We are really excited to be heading to Seattle for the 2009 Annual Convention. Although Americans for the Arts hosts the convention, it is really YOUR convention. You are the presenters, participants, and consumers of this event. You are the ones who make it successful. We just set the stage for you to connect, listen, and learn from one another.
We are currently accepting proposals to present. DEADLINE: AUGUST 1.
Below are some suggestions for what separates a good proposal from a weak proposal.
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Tagged with: Americans for the ArtsArts-EducationBusinessConventionCultural DevelopmentEmerging LeadersEventsLeadershipPartnershipsPolicyPublic-Art
July 14th, 2008 at 10:13am
Rebecca Borden
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
Tagged with: Arts-EducationConventionCultural DevelopmentEmerging LeadersEventsLeadership
June 23rd, 2008 at 06:28am
Randy Engstrom
This marks my first ever foray into the world of BLOG…Please pardon any typos, as I am still a practitioner of the ‘Raptor’ typing technique, utilizing 3 fingers on each hand…ironic I know being a Seattlite, but I digress.
Yesterday I facilitated my first panel, and it was a great experience. Perhaps the best part was being able to spend most of the day with my collegue Anne Corbett from Cultural Development Corporation in DC. She’s such an inspiration, and I’m glad the conference gave us so much time to connect personally and professionally. We were sad that 2 of our original panelists needed to cancel due to tragic circustances, but our stand in, Matthew Kwatinetz, stepped in admirably. As is turns out, having to ‘wing’ the panel more than expected worked in our favor, as we had WAY more people show up that the room was capable of holding. I arrived early and started setting up chairs in a circle; our vision was to host an ‘UNpanel’, where we went without Power Point and instead tried to facilitate a conversation amongst all the people in the room… (more…)
Tagged with: AdvocacyConventionCultural DevelopmentLeadershipPartnerships
June 21st, 2008 at 04:05pm
Randy Engstrom
