2,262 stories by "Joe Patti"
The quote that this entry’s title comes from, Churchill’s response to the suggestion that funding for the arts be cut to save money during the Second World War, is unfortunately …
Come May I will be leaving Hawaii to assume the position of Director of the Vern Riffe Center for the Arts in Portsmouth, OH. The University of Hawaii has posted my current position today an…
Writing about the concept of music discovery, Tyler Hayes suggests that after a certain age, most people are pretty set in their music tastes and in terms of paying for recordings of music, …
Via Marginal Revolution, we learn Brazil’s Congress has approved a monthly Cultural Stipend for poorer workers. “Now we are creating food for the soul; Why would the poor not be …
The President The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue Washington, DC 20500 Dear President Obama, Four years ago, I wrote you on the occasion of your inauguration to ask you to consider impl…
Last June I came across a useful article by Sarah Arrow about identifying your ideal customer. According to her, there is are a very narrow profiles which constitute a business’ ideal …
Last month Springboard for the Arts tweeted that the attendance at the Guthrie Theatre’s attendance last year exceeded the Minnesota Vikings’ home game attendance, 425,932 to 421…
I came across a piece by the Bridgespan Group about creating professional development opportunities for non-profit organization staff members when you don’t have the money to send them…
Angry White Guy in Chicago, Don Hall, recently re-printed a letter from F. Scott Fitzgerald to an aspiring writer. It made me think a bit about the definition of the professional vs. amateur…
Since the very beginning of the blog, I have been keeping an eye on the intersection of performing arts and religious communities. A recent NY Times article seems to include quite a number o…
My mother has been doing some hardcore genealogy research for years now. There was a trip to Ireland a few years back, last Christmas we were in FDR’s Presidential Library, this Christ…
I had been pondering on whether to post on this topic but Thomas Cott’s link to a Bloomberg News story about how leaders of arts organizations in the U.S. remain in that position far l…
NPR recently teamed up with the TED people to present the TED Radio Hour which takes three TED talks on a similar theme to revisits them with the speakers. The one I heard run this weekend w…
I often tell people that it surprises me what postings take off. There are things I write that I think are really insightful that barely get any notice. Other posts that I just dash off afte…
Today is the 150th anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation. If you saw Spielberg’s movie, Lincoln, you will know that there were many concerns about the legality of trying to make…
A couple weeks ago I mentioned that I often mis-credit my role in my 8th grade play as the start of involvement in performance and that it all really started when my siblings and I put on pl…
I was intrigued to see that the Scion car company is running a contest to help cultivate new entrepreneurs. Scion has always positioned themselves as a lifestyle brand, (disclaimer: I own on…
I am guessing (and hoping) people have more on their mind this Christmas Even than arts administration. I will pick up with posting on that topic on Wednesday or thereabouts. In the meantime…
The approach of the holidays provides me with a little more free time so I have been catching up on my “come back to and read” list. I got to reading a piece by Non-Profit Law bl…
On the Harvard Business Review blog site, Anne Kreamer asks “What If You Don’t Want to Be a Manager?” (h/t Daniel Pink) where she talks a little about the alienation one mi…
Producer David Binder did a short TED Talk about arts festivals. He mentions a number of new festivals which are engaging directly with communities in site specific events. However, it was t…
I had meant to post this link a few weeks ago, but you know how things get around the holidays. Back in May, Jeff Brooks at Future Fundraising Now listed 20 Mistakes that Drive Away Donation…
Seeing and hearing about people queuing up this year for Black Friday sales on the Monday prior reminded me about an article Tim Roberts wrote on Fullhouses.org this September. In it, Robert…
Last month, Drew McManus posted that we need another Abraham Lincoln. He didn’t go into many details, but I wonder what he could be thinking. Since he suggests replacing Henry Ford wit…
Some data on the most successful of President Obama’s fundraising letters is really destroying what I thought I knew about constructing emails. It turns out, the most informal subject …
