ARTSblog

Americans for the Arts Convention Blog Stats (pdf, 288KB)

We know that not everyone can attend our Annual Convention. We asked several participants to blog their convention experience through the ARTSblog. Each track was covered. Some sessions or events were profiled more than once. The posts started flowing in before Convention began.

Here are some stats about American Evolution as it happened online. Our Google Analytics looks like an earthquake hit or something.

• 8,537 page views over the course of convention
• 1,122 unique visitors
• 2:42 average time on site

What was the experience like on your end?

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Wed, Jun 25…

Back at the office and reflecting on the conference experience:
This was my second conference and I really dove in head first this year. I was a volunteer (which rewards you with a discounted conference fee), presenter (gotta love Career 360), dine-around hostess (which I would have liked to have had gone better) and attendee.

My favorite things: 

1. Riding the train from the airport
2. Meeting new people – WOO Sarah Merritt!!
3. Being a member of the Emerging Leaders Council (gave me a chance to get more involved in the experience than I think I normally would have been inclined)
4. Donna Brazile – I’ll spare the “boo” references, but suffice to say, this lady is SHARP!! I love her!!
5. Andrew Zolli – ‘nuf said
6. Having my knowledge validated (sometimes, attending a session doesn’t really give me anything NEW, but it does say, “keep going, you are on track” and I need that for where I am in my track.
7. Learning new stuff – goes without saying, right?

And that’s that…looking forward to Seattle!!

See you there!

Ruby

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I think I broke one of the cardinal rules of blogging by skipping town on my own blog without warning. It is good to be home … to rest, reflect, and ask what someone at Convention called the “Alfie” question—what’s it all about?

What did I learn? First and foremost, to REGISTER EARLY. Staying at an overflow hotel makes it hard to blog, power-nap, or pace ones’ self throughout the days. Read the rest of this entry »

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For reasons I’m too embarrassed, exhausted or simply unwilling to discuss, I’m seated at the Phoenix Airport at 7:00 a.m. on my way home to LA. I’m not a fan of overnight flights, and I’m extremely un-fond of three hour airline delays – especially when I could have stayed at the airport hotel and swam in the pool or worked out. Oh well. Time for a recap.

This conference rocked. For those that have been reading my posts, I can be a bit of a tough love kind-of-guy. Read the rest of this entry »

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Time flies! It feels like the first session just started, but now its time to wrap-up. Unfortunately, I had to leave a bit early on Saturday afternoon. So sorry to have missed the Emerging Leaders Reception at World Cafe Live – such a cool space! In honor of my absence, I loaded my iPod with cool new music to listen to on the flight back to LA.

As I reflect upon the last couple of days, I can’t help but feel honored to be a part of such a great community of committed and creative individuals. Read the rest of this entry »

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While everyone else was at an ArtVenture Saturday afternoon, the rest of us convened to explore a new Convention track - Career 360. The goal of Career 360 sessions was to provide a forum to workout career issues, either assessing one’s own career or gaining tools to spark those of others. The latter was certainly the case at Multicultural Internship Programs, a session I facilitated along with my colleagues Talia Gibas (Program Assistant, The Getty Foundation, Multicultural Undergraduate Internship Program) and Will Maitland Weiss (Executive Director, Arts And Business Council of New York). Read the rest of this entry »

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I dug Sunday’s So You Want to Start a United Arts Fund session for the content and also for the form. Paul Tyler, Grants Director, ArtsKC Fund introduced us to the Pecha Kucha approach to PowerPoint presentations – 20 slides, 20 seconds each. Read about the theory and performance arts roots in the August 2007 Wired article “Pecha Kucha: Get to the PowerPoint in 20 Slides Then Sit the Hell Down“.

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Many members within the Americans for the Arts work in various capacities of Higher Education. We are faculty, staff, students and administrators who touch various combinations of the tracks of Americans for the Arts. Curriculum, co-curricular activities, civic engagement, advocacy, leadership development, you name it, we do it. Colleges and Universities are collectively the largest US employer of artists, commission new works in various artistic media, train the next generation of artists, classroom teachers, leaders and advocates.

All students will eventually become not only members of the creative workforce, but they will also become parents, voters or future board members. In higher education, we have the chance to nurture a passion for the arts – no matter the chosen major.

Americans for the Arts has the research, programs, resources (and the network is the GREATEST resource) and message. This is an appeal to the Americans for the Arts Board and to the strategic planning process – please develop a partnership with the National Associations of College and University Presidents. Help us inform up. Help our leaders in higher education to inform our own boards of trustees.

This is what I will do for you. I (and my colleagues who respond to this post) will identify the informed Higher Education leaders who are already championing the arts in their institutions – arts for ALL of the institution’s constituents; students, faculty, staff, alumni, business partners, etc.

With your support, we will also identify ourselves (and folks, this is where you sign your “John Hancock”) as a new affinity group within Americans for the Arts. We want more opportunity to network with each other. We want to share our successful deployment of Americans for the Arts programs at our institutions. We respond to effective models by adapting what works on one campus to the individual profile of our own.

In the spirit of our host city of Philadelphia….

We, the members of the Americans for the Arts who work in HIGHER EDUCATION, on this, the twenty-second day of the month of June in the year two thousand and eight, declare ourselves as an AFFINITY GROUP within the Americans for the Arts. We accept the responsibility of our sharing the knowledge and message of this noble and venerable organization with our complex and opportunity rich campuses. We pledge to work laterally, across the various vertical organizational structures within, so that we can better inform not only the next generation of consumers, but the next generation of citizens.

- Silagh White

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I can’t help but view this whole conference experience through the lens of its arrival in my hometown next year. What will we do differently? What worked and what didn’t? What does ‘Metro Natural’ mean? I really want to be able to show off the ‘Authentic Seattle’ character, but also be realistic about what we will be able to do…I didn’t even make all of the sessions I wanted to this year, and I had far less responsibility than I will next time around.

I really enjoyed the presentation I just saw about uwishunu, and am totally blown away by how smart, savvy, and authentic that project seems to be. I hope they come to Seattle next year. I also really enjoyed the panel that Ra and Lisa from Illinois Arts Alliance hosted on succession planning; I did manage to step on a small land mine during that discussion when I suggested that hiring young, capable staff and training them up through the organization was a way to protect yourself from succession crisis…apparently it sounded like I was saying don’t hire people over 35 (I wasn’t). It made me think about a few things for next year:

-Multigenerational Leadership dialogue: It gets a little too ‘us vs. them’ for me…I think we would all be served by being able to hear and learn from each others stories, regardless of age or institution.

-Combined panels with Economic Development and Leadership: In both tracks it was sometimes hard to tell which was which. I think these two areas are closely linked (uwishunu is a good example).

-I have 3 staff under the age of 25, all running different aspects of our program…I’d like to put them on a panel next year and explore what works/doesn’t work about distributed leadership, and what their view of organizational structure is. A lot of people wonder aloud what young people think/want; I suggest we ask them.

-Youth Voice: There is so much dialogue about arts education, but I haven’t seen any youth as presenters. I think that would be really informative

-Sustainability: It appears that this is out theme, and I hope we can explore a wholistic view of the idea of sustainablility…Organizational, environmental, career, operating structure. I have some great ArtVenture ideas for the conference that adress this idea. I also think that susatainability naturally lends itself to crossover between tracks.

I’m just sayin’

I love the people from Tuscon!!!

See you next time…

Randy

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Through the joys of technology, I have been stuck in a virtual world unable to post my entries—so on the final day, here is my first post.

I started getting unstuck with the Animating Democracy Workshop looking at best practices of civic engagement—and we moved. We re-framed ideas, asked creative questions, and literally spoke from our positions in the room. We brainstormed projects and examined how to bring dialogue, action, and participation through artistic and civic engagement into the same space, and what we can do once we are in that space.  

Other highlights thus far:

• An overview of the Arts Policy Roundtable on Arts and Workforce development—how Americans for the Arts is engaging with K-12 education and business to examine the idea of creativity as a critical skill
• A.B. Spellman and Claudine Brown discuss authentically connecting  programs and communities
• Rob “Biko” Baker share his experiences engaging youth through hip-hop
• Morning meeting on the multiple ways we work arts and higher education
• How to measure and talk about the impact of the arts as a tool for social change Read the rest of this entry »

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Following a hugely inspiring coaching session with Coach Julia, I will be spending this morning engaged in a bit of retreat, reflection and goal-organizing. I figure I’d better get on it while I’m motivated to do so, and while I’m here, in Philadelphia, and still outside of my Minneapolis routine. Feel free to take some time today to tele-retreat with me   … below are the questions Julia and I laid out during my session.

Questions for Reflection….

1. Where do you want to be in 5 years? 10 years? What does your life look like in your ideal scenario? Work? Family? Artistic?

2. What is your vision of a balanced lifestyle, right now? What would that look like for you?

3. Make a list of any barriers to your visions-what is stopping you? What changes could you make in the next month to remove one of those barriers? In 6 months?

4. What are your core values? In your personal life? In your professional life? Where do they overlap, and where are they different?

5. Create a mission statement for yourself. What is your mission personally? Professionally? How do they relate?

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On Saturday morning, about 40 conference attendees gathered together on the grass at Logan Park near the hotel (we started out in a meeting room, but were forced outside by the hotel-wide fire alarm) for a conversation about starting a “National Creative Economy Network.”  Proposed by Meri Jenkins of the Massachusetts Cultural Council, the idea is to link together people who are working on creative economy and community cultural development issuesd for networking, education, resource and idea sharing, and momentum building.  Read the rest of this entry »

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Yesterday’s highlight: Joyce Fellow Adam Thurman challenging the Americans for the Arts Board of Directors to give “us”—a new generation of emerging leaders of color—a voice on that board.

The board’s response? A direct invitation to work with their strategic planning and diversity committees in providing feedback on their strategic plan draft.

Adam, I think that’s a yes.

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Sunday, Jun 21…last day has arrived!

Moving slowly this morning…very slowly…the fast pace of the conference has finally caught up with me. Considering that I am about 6 months pregnant, it caught up with me later than I thought it would. On a personal note, it has been inspiring to see other pregnant women at conference…and to see families of attendees at the conference as well. I would love to hear from the other pregnant women about their experiences and how they coped with the long days and late nights. AND let’s get in touch to connect about being new mothers in the arts. I’m due October 5, 2008.

I wish some of the sessions had happened sooner in the conference, (i.e., the Emerging Leaders Meeting). This would have given us more time to get to know each other over the course of the conference, but it was great to see some of those new faces at the reception. If you didn’t get to see the World Cafe and have some time tonight before you head home, pop in and check it out…even just the main floor.

The reception hosted by the Emerging Leaders Council was PACKED!! Lots of energy, lots of conversation… Read the rest of this entry »

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Career 360 sessions today gave me tools to maintain a new commitment to thinking of my career path, family, self, and health. This was a strong reminder of what I already know—but sometimes it takes a convention to snap me off the hamster wheel of day-to-day routine. I already have a career coach. My coach is amazing. She has helped me to discover the power of my own ruby slippers. Combine my coaching sessions with the “Building your Career Brand” session, and I’m good to go for a couple of scheduled Me-Time moments in the park, under a tree, with a piece of paper and a sack of self-help books. (Bruce—I’m your next client!)

Oh, I do love what I do. But I have committed to some changes by next year’s convention. 

OMG! What am I saying? I’ve still got one more exhausting day to go and so much to blog about each of the sessions…. SEATTLE—there’s my chance to get to the city, drink their coffee, walk in gentle rain, and maybe bump into a real grunge musician. But wait…I heard the theme for next year. Sustainability and Renewal. 

you will see a new me next year…..

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