Summer time is conference time, which inevitably leads to discussions about the state of the arts. The topic has been picked up around the blogosphere too. Yesterday I went to an event by the Austin Creative Alliance called “Crisis & Opportunity: An Open, Structured Dialogue” and a familiar discussion evolved.

I think it is time to reframe the discussion. The current discussion is based on some untruths. Let’s dispel them.

“The arts are in crisis.”

That was the premise, the starting point, of the meeting. Seeing some of the shifts in the Austin cultural environment, and indeed recent big (near) bankruptcies like the Philadelphia Orchestra and New York City Opera, things do seem bleak.

But Drew McManus recently wrote about a webcast on the supposed crisis among American orchestras in a post entitled “Relax, It’s Not A Crisis”

Within the first few minutes, the entire event seemed to be unfolding along the lines of predetermined outcomes. No one bothered to define “crisis” or juxtapose the Detroit fiasco and the bankruptcies alongside the equal numbers of healthy, extraordinary examples of groups doing well during the economic downturn (LA, San Francisco, Nashville, Chicago, etc.).

So are we really in crisis? Everyone and everything has been affected by the economic downturn, but what seems to be suggested is that the arts in particular are endangered. But much more than macro and micro economic factors, and certainly also cultural participation and consumption trends, doesn’t it ultimately come down to individual organizations and how they are run? Which leads to:

“You guys suck at business.”

These words were uttered by Kevin Benz, editor-in-chief of the soon to launch CultureMap Austin. While there might be some truth in that statement, the insinuation is that arts organizations need to be run like businesses.

Let me give you four compelling reasons why this is not the case: Enron, Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual, and General Motors.

On the other hand, and importantly, the nonprofit moniker has too often been used as an excuse for a lack of accountability, efficiency and success. What it means then, to run an arts organization like a business, is to be held accountable. Patrons and donors have invested in your organization with the expectation of a return. Not in shares or profit, but in what you promised them in your mission statement. Everything is measurable, including how you fulfill your mission statement.

“We need a new model.”

Interestingly, at the Austin event the discussion immediately led to a comparison between nonprofit, for profit and limited liability low-profit corporations. Before I could object to this direction, Marshall Jones, executive director of the Wine & Food Foundation, already told the room that tax statuses are not business models.

Indeed, your organization’s tax status is just a legal construction. There is nothing broken with the nonprofit framework. What is broken is the way in which people operate in that framework. Think about it: a nonprofit status doesn’t dictate your marketing or development strategy; a nonprofit status doesn’t dictate what kind of staff you hire and in what positions; a nonprofit status doesn’t dictate what office furniture you need.

The success stories in aviation do not come from people who tried to change the laws of physics. It was the innovators and adventurers that took advantage of exactly those laws that changed the course toward our mission to fly.

You don’t need a model. You need a mission.

But if you’re hell-bent on a model, Clara Miller (via a presentation by Andrew Taylor) says it best: “There is only one business model: reliable revenue that exceeds expenses.”

One of the things I love about moving to Austin is the Alamo Drafthouse. After seeing a movie there, you really can’t go back to a regular theater. The movie I wanted to see last weekend was sold out, so I did have to go back to a regular theater. Big mistake.

The movie was a mild PG-13. Apparently, that means you should bring your 2 or 3-year-old and let him improvise sound effects and let him continuously and loudly ask questions. After about an hour and a half of it, nearing the end of the movie, a Simpsons-inspired squeaky voiced teen usher finally approached the mother. The mother in turn chewed his head off and “wasn’t going anywhere.” A security guard finally moved in to make sure the remaining ten minutes were somewhat enjoyable.

Contrast that with the attitude at the Alamo Drafthouse. They have a zero-tolerance policy since 1997. And trust me, they mean business. And they stick to it.

Tim League, the company’s founder, just posted this in response to a customer complaint voicemail:

When we adopted our strict no talking policy back in 1997 we knew we were going to alienate some of our patrons. That was the plan. If you can’t change your behavior and be quiet (or unilluminated) during a movie, then we don’t want you at our venue. Follow our rules, or get the hell out and don’t come back until you can.

But he didn’t leave it at that. He turned the actual voicemail into the latest “Don’t Talk or Text” PSA and posted it on YouTube. The video just went viral with nearly 500,000 views in just four short days (nsfw).

The policy is part of their brand. That is why people love going to the Alamo. Sure, there are countless stories of consumers posting creative videos exposing the indecent side of business (United Breaks Guitars being the most famous example). But how many companies would feel comfortable enough to expose indecent customers?

It’s gutsy. But it fits the brand. It’s what makes the Alamo the Alamo. Reactions have been overwhelmingly and extremely positive.

That made me wonder… are there any classical music organizations that would feel comfortable enough to do this?

And granted feelings about the arts are subjective, and not objective like a strict don’t-text policy, but would an orchestra ever consider putting up a voicemail complaint about a, let’s just say ‘modern,’ piece and unapologetically stand by their decision to perform it?

I doubt it.

And to be honest, I’m not even sure I would have the guts to do it. We spend a lot of time apologizing in the arts. But sometimes, sticking to what you believe in pays off. Just ask the Alamo.

Do you have any examples of artists or arts organizations taking a stance? What would you do?

You might have heard about the Detroit Symphony Orchestra labor dispute. It’s not going particularly well. In fact, it’s getting downright ugly. Violinist Sarah Chang—originally scheduled to appear with the orchestra before it went on strike—backed out of a replacement recital after allegedly receiving threatening messages for crossing the picket line.

This post is not a comment on that situation, the strike, or on who’s right or wrong in the labor dispute. I’m not going to pick any sides. Beyond the public nastiness, the negotiations revolve around some interesting arguments, but it’s not up to me to be the armchair arbiter.

Although we have seen online and social media used in orchestra labor disputes before (think Columbus, Jacksonville), the Detroit situation is particularly interesting for its magnitude. It involves of course one of the major orchestras in the United States, the media is heavily covering it, and the emotions are running high. Orchestra labor disputes have never hit the social networks quite like this before.

On the Chang issue, the New York Times reports that “both sides said the issue was exacerbated by social media.” The Detroit News writes: “the fierce storm that blew up over the weekend reflects, experts say, the Internet’s power to spread a message to tens of thousands of people in a matter of minutes.”

Drew McManus, the best source of information during any orchestra labor dispute, offers a glimpse into the comments on Facebook and other social media.

So, what I’m interested in is how both sides do—or do not—use social media and what the implications are now and will be for the future. I might have more questions than answers, but perhaps the answers will unfold over the next few weeks. Let’s have a look:

Detroit Symphony Orchestra

* DSO Web site and messaging

While not necessarily social, Web sites are an integral part of online communications. On October 11, three of the six major stories on the DSO front page are related to the strike (Chang cancellation; press conference; and a message from the Board).

Particularly striking is the fact that one of the non-strike stories is about “a community-supported orchestra.” Is it appropriate to ask for monetary support from your community during a strike? Is it appropriate to talk about being supported by the community in a time when the community might have strong, divided feelings about the strike and its impact?

When I click through to the Chang cancellation story, I find another somewhat awkward messaging dilemma: the boiler plate (PR-speak for the standard closing paragraph in a news release). It seems out of place to boast about “trailblazing performances” when there are none currently taking place. What about the fact that other than indirectly with those trailblazing performances, the boiler plate does not mention the musicians?

Another example of such sensitivity is reflected externally in the DSO’s AdWords efforts. When searching “Detroit Symphony Negotiations” in Google a paid search ad with ticket sales copy—obviously based on just the key word “Detroit Symphony”—takes you to the front page. The manager responsible should probably take a minute to make sure the ad doesn’t show up in combination with the word “negotiations,” or perhaps rewrite the ad and destination page to reflect the search term.

Labor disputes and strikes are times of hypersensitivity with a focused attention on words and their meaning. Extra scrutiny toward messaging and branding is certainly warranted, particularly in an environment where one statement can cause a visceral reaction and a viral response.

* DSO blog

There has not been a blog post since July and none of the posts before then mention the negotiations. The DSO opted to communicate via their Web site, rather than the blog on matters concerning the labor dispute. Of course, the blog allows comments, the site does not.

Seeing the strong voices in support of the musicians on the DSO Facebook page and on Sarah Chang’s Facebook page, perhaps we could assume that if the DSO were to post anything on their blog related to the dispute and would continue to allow comments, we would see a slew of comments in support of the musicians, rather than management. And seeing the heating up of the sentiments, the discussion has the potential to turn ugly.

Currently, the institutional tone and style of communications from the DSO doesn’t quite fit a blog atmosphere. If the DSO were to blog, it would need to come with an adjustment in language.

Can anything be gained by blogging then?

I think so. The DSO would have a chance to explain their arguments in a less rigid, less institutional manner. Rather than passive aggressively linking to an editorial from a newspaper on the DSO Web site, it offers a chance to talk from the heart about the difficulties the DSO management faces in a blog format.

The discussion will happen regardless of your blogging. It will just happen somewhere else, completely out of your control. Wouldn’t you want to shed more light on your point of view? Ground rules for discussion can be posted and registration for commenting can be required. Don’t tolerate abuse and take the high road in allowing comments and responding to comments.

And although the mainstream media is jumping on one instance of ugliness in the Chang case, overall the discussion is frank but civil. Frank Almond writes on his blog Non Divisi:

I followed this pretty closely over the weekend, canvassing as many sites as I could that had running discussions. What struck me most was how generally civil the comments were, considering the emotions involved.

Perhaps it would even be wise to start a topic-specific blog. Your regular blog and Web site front page can then just have a subtle link to a place where people could find everything on the dispute if they are so inclined, rather than multiple stories dragging the issue out across your Web site. As Drew McManus wrote in 2008 during the Columbus Symphony labor dispute:

I’m not a proponent of posting any information about contentious negotiations or labor disputes at an organization’s respective website. […] instead, an orchestra association should create a separate website they can use to present their position in any way they see fit. This will allow the organization’s patrons and other website visitors to continue utilizing the orchestra’s website without fear of driving anyone away, especially those who don’t want to be courted to one side or another in a dispute and are only looking for concert or outreach information.

I am reminded of the stART.10 key note by Shelley Bernstein at the Brooklyn Museum. She gave the reason why Brooklyn Museum allows comments: “We are fallible.” She added that the community really, really values when an organization is listening and “when the going gets tough, foster discussion.”

Although the stakes were not nearly as high, Shelley displays this attitude in a recent blog post. A New York Times article slammed the museum’s iPhone app. Rather than sulking, Shelley fostered discussion among the museum’s community. It’s a good model.

But there is a fine line between stating and defending your position and “airing dirty laundry.” As one commenter on the DSO Facebook Fan page wrote:

I love the DSO. I truly do. But the very public way you are airing your dirty laundry during this strike will only serve to undermine the DSO’s future. Each derogatory press release or public statement by the executive office puts the public in the uncomfortable position of having to take sides in a dispute that should only internally involve labor and management. As a lover of music, I don’t want to take sides in a nasty labor dispute. It’s none of my business. I just want to listen to music from an orchestra that I love and am proud represents our struggling city. […] I hope management and the musicians can reach a settlement soon. We need you here in Detroit!!!

We all know social media is about conversations, but negotiations are typically conversations between two parties behind closed doors. It goes public when it goes wrong, as in the Detroit Symphony case, and public nowadays means the Internet and social media.

The DSO should consider the messaging of their usual communications in this hypersensitive situation and they should be smart about where they would like to lead the conversation from their infrastructure (as well as monitoring conversations outside of their infrastructure). It is important to stick to the high road and lead a civil discussion.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, keep in mind that this labor dispute will not be resolved through social media. In the end, the conversation will once again take place behind closed doors, between the two parties. And that’s where the decisions are made. But whatever is written and said online has a good chance of remaining online for people to find long after tensions have cooled. Search engine results are already impacted (see images below) and you will have to monitor what the long term impact will be and perhaps think about optimizing content for certain search terms.

Results on Google when searching Detroit Symphony

* Other social media

• The DSO has posted one video concerning the labor dispute: a recording of the October 6 press conference.
• Other than posting some official statements and links to news articles, the DSO has not actively engaged in Twitter. A search on Twitter doesn’t yield many results that include the @detroitsymphony handle in tweets about the dispute.
• The DSO Facebook Fan page contains similar statements and links to articles. Interestingly, the responses from fans have been mostly in support of the musicians. See Drew McManus’ post to see examples.
• I thought it was interesting that the Wikipedia entry has not been updated with a mention of the strike. Certainly, both management and musicians should refrain from doing so.

Detroit Symphony Orchestra musicians

* Musicians’ Web site

The musicians of the DSO registered their own domain in March 2010 with the obvious intent to make use of it during negotiations. It’s an interesting collection of writings—much of it opinion writing by different musicians. The challenge, naturally, is creating one voice for the many musicians in the orchestra. Each group of orchestra musicians has typically appointed a spokesperson, who conveys the musicians’ stance, but the Web site offers perspectives from several musicians. I do wonder what the writing, editing and publishing process is and how much scrutiny and consideration each article receives.

There is a steady stream of content coming from the Web site, so the musicians seem to have the process well under control. Interestingly, the site remains mostly a broadcast tool. Other than an opportunity to “talk to us” via a form and the display of some of those comments, the musicians do not invite much of a conversation on their site; they do not blog.

For the public, the place to comment is the musicians’ Facebook Fan page, which only has about 1,000 fewer fans than the official DSO page (it would be interesting to track if people have been abandoning the DSO page due to the strike). On the musicians’ Facebook page, you will only really find comments in support of the musicians. What’s telling is that most of the industry-focused places will have much support for the musicians, whereas comments underneath mainstream media articles seem more balanced. The big difference being transparency, perhaps, as most mainstream media allow for anonymous commenting.

Furthermore, the musicians (although this certainly counts for the DSO as well) need to take into account that whatever they write is expected to be archived somewhere on the Internet, even if the particular Web sites are taken down.

Another challenge is to keep “rogue” musicians (and from the DSO’s perspective staff or board members) in check. This harks back to the need for always taking the high road, leading in civil discussions, and realizing everything can be shared at will and will be archived for eternity.

I found this quote by Anne Parsons in the New York Times very interesting:

Ms. Parsons said that while she hoped union members were not behind the worst postings, “nevertheless, the union must take responsibility for the behavior of its members.”

I won’t comment on the appropriateness of the insinuation in this quote (which in itself should be enough of a comment), but it is a good indication of the challenge to keep “rogue” voices in check, even if by association.

* Other social media

• The musicians are active on a multitude of platforms. One of them is YouTube. While I do like the idea behind the videos, the execution leaves something to be desired. I’m not referring to the quality of the videos, but rather to the content, messaging and perhaps most of all delivery.
• The musicians’ Twitter feed displays mostly links to their Web site or articles in support of their position. Not a thoroughly engaging experience, not much of a conversation. It would be interesting if the musicians could start using a hash tag to incite conversation. Perhaps I could suggest #DSOstrike.
• They have a grand total of nine friends on MySpace and haven’t posted an update since July. The funny thing is that their current mood is “good” on MySpace. They also have a company profile on LinkedIn, but it’s bare. I’m not entirely sure why they would link to these efforts.

Wrapping up

The musicians seem to be much more adept at garnering support online. It looks like classical music fans mostly come to the musicians’ defense, whereas the general public is a little more divided. The musicians use their social media tools mostly to garner support from the classical music fans, whereas the DSO has a much more delicate line to balance with the institutional accounts.

Both parties seem to focus much of the efforts on broadcasting their positions, rather than truly fostering a discussion. Both sides want public opinion on their side, but don’t necessarily invite the public to weigh in. Furthermore, it is a challenge to tastefully show public support. It might look tacky for the DSO to display this support, but for the musicians perhaps less so.

In the end, I am reminded of Malcolm Gladwell’s article in The New Yorker. Social media support does not necessarily and automatically translate into real world support. A “like” or a comment on a Facebook page doesn’t equate joining the picket line. Nor do supportive comments necessarily help any of the parties win concessions in the negotiation. Yes, social media broadens the discussion willingly or unwillingly, but as mentioned earlier, the labor dispute will ultimately be resolved by the two parties behind closed doors and not on the social media stage or in the court of public opinion.

Even when an agreement is reached, there will be some cleaning up to do in the short term and long term. On Google, there is already a heavy correlation between the “negotiations” and “strike” search terms and the DSO. It will take a little while to clean up the SEO mess, but people will always be able to look back and find remnants of these public, social media discussions. That’s why it is so important to find the right messaging and keep the discussion civil. And what are the musicians going to do with their Facebook Fan page?

What do you think? Blog or no blog? How can the DSO balance a line between institutional messaging and their labor dispute arguments? How can the musicians use Twitter better to their advantage? What will the impact of social media be on the strike and the negotiations?

One of the key elements of social media is “the community.” Without a community, there wouldn’t be a social in social media. But what exactly is this community?

In my post on a fictional online community manager position on the Orchestra Revolution blog, Jean Shirk, public relations manager at the San Francisco Symphony, posed some important questions:

Do people actually want to meet and interact with one another online or in person, or do they want to read, watch, and listen online? Do they want to meet new people in person, or are they content with going with friends they already know to the concert hall?

Regardless of these questions, we still tend to define classical music goers in Chicago or San Francisco as a community within the respective cities, and we still define classical music fans gathering on various social networks as communities.

Benedict Anderson, author of Imagined Communities, a seminal theory on nationalism, argues that a nation is just that: imagined. It is imagined because “the members of even the smallest nation will never know most of their fellow-members, meet them, or even hear of them, yet in the minds of each lives the image of their communion.”

Classical music communities and online communities in today’s social media environment are not so different. At any given concert, how many patrons know each other? In any online community, how many participants have met other participants face-to-face? Yet a patron feels a bond with his fellow concertgoers, and a Facebook fan of the London Symphony Orchestra feels a bond, however small, with other fans.

When I was in my late teens, I was a member on an R.E.M. fan Web site. This was before the term social media was ever even coined, yet the site was more social than most sites today. While members never really knew most of their fellow-members, let alone met their fellow-members, in the minds of each lived an image of a community, centered on a common interest in the music of a particular band.

Anderson argues that imagining the idea of a nation arose historically after social and scientific discoveries—most notably the emergence of the printing press under a system of capitalism—reduced privileged access to knowledge and paved the way to the vernacularizing of religious communication, which led to democratization, liberalization, and the increasing difficulty of justifying divine and dynastic power. In short, a history-altering change in information dissemination and communication fueled the Reformation and Enlightenment, which “made it possible for rapidly growing numbers of people to think about themselves, and to relate to others, in profoundly new ways.”

The origins of online communities have a similar, although less profound, story. And that’s to be expected; we cannot start to compare the imagining of nations with online communities in terms of impact and stakes. And whereas imagining the nation forever changed worldly, political power, perhaps our current story of online communities is best showcased by the impact it has on business; the increasing difficulty of justifying modern day divine and dynastic power: corporations and institutions.

The discoveries of the computer age paved the way. The Internet greatly reduced privileged access to knowledge and social media vernacularized our communication. Where local languages replaced Latin in religious communication in Anderson’s outlook; authentic conversations, text speak and colloquialism replaces corporate and institutional language in the social media age. The Cluetrain Manifesto speaks of the current homogenized “voice” of business that will “seem as contrived and artificial as the language of the 18th century French court.”

This change in communication liberalized the masses and democratized the playing field. In Anderson’s outlook, kings and emperors were replaced by republics and democracies; in today’s world we see, as the Cluetrain Manifesto once again puts it, networked markets that “are beginning to self-organize faster than the companies that have traditionally served them.”

This self-organization is described in Beth Kanter and Allison Fine’s new book The Networked Nonprofit. The authors talk about the rise of Millennials, or digital natives, those who have grown up in today’s vernacularized, social media world. These Millennials no longer owe allegiance to any particular company or organization; they self-organize as “free agents.”

The R.E.M. fan Web site mentioned earlier was just such as thing. It wasn’t started by the band or the record label. It was started by a devoted, free agent fan. The site and particularly the community weren’t built overnight. It took many people in this imagined community.

And to answer Jean Shirk’s question: did people actually want to meet and interact? Yes! Despite the virtual nature and the scattered geography of its member base, among the very active participants there were meet ups at concerts, offline friendships, and if I remember correctly, even a marriage or two. Not so different from the non-virtual world that also sees varying degrees of involvement in the community.

And through social media, these online imagined communities have real power and they know it. “If [companies] don’t quite see the light,” warn the authors of the Cluetrain Manifesto, “some other outfit will come along that’s more attentive, more interesting, more fun to play with.” Kanter and Fine urge the modern, networked organization to engage these free agents and leverage their social networks.

R.E.M. saw the light and engaged with its free agents and fans online. It is perhaps not entirely coincidentally that the guy who started up the fan site now heads up the emerging technology department at the record label.

So perhaps this is a warning to the big dynastic powers in classical music: the big orchestras and the major opera houses. Extraordinary changes in communication brought down kings and emperors in the past. Another noted historian, Eric Hobsbawm, paraphrases Pierre Vilar in his book Nations and Nationalism since 1780: “what characterized the nation-people as seen from below was precisely that it represented the common interest against particular interests, the common good against privilege.”

You want to be a part of the common interest, the common good and not be defined as a particular interest or a privilege. Does anything indicate more clearly the need to engage with your people, rather than dictating to your people?

Ignore at your own peril. We all know what happened to Marie Antoinette after she uttered the words “Let them eat cake.” *

* Words she in fact never uttered. But she was executed nonetheless.

There was a minor storm in the classical music blogosphere in the last two weeks or so. What started it was Heather Mac Donald’s article Classical Music’s New Golden Age and Greg Sandow’s massive, blunt, multiple post response, which was then again countered by Mac Donald.

Mac Donald claims classical music has entered a new golden age and her central thesis is basically this:

It is indisputable that classical-music lovers have never enjoyed such an abundance of great music, performed at levels of consummate artistry.

Indeed, this is indisputable. There are some good arguments to back up her thesis too, and she lists some of them: more orchestras now than in 1937; more and higher quality recordings; more and higher quality musicians through conservatories.

By all means, it looks like Mac Donald is right. However, as Michael Bruce writes in one of the comments underneath one of Sandow’s posts: “Golden ages, by definition, do not last.”

And that’s perhaps Sandow’s central thesis: the classical music environment, such as it is, is unsustainable.

At the onset of writing this article, I thought I was going to stand somewhere in the middle. No golden age, but rather strike the golden mean between Mac Donald and Sandow. But then I realized they’re both arguing quite different things.

Mac Donald argues that sheer quality and quantity of performances must mean we’re in a golden age and Sandow argues that audience trends indicate that the current structure is not sustainable. So Mac Donald is arguing from the viewpoint of performances, whereas Sandow is arguing from the standpoint of audiences.

And that’s precisely why this matter is such a delicate issue. In business everything revolves around the customer (the audience); however, in the arts, things really revolve around the product (the performance). But of course, this doesn’t preclude the need for an audience in the arts (otherwise, what’s the point), and more specifically an audience that can sustain the art.

So where Mac Donald argues that the product is experiencing a golden age, Sandow argues that the audience for the product is declining. These two are mutually exclusive if you take a snapshot in time: one is an observation in a specific moment in time; the other is a trend over time and a prediction for the future. So it’s only when you start looking into the future, you see that the two will affect each other. This qualitative and quantitative golden age of classical music cannot be sustained if the audience keeps declining.

So, the fact that there are now more orchestras than in 1937 is a good thing in Mac Donald’s snapshot view, but it is not necessarily a good thing for long term sustainability considering the audience that can sustain this number of orchestras is trending downwards.

I’ve compared the classical music dilemma to print media many times. Despite the availability of an abundance of great journalism, written at levels of consummate literacy, one would hardly call this the golden age for print journalism. There really is an uncanny comparison in many aspects. The big difference, however, is that print media had considerably less time to react to the external environment that made it irrelevant (i.e. the Internet).

• Growth of news organizations: organizations became bigger, more complex, more expensive, and harder to manage and sustain. These organizations could not react to the changing external environment fast enough.
• Number of organizations: up until the recent quick crash-and-burn of print media, the number of magazines and newspapers was growing. This fragmentation looked good for the industry on the surface—more journalism, more niche journalism—but paired with a decline in audience, you are faced with less and less costumers for more and more news.
• Number of students: what about the number of journalism students enrolled in college? Surely, this says something about the level of training and preparation for the journalistic workforce. The number of students is steadily rising, despite the industry caving. This means quality goes up, but sustainability of this quality goes down.

So what’s happening next?

• Deprofessionalization: journalism, like classical music, will never die. But what are the trends we have seen in journalism? Citizen journalism and blogs. These are a thread to the quality of journalism (and the quantity of quality); when there is no money to support journalism, you cannot expect the same level of reporting.
• New business models: on the other hand, there will be a handful of journalists and publishers finding new ways to sustain professional journalism.

At the core, print media, or classical music, if you will, serves the community and will always serve the community. It just won’t go away. Their original missions and purposes are still relevant and true. Who am I to define art, or to define classical music? Who am I to dictate how orchestras should bring classical music to communities?

Curt Long, in a guest post for Adaptistration, wrote a fantastic article inspired by this year’s “Orchestra Revolution” discussion at the League’s conference: Changes In The Model…Do We Need Revolution Or Evolution? He ends with:

On balance, I would suggest that

1) in many ways the traditional model focuses on the right things, and that
2) there are still basic building blocks which an orchestra can implement which will help to address those things effectively, but that
3) the environment in which we operate has become sufficiently dynamic and complicated that we should abandon the idea that there is any “simple” model which captures what an orchestra needs to do to thrive, and that
4) every community is different, and every orchestra needs to make its case for community support within the context of the resources, aspirations, and priorities of its own community.

I think this perfectly echoes what I’ve been writing: that orchestras need a structure that facilitates a purpose defined by those who use it.

So although I won’t argue against calling this a golden age for the quality and quantity of classical music performances, we must realize that, golden age or not, classical music in its massiveness and complexity cannot be sustained into the future by a declining audience.

We have more time to react than those unfortunates in print media, but react we must. Not through revolution, but through building a good structure that will facilitate a purpose specific for each unique organization.

Classical music organizations of the future will be simple: they will be a catalyst for musicians to come together and make music for the community. Just as they’ve always been at their core. But on the way to this simplification, there will likely be casualties, big and small. On the other hand, new organizations, capitalizing on the changes in the external environment, will sprout and become successful. Such is the world.

We all know that Nashville got hit with a terrible flood a few months ago. This terrible flood didn’t spare the Nashville Symphony Orchestra (NSO). The orchestra’s damages were approximately $42 million and after insurance and support from FEMA, the remaining financial gap could be as much as $10 million.

A flood is no fun. I know. In 2008, my neighborhood was hit with flooding from the Chicago River. I saw the whole community suffering, and many still are.

I’m sure, scratch that, I’m hopeful, some wonderful major donors will step up the plate and help rescue the NSO from this disaster. The Los Angeles Philharmonic, for example, graciously donated $25,000 toward the symphony’s recovery.

But why shouldn’t we all try to contribute our own little bit as a classical music community online? Here’s my idea: leverage this network with #floodofsupport

I recently passed the 1,000-follower mark on Twitter. I was curious what that exactly meant, so I asked if people could respond with a simple “hi.” I got 16 responses. I pondered what that means for organizations trying to get more out of people than simply saying hello. I was pointed to the term “slacktivism” by Maura Lafferty.

Now, to properly commemorate these 1,000 followers, I wanted to see if we can get past this slacktivism and get some real activism.

I just finished Beth Kanter and Alison Fine’s The Networked Nonprofit. In this wonderful book, the authors talk about “free agents.” People who care about a cause, but do not work for, or perhaps more importantly, with an organization.

In that spirit, as a free agent, I want to raise a modest $1,000 for the Nashville Symphony Orchestra’s flood recovery effort. That translates to just one dollar for each of my Twitter followers.

Here’s all the important stuff:

How to support

* #floodofsupport runs until August 1, 2010
* Donate here: http://www.crowdrise.com/floodofsupport/

About Crowdrise
* Crowdrise charges 5% + $1 for donations below $25; and 5% + $2.50 for donations $25 and up.
* If someone donates $1, $0 will go to the NSO
* I checked with the NSO, and for them there are costs (credit card fees, administrative) and valuable human resources associated with many small donations as well. The point is to help them, not to make their lives harder. Crowdrise seemed the best option. If you have questions about your donation, check here: http://www.crowdrise.com/about/faq.

Marc’s mini-matching grant
* The first five donors who leave a comment underneath this post, will see their donation matched up to $5.

How to support even more
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Just published: an interesting study from the National Endowment for the Arts called “Audience 2.0: how Technology Influences Arts Participation.” I wanted to give a quick, initial overview with some quick, initial comments.

One would think that with the opening up of the Internet, with the increased accessibility, arts participation through electronic media has risen significantly. But unfortunately, we can’t find that out through this report. It does note that arts participation through electronic media declined by almost 20 percent from 1992 to 2002.

But first, let’s see what the NEA defines as electronic media: radio, audio recordings, television, video recordings, Internet, and portable media. Only the first three media were polled in 1982, video recordings were added in 1992, the Internet in 2002, and portable media in 2008.

So when we see this decline in participation rate in electronic media arts participation, we probably have to take into account that this was before the Internet truly provided more access and this was while radio and television stations were cutting arts performances and CD sales were going down.

Unfortunately, as the authors write in a note “the format of the questions in the 2008 SPPA having to do with arts participation through media differed substantially from those in the 1982, 1992, and 2002 SPPAs, making it difficult to compare arts participation rates between the 2008 SPPA and prior years.”

In the current report, however, the findings “suggest that adults who have access to the Internet are substantially more likely than those without Internet access to participate in the arts through any form of electronic media.”

I would love to see a report focused primarily on the Internet and portable media, without the effects of CDs and DVDs, radio broadcasts and television programs.

But there are some things we can learn from the new report, especially when compared to the 2008 Survey of Public Participation in the Arts:

The Internet audience and age

• Around 75% of those who saw an arts performance online, or those who created art online, were ages 18-44; however, people who look up art information tend to be a little older, only 63% were 18-44. In the arts participation survey of 2008, 50% of those attending the arts were ages 18-44.

The Internet audience and education

• Nearly 38% of those who saw an arts performance online, and nearly 44% of those who create art online, were at least a college graduate. In the arts participation survey of 2008, 48% of those attending the arts were at least a college graduate.

The Internet audience and income

• 33% of those who saw an arts performance online, or those who create art online, made less than $50K. In the arts participation survey of 2008, 30% of those attending the arts made less than $50K.

So we can clearly see that the age of those who experience art online is much younger than those who attend live art. A higher education, perhaps connected to younger age, is not as important for Internet participation as for attending live performances. And income seems not to be a major factor in difference, perhaps due to a higher distribution of Internet access among more wealthy families.

Another interesting finding from the Audience 2.0 report is that nearly twice as many respondents reported having participated in classical music through electronic media than through live attendance (18% versus 9%). The smaller sample of opera sees the same story with 5% versus 2%. This is perhaps not entirely surprising, as listening to a recording of Beethoven’s Eroica Symphony is easier, in many aspects, than attending it in performance.

Causation and correlation

But the question on everyone’s mind, of course, is if participation in the arts through electronic media leads to participation through other means, or in other words, live performances?

Interestingly, the report used some statistical models that predicted frequency and breadth of live arts attendance from arts participation through electronic media. Participation through electronic media was related to an increase in both frequency and breadth, second only to higher education levels.

But just like a recent study by a marketing agency, “Facebook Fans Spend More Money,” which found that a fan of a brand on Facebook spends more money on that brand than non-fans, was seen by many as causation, rather than correlation, we have to be careful with electronic media leading to other participation, vice versa, or the two even reinforcing each other. The NEA study states that “determining the causal nature of those relationships requires more research.”

The good news is that the study suggests that “using electronic media to view or listen to the arts does not ‘replace’ live arts attendance” and seeing the clear relationship between participating in the arts through electronic media and participating in the arts through attendance, performance, and creation, “encouraging arts participation through electronic media may lead to greater interest in the arts overall.”

What to do with this information?

Sure, more research is needed to determine the causal nature, but there is much useful information in just the fact that people who participate in arts online, are much more likely to go to a performance or create art themselves. The study found that the likelihood for media arts participants to attend a live performance was nearly 30% greater than non-participants and the likelihood to create art was 27% greater.

As an arts organization, you can find the places where people participate in arts online. Better yet, you can create such a place. You can gather and collect their demographic information, of course, and base your marketing and your outreach on education and income statistics, but what is perhaps more important is their behavior and the subsequent financial value of that behavior.

In the general population, half of the people do not attend live performances nor participate in art through media. About 13% of the people only attend live performances and a slightly larger number, 15%, only participates through media. But 22% both attend live performances and participate.

One question undeniably is why do those who only participate through media not attend live performances? It seems that education and income are related factors. It’s perhaps quite logical: media consumption has fewer barriers than live consumption.

Another point, seeing that participation through electronic media was related to an increase in both frequency and breadth of live attendance, is how can we persuade those who only attend live performances to participate through media?

So arts organizations should provide the opportunities for their attendees to keep being engaged with the art through media consumption: 1) it provides fewer barriers, increasing the diversity of the audience (age, economical, education, ethnicity) and fulfilling part of your mission statement of bringing art to the community (because who says it can only happen through live performances?); and 2) it echoes my Take A Friend To the Orchestra contribution on flipping the traditional marketing funnel: keep them more engaged and they will attend more.

And how do we keep attendees more engaged through media? Well, social media anyone?

An interesting question from the League of American Orchestra, which had its annual conference just last week. Unfortunately, I couldn’t go, but that doesn’t preclude me from chiming in (I did here, here and here). In addition, the opening session was broadcasted and recorded. Find it here.

The question was “what is the most important question to discuss?” and the audience, both on- and offline was to pick from the following options:

Purpose: What makes an orchestra matter in the 21st century?

Change: If we “let go of the past” and “embrace the future,” what should we retain, release, and go for?

Structure: How should an orchestra be structured, organized, and behave to be successful?

Relevance: What does the artistically vibrant orchestra need to look like to be essential for its community?

Relevance won by a mile, followed by purpose, change and lastly structure. Those first three questions, to me, indicate that orchestras, or at least their managers, don’t quite know what they are. Ian David Moss at Createquity writes: “My sense is that the orchestra field is facing something of an existential crisis right now. Why else would it so openly welcome questions of its relevance to audiences and communities in the 21st century?”

Are we really in some kind of existential crisis? I’m not so sure. Each arts organization, each orchestra is of course unique, but they all have a broad purpose in common: art. In whatever shape or form and to be determined by more creative types. And artistic vibrancy creates relevancy. Sure, change is needed to let go of the past and embrace the future, but we’ve been talking about this for years and we’ve seen some answers: engagement. Ben Cameron, in his key note address, talked about a market less defined by consumption, but more and more by participation.

To me, it all boils down to the question: How are you going to change, how are you going to be relevant, how are you going to fulfill your purpose without the necessary structure?

Jesse Rosen, president of the League, in an online conversation with Doug McLennan, seemed to agree: “I couldn’t help but notice the lowest scoring question […] was the question about structure. […] It may be one of the elephants in the room, because it is one of the harder problems to solve.”

Although it’s perhaps something that can’t be discussed in snippets of 140 characters, on Twitter, I received some push back. Ian David Moss wrote in response to my tweet that the purpose is art: “Whenever anyone pushed the ‘what is the purpose of the orchestra’ or ‘what excites you,’ nobody took bait.” Conductor Stephen Brown wrote: “how do we know what structure is necessary?” and “an orchestra with a great structure will still die if it supports an irrelevant ‘experience/product.’”

My problem with discussions about purpose, relevance is that they are too abstract to facilitate real change. And purpose and relevance do not come in a one-size-fits-all package. What the field needs is a real, hands-on discussion about how to facilitate change and how to practically prepare for the future. The field needs a new structure in a new environment.

In this changing environment the structure would need to follow a couple of rules:

* Creativity nowadays means setting up a framework in which creativity can happen
Ben Cameron suggested in his key note that an orchestra’s role is maybe “an orchestration of social interaction.” Jesse Rosen even questioned “are we more about reenactment than creation?” Creativity not just stems from the organization anymore. The structure needs to provide a framework of resources for creativity and allow and set the stage for people, inside or outside, to become creators.

* The structure needs an organizational culture that supports it
As Joseph Jaffe writes in Flip the Funnel: “…without cultural buy-in, organizational resource allocation, system integration, and best practices are like a transplanted organ rejected by its host body.” In an older book, Strategy: Core Concepts, the authors explain how a mismatch in culture and strategy occurs. I wrote about that in an earlier blog post on organizational culture and change. I have also used the very same book to look at a decentralized organization versus a centralized organization. And for the Orchestra R/Evolution blog, I wrote about Google’s 20%-time rule, which is one idea to allow creativity to come back into the organizational culture.

In short, the new structure needs to reflect the new environment. The often heard words transparency, authenticity and sincerity are not just buzz words. Eric Booth mentioned that “anytime you engage workers in conversation about their work, productivity goes up.”

The purpose is art; vibrant art breeds relevancy; the change that’s needed is engagement; now let’s build the structure to support it.

* Update: there has been more discussion on the topic. Find it here:
Drew McManus | Adaptistration | Look Before You Leap
Stephen P Brown’s Blog | An Orchestra’s Relevance Isn’t Relevant?
Andrew Adler | Louisville Courier-Journal | Orchestra Leaders Only Talk of Change

Last Wednesday, I had my whirlwind trip to Los Angeles to speak at the Opera America 2010 Conference. I arrived in L.A. Tuesday night—and was amazed at the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra mural during my cab ride to downtown—but I had to leave again shortly after noon on Wednesday. That meant unfortunately missing two of my co-presenters, some exciting performances, Placido Domingo’s address, and of course, all the networking and meeting and greeting.

That said, it was great meeting Ling Chan, Ceci Dadisman and Margo Drakos in person. There’s hope for the arts in social media.

I was on first in the seminar. I delivered a presentation on a framework for social media strategy. I got lots of interesting questions. I’m not sure if I answered some of them satisfactory. Things are usually clearer in my head than coming from my mouth.

Here is the presentation:

The biggest struggle perhaps is gauging the level of knowledge and experience in the room. I was surprised to hear the question “what is Twitter?” in the middle of my presentation. But those questions are good to gain back perspective. I don’t think they really didn’t know what Twitter was, they wanted to know the why and how.

The framework I provided contained perhaps surprisingly few mentions of actual tools. I like to stress social media is not about the tools, it’s about the interaction and community. But people do like to hear about concrete examples and tools, about tips and tricks. It was a good lesson for me.

On the other hand, the reason I didn’t include those concrete examples was because I keep thinking about what they are going to do with those examples. Are they going to replicate them? What works for one company, doesn’t work for another. In Amber Nashlund’s popular post Social media topics that need to die, she writes: “If you’re spending all your time building your cloned safety net based on other people’s situations, you’re already behind the game, and not focused on what your business needs.”

I will need to find a happy intermedium. Illustrative examples, but stress that social media and Web 2.0 are contextual and technological (respectively) frameworks in which you can be creative. We’re in a creative industry after all.

Furthermore, if I had included concrete examples, I would have picked the Vancouver Opera…

I couldn’t be happier then to listen to Ling Chan’s presentation about Vancouver Opera’s social media efforts. I already knew the surface of their efforts, but Ling provided the most creative case study of an opera company’s use of social media. I recognized a lot of the same key points I tried to make from a theoretical point of view in Ling’s practical demonstration. She described her own experience of the presentation on her own blog.

I wasn’t ready to leave, but had to catch the flight back to Chicago without seeing Ceci’s and Margo’s presentations…

The League of American Orchestras’ annual conference is just around the corner and this year, to my very pleasant surprise, they have set up a blog platform for (pre) conference discussion called “Orchestra R/Evolution.” I’m even more pleasantly surprised to see they have opened up posting to a broad host of people and inviting people to apply to post.

In Vince Ford’s post Keeping it Real, I got in somewhat of a heated discussion about ticket prices. What spurred it were William Osborne’s comments. William was misinformed about ticket prices. But it wasn’t his fault. Why? He simply googled “Chicago Symphony Orchestra tickets” and went to the first link. You might be surprised to learn that the first link was in fact not cso.org, but rather a ticket broker site that marked up prices considerably.

That made me think. How many people have bought tickets that way and paid up to six times as much? And how many people have been turned away due to the deceitful perception of exuberant ticket prices?

Search engine marketing and search engine optimization are not all that new, yet very few orchestras engage in optimizing their sites. And in a world where probably at least 40-50% of your site’s traffic comes from search engines, that’s risky. Orchestras need to claim their online territory back! (And Google is willing to help).

Now, search engine marketing is one topic. Regular readers will know that I have written about the topic a while ago. But social media is what I’ve written about most. So when I got a DM on Twitter from someone at the League to see if I was interested in posting on the Orchestra R/Evolution blog, I didn’t hesitate and wrote a post on social media.

With a post entitled “Social media… the tough questions” I want to challenge people in orchestra administrations to think harder and smarter about social media. So head over to the League’s blog and share your thoughts.