Don't Undermine A Good Crisis Plan With Minor Daily Inattentiveness by Joe Patti

You and your staff are ready for a crisis. Everyone, including your volunteers, regularly reviews plans for handling your audience in case of fire, tornado, earthquakes, active shooters, etc…

SOURCE: artshacker.com at 3:00am on March 8, 2017☆⚑

These Aren't Your Grandpa's Old People by Joe Patti

For the last 20-25 years, audiences have been getting grayer and dying off. We have all heard that statement multiple times in our careers. We have probably made that statement multiple time…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 8:03pm on March 7, 2017☆⚑

Cross-Sector Training, So Hard To Get Instructed By You by Joe Patti

Last Fall Grantmakers in the Arts published a summary of key findings from a study about community arts training. The study focused on the increasing focus of local arts agencies into cross-…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 7:36pm on March 6, 2017☆⚑

Music Majors, Special Forces of the Arts by Joe Patti

Going back to the Strategic National Arts Alumni Project special report I referenced yesterday, there were findings in another area that grabbed my interest.  The following chart breaks d…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:06am on March 2, 2017☆⚑

Resilient and Adaptable, Arts Grads Could Still Use More Career Training by Joe Patti

The Strategic National Arts Alumni Project (SNAAP) just released a special report that focused on how alumni of creative arts programs across different graduate cohorts felt about the educat…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 11:36pm on February 28, 2017☆⚑

Stuff To Ponder: Familiarity As A Proxy For Certainty by Joe Patti

Two years into a six year research project, Ballet Austin has started learning things about their audiences that run contrary to their assumptions. While the audiences in every community are…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 11:24pm on February 27, 2017☆⚑

You Took My Joy And I Want It Back by Joe Patti

If you found yourself agreeing with the thesis of my post yesterday about claiming someone is selling out or is dumbing down art is an attempt to exclude those people in order to save Art, I…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 9:18pm on February 22, 2017☆⚑

The Club Bylaws We Wrote Are So Stringent, Even We Aren't Allowed To Be Members by Joe Patti

Last week The Guardian wrote about how the current political climate in a number of countries has brought Arthur Miller’s The Crucible into relevance again. There are a couple sentence…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 8:54pm on February 21, 2017☆⚑

You Know The Type, They Only Want One Thing"Your Fund Raising Ability by Joe Patti

If you ever doubted that executive director positions were all about the fundraising and light on requiring artistic vision, the recent news about the firing of Ft. Worth Opera general direc…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 8:32pm on February 20, 2017☆⚑

Up, Up, Down, Down, Left, Right, Left, Right, B, A To Preserve Your Culture by Joe Patti

Last month I saw a story in the New Yorker about an attempt to preserve the culture of the Iñupiat of Alaska through the creation of a video game. I initially thought that the game hadn&#…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:42am on February 16, 2017☆⚑

Viral Needs A Plan by Joe Patti

I came across an interview Daniel Pink did with Derek Thompson, Senior Editor at The Atlantic where Thompson gives The 5 Rules for Making a Hit. Now I want to say from the outset that the ti…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:12am on February 15, 2017☆⚑

The Gravity of Culture by Joe Patti

Seth Godin made a post last week about maintaining a commitment to quality in your work. (my emphasis) When you seek the mass market, there are two paths available: You can dumb down your me…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 11:48pm on February 13, 2017☆⚑

Always Revise This Contract Language by Joe Patti

One of my earliest posts on ArtsHacker encouraged people to feel comfortable with altering and amending contracts.  Every organization operates in a different environment and has varying …

SOURCE: artshacker.com at 3:00am on February 10, 2017☆⚑

What Are You Saying When You Say Diversity? by Joe Patti

Australia’s ArtsHub site had a valuable piece on “diversity” efforts by arts organizations. I put diversity in quotes because the title of the article is “Diversity i…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 10:03pm on February 8, 2017☆⚑

First, Accentuate The Positive by Joe Patti

I was reading Peter Drucker’s Managing the Non-Profit Organization. In a chapter near the end of the book he talks about self-renewal through change of perspective using examples like …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 9:12pm on February 7, 2017☆⚑

Thank God I Wasn't Here When It Was Relevant by Joe Patti

I have served on my county library system board for over half a year now. They say public libraries aren’t relevant any more but as the title of the post suggests, if this is what the …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 8:48pm on February 6, 2017☆⚑

I Was 15% More Dishonest In 2016, But Can You Prove It? by Joe Patti

In my post yesterday, I quoted Matt Burriesci as he addressed how uncomfortable people feel when it comes to advocating the intangible value of the arts. We should stop being ashamed to beli…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:31am on February 2, 2017☆⚑

The Safe Thing Is Not Working by Joe Patti

There has been a lot of conversation recently about what to do in light of the Trump Administration’s stated intent to eliminate the National Endowments for the Arts and Humanities. Th…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:03am on February 1, 2017☆⚑

There Isn't A Template For That by Joe Patti

I was really grateful for Aaron Overton’s very first post on ArtsHacker last week.  Aaron is a programmer with a lot of experience in website development for performing arts organiz…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 11:42pm on January 30, 2017☆⚑

Yes, You Do Understand Art by Joe Patti

Last night I gained some additional assurances that everyone has the capacity to comprehend art at a basic level when they encounter it. Some recent university grads started a “creativ…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 9:36pm on January 25, 2017☆⚑

Supporting Coverage Of The Cultural Organizations You Support by Joe Patti

Yesterday on ye olde Twitter feed came a story about how two Buffalo, NY area arts & culture funders were helping to establish an arts and culture desk at a local public radio station. I…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 9:24pm on January 24, 2017☆⚑

Arts Aren't Great Because Great Men Say They Are by Joe Patti

Since the news started going around last week that the Trump administration was looking to de-fund the NEA, NEH and PBS, there have been a ton of memes circulating quoting Winston Churchill …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 9:04pm on January 23, 2017☆⚑

Managing Micro-Management by Joe Patti

Many people have horror stories about working for a supervisor that micro-manages their work. While that may be a hellish experience, it is even worse if you are the executive officer of an …

SOURCE: artshacker.com at 3:00am on January 20, 2017☆⚑

Does Creative Placemaking Work? It's Complicated by Joe Patti

Back in November Slover Linett released the results of a multi-year study on creative placemaking. The study was primarily focused on the impact that music pavilion and band shells that the …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:36am on January 19, 2017☆⚑

I Am Not Really An Artist, But… by Joe Patti

I often talk about the difficulty people have in seeing themselves as creative or as regularly participating in a creative pursuit. I was reminded recently that it can be the off-handed depr…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:04am on January 18, 2017☆⚑