All stories by Joe Patti on BroadwayStars

Tuesday, February 28, 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[SHARE]
Monday, February 27, 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[SHARE]
Wednesday, February 22, 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 09:18PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, February 21, 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 08:54PM[SHARE]
Monday, February 20, 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 08:32PM[SHARE]
Thursday, February 16, 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[SHARE]
Wednesday, February 15, 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[SHARE]
Monday, February 13, 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[SHARE]
Friday, February 10, 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 03:00AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, February 8, 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[SHARE]
Tuesday, February 7, 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 09:12PM[SHARE]
Monday, February 6, 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 08:48PM[SHARE]
Thursday, February 2, 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[SHARE]
Wednesday, February 1, 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[SHARE]
Monday, January 30, 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[SHARE]
Wednesday, January 25, 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 09:36PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, January 24, 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 09:24PM[SHARE]
Monday, January 23, 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 09:04PM[SHARE]
Friday, January 20, 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 03:00AM[SHARE]
Thursday, January 19, 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[SHARE]
Wednesday, January 18, 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[SHARE]
Monday, January 16, 2017

Asking Boards What They Think Of Themselves by Joe Patti

A few arts organizations in my community are partnering to conduct an arts listening tour where we will go out into the community and try to get a sense of what the barriers to participation…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 11:31PM[SHARE]
Thursday, January 12, 2017

Theatre of Education by Joe Patti

There is a lot of conversation in the performing arts about potential audiences not seeing themselves or their stories up on stage. If this is something that concerns you, you may want to ta…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 03:48AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, January 10, 2017

Volunteering Ain't Free by Joe Patti

Somewhat apropos of yesterday’s post, Non-Profit Quarterly had a post about Phoenix Comicon’s recent decision to charge volunteers to work their convention. I am not sure this is…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 09:18PM[SHARE]
Monday, January 9, 2017

If You Give Me More Helping Hands, Give Me More Cash by Joe Patti

The idea of mandatory national service gets bandied about a lot, especially during presidential election years. This year it seemed to pop up more frequently due to the proposals for free co…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 09:12PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, January 4, 2017

If You're Happy Cause Your Boss Knows It Clap Your Hands by Joe Patti

Here is a little topic of discussion for you– Does having a boss that is an arts industry insider make for a happier work environment than working for one that comes from outside the a…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 07:33PM[SHARE]

Copyright, Public Domain, and Fair Use Guidance Provided Here by Joe Patti

Questions about Copyright, Public Domain, and Fair Use abound in the arts. Fortunately, the fine folks at the American Library Association (ALA) have our back and have developed interactive …

SOURCE: artshacker.com at 03:00AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, January 3, 2017

This Is What You Said, This Is How We Are Fixing It by Joe Patti

If you haven’t seen the first iteration of ArtsHacker’s Most Creative People In Arts Administration, hop over there now and check it out. Or actually, wait until you read the res…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 07:12PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, December 28, 2016

Don't Go To Abilene Unless YOU Really Want To by Joe Patti

One of the more famous illustrations of the perils of group behavior is the Abilene Paradox. I wrote about the issue some years back but in short, its a story management expert Jerry Harvey …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 05:12PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, December 27, 2016

Coach or Mentor? by Joe Patti

Looking back through my archives, I rediscovered a piece I wrote on the concept that most mentoring programs are really coaching programs.  The piece by Rebecca Ryan I link to is no longe…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 05:06PM[SHARE]
Monday, December 26, 2016

Anthropologist Eye For The New To Dance Guy (or Gal) by Joe Patti

About 8 years ago I received a copy of Presenting Dance by Mindy N. Levine, a book that provided some great insight about dance gleaned from conversations at National Dance Presenters Leader…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 04:48PM[SHARE]

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