challenge by looking at it in a different way. That's what I thought about when I read this article from the New Yorker. Just in case t…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:30AMWednesday, August 8, 2012
If all you want is sales, you are setting your ambitions way too low. Speaking as a guy that has sold millions (literally millions) of dollars worth of tickets to the live performing arts, p…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:00AMMonday, August 6, 2012
First, a note to those who get the blog via email: Yesterday, I asked you to "pop your name in the box below" to sign up for my email newsletter. Lo and behold. many of you didn't actually s…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:36AMSunday, August 5, 2012
We've all got lists. Lists of people who subscribe to our email newsletter. Lists of Facebook followers. Lists of Twitter followers Lists of people who receive our direct mail. These lists, …
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 01:04PMThursday, August 2, 2012
The problem is that you forget. You forgot the reason you started the organization. You lost sight of what caused you to love dance in the first place. It happens. It happens all the time. T…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:31AMTuesday, July 31, 2012
Sorry I missed my Monday post. Life got in the way. ---------------------------------------- Job titles and descriptions can be deceptive. They can cause you to forget what your job actually…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:26AMFriday, July 27, 2012
The devil doesn't need advocates. All ideas are flawed. All of them. You could poke holes in any artistic project. Any of them. We have enough of that. The internet is full of that. Our soci…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:39AMWednesday, July 25, 2012
Many people are familiar with the idea of a performing arts venue being "never dark", i.e. open (in some form) 24 hours a day. It's an idea that should carry over to your marketing as well. …
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:43AMMonday, July 23, 2012
Marketers love demographics. We love knowing how much money our audience makes, what zip code they live in and what their ethnic origin in. We love knowing these things because we assume thi…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:36AMFriday, July 20, 2012
Below is the video from a plenary session called Ensuring the Sustainability of the Field. I'm a little biased of course but I think it reflects a really good conversation on diversity and b…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:30AMWednesday, July 18, 2012
Self awareness is important. When a leader of well respected, well resourced arts organization speaks about the "industry", they have to be aware of the privilege they live in. For every 1 p…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:39AMMonday, July 16, 2012
Language can be deceptive. When you say the word audience it is easy to see them as one body. In reality, any audience is composed of multiple segments that have very different needs and may…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:30AMWednesday, July 11, 2012
When you work with art, the list of things you can't control FAR outweighs the things you can control. I can't control whether an actor will miss a line, or if a dancer will fall, or if a mu…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:30AMMonday, July 9, 2012
It's 11:30pm in Vegas. But I'm still on Chicago time so it feels like 1:30am. So I'm a little tired. Plus my last journey to the craps table didn't go well. So I'm a little cranky. It's at t…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:30AMMonday, June 18, 2012
Something powerful when art and audience connects. Someone sees a spectacular stage show and it redefines their idea of what is possible. A person in the crowd of a sold out concert hears a …
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:30AMFriday, June 15, 2012
Sherlock Holmes is a smart guy. That's part of the audience's attraction to him. It's also a bit of a problem. Left to his own devices, the knowledge that Holmes has could easily fly right o…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:30AMWednesday, June 13, 2012
There are photographers who want to make a living from the work. There are craftspeople that want to make a living by selling goods on Etsy. There are excellent graphic designers that want t…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:30AMMonday, June 11, 2012
Part One is here: http://www.missionparadox.com/the_mission_paradox_blog/2012/06/the-future-of-the-nonprofit-arts-part-1-breaking-away-from-our-parents.html --------------------- Allow me to…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:35AMFriday, June 8, 2012
Here's the premise, having diverse groups leads to better decisions. Here's the logic behind the premise, courtesy of Northwestern University: "Diverse groups outperformed more homogeneous g…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:30AMWednesday, June 6, 2012
I'm honored to be a part of the TCG Conference, especially the Plenary: Ensuring the Sustainability of the Field I've offered my thoughts on diversity, sustainability and the arts in the pas…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:45AMMonday, June 4, 2012
This is probably as I'll ever get to a "manifesto". It's about the nonprofit arts system and how it can have an exciting, relevant future in a complicated, dynamic world. -------------------…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:35AMFriday, June 1, 2012
Part 1 is here So what are the characteristics of a good platform? Let's start with the idea that a platform can come in many forms. It can be digital or print. It can be based in social med…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:38AMWednesday, May 30, 2012
If you're an arts administrator and want to advance in your field, you need a platform. If you're an artist looking to be a part of interesting projects, you need a platform. I think that co…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:34AMMonday, May 28, 2012
A day like today reminds us that there is a value in remembering and honoring the past. It's important to remember that no matter what challenge you are facing, someone has faced that challe…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:54AMFriday, May 25, 2012
One more lesson from my post on Wednesday. At some point every industry breaks down into groups. Those who are trying to maintain the status quo and those who are trying to move that industr…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:30AMWednesday, May 23, 2012
Authentic efforts to expand/diversify an audience look like this: An orchestra is trying to bring in a younger audience. It's a common problem in the classical music game. So the conductor o…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:30AMMonday, May 21, 2012
You can't thrive in a world without understanding the shadows. You can't be an artist and decide that an understanding of marketing, financing, logistics, etc. are a job for somebody else. Y…
SOURCE: Mission Paradox at 09:43AM 
