All stories by Joe Patti on BroadwayStars

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]
Wednesday, December 21, 2016

Donor Baggage Revisited by Joe Patti

I am going to be away for about a week for the holidays. As always, I have prepared some posts to fill in for my absence. Since we are coming to the end of the year and non-profits are makin…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 02:54PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, December 20, 2016

What We Know And How Well We Know It by Joe Patti

Createquity just released a valuable tool for arts advocates. They compiled the data from all the studies they could find to provide a comprehensive report on Everything We Know About Whethe…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 08:48PM[SHARE]
Monday, December 19, 2016

Rethinking The Term Business Model by Joe Patti

In Arts Professional (UK), José Rodríguez recently wrote about how non-profit arts organizations frequently misunderstand what a business model is. The first misconception he lists is th…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 08:24PM[SHARE]
Friday, December 16, 2016

Deeper Dive Into Full Costs Incurred By An Organization by Joe Patti

I have written before about how to discover the True Cost of organizational programs. This is helpful when it comes to budgeting, evaluating your programs and soliciting support for those pr…

SOURCE: artshacker.com at 03:00AM[SHARE]
Thursday, December 15, 2016

Giving Without Getting In Return by Joe Patti

No, this isn’t a moral posting about how it is better to give than get during Christmas. I have been writing a lot recently about the transactional view of arts and culture, namely val…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:48AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, December 14, 2016

What Am I Going To Do With All These Skills? by Joe Patti

I was recently talking to a conservatory trained pianist who has taken a position teaching at a liberal arts college this last semester. He was complaining about the politics and bureaucracy…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:24AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, December 13, 2016

Be True To Your Audience Just Like You Would Your Girl Or Guy by Joe Patti

Last week I was initially dismayed to read 85% of audiences in Washington D.C. patronized one theater. I try to promote the concept that all arts organizations in a community need to work to…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:06AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Improving Survey Results, But Not The Experience by Joe Patti

Two days ago I wrote about how “experience” is increasingly valued by consumers over things like brand, product and opportunity.  Hopefully you noticed that I attributed my en…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 10:18PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, December 6, 2016

Now That I Hear You Say Aloud Like That… by Joe Patti

There has been some trepidation among members of the Kentucky arts community following the governor’s recent dismissal and reconstitution of the state arts council. Gov. Bevin dismisse…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 09:54PM[SHARE]
Monday, December 5, 2016

Who Cares About Losing & Freezing, I'm Having Fun by Joe Patti

Last week Drew McManus posted about the difficulties sports teams are having filling their seats. The reasons for this problem are very similar to those faced by the arts –an approach …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 09:31PM[SHARE]
Friday, December 2, 2016

Those Pesky Board Minutes Bear More Attention Than You Are Giving Them by Joe Patti

You may view the minutes of board meetings as an annoying procedure to which you can pay little attention, but they are actually important documents that form the legal basis of a non-profit…

SOURCE: artshacker.com at 03:00AM[SHARE]
Thursday, December 1, 2016

How Wound Into Your Identity Is Creativity? by Joe Patti

My post on Monday about employing a new definition to distinguish between amateurs and professionals garnered a couple comments and multiple loooonnnng emails (you know who you are!) in resp…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 01:54AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Are You Willing To Read One Blog Post or Two? by Joe Patti

In the course of 24 hours, two different articles about how to manipulate people into doing what you want came across my Twitter feed. Okay, it isn’t totally mind control but rather ho…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 01:32AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, November 29, 2016

Does The Professional/Amateur Divide Come From Within? by Joe Patti

About 10-15 years ago, the idea of Pro-Ams, emerged. Pro-Ams are essentially amateurs who pursue an avocation with such diligence it was difficult to discern them from people who employed th…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 01:06AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Stuff To Ponder: Expanded Approaches To Pay What You Want Pricing by Joe Patti

A few weeks ago economist Alex Tabarrok wrote about a strange “pay what you want” promotion a shoe company was running. It struck him and many commenters of the Marginal Revoluti…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 11:02PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, November 22, 2016

The Real Competition Is Inaction by Joe Patti

As he often does, Seth Godin is speaks right to the arts and culture industry when he suggests that we welcome an environment where there is a lot of activity similar to our own rather than …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 10:31PM[SHARE]
Monday, November 21, 2016

If You Give A Teen $100…. by Joe Patti

Recently James Doeser wrote about a program the Italian government started where they granted a culture voucher worth €500 to anyone who turns 18 before December 31. It can be used to …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 10:12PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, November 16, 2016

Frank Discussion About Outreach, New Audiences Efforts In The Community by Joe Patti

A couple of good articles on the influence non-profits in the community came out this week. CityLab noted that in some communities, non-profits were exhibiting greater influence and leadersh…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 09:03PM[SHARE]

Is Your Non-Profit Subject To Open Meeting Laws? by Joe Patti

Did you know that your non-profit organization has to allow anyone to attend your board and committee meetings and turn over copies of your minutes upon demand? Or maybe you don’t. Ope…

SOURCE: artshacker.com at 03:00AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, November 15, 2016

How Do I Know If I Should Be Impressed? by Joe Patti

I was intrigued by an article in The Guardian last month that wondered if we enjoy art when it is anonymous, without any preconceived expectations about what we will experience. During the D…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 08:42PM[SHARE]
Monday, November 14, 2016

Those Experiences Don't Need To Be More Like Our Experiences by Joe Patti

On blogs like mine that address the concerns of non-profit organizations there is frequently discussion about how we bridle under the suggestion that non-profits need to be run more like bus…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 08:18PM[SHARE]
Thursday, November 10, 2016

Clarifying Pricing Practices by Joe Patti

Colleen Dilenschneider made some really important points about misunderstood concepts that lead non-profit organizations to make poor decisions and policies. The “Six Concepts that Vis…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:31AM[SHARE]
Wednesday, November 9, 2016

Of Thee I Sing (Baby) by Joe Patti

On this fairly tense Election Day, I wanted to offer a little levity by drawing attention to the 1931 Gershwin brother’s musical, Of Thee I Sing. The university theater department pres…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:06AM[SHARE]
Monday, November 7, 2016

Funding Requests As Panhandling by Joe Patti

I have been listening to On The Media’s series on the way poverty is covered in America and suddenly came to the realization that the language associated with the poor has many similar…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 11:54PM[SHARE]
Wednesday, November 2, 2016

How Much Would You Pay For A Selfie With Me? by Joe Patti

Some concepts have been banging around in my head for a little while that haven’t quite firmed up yet. I am hoping writing it down and getting some feedback from others might help to s…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 10:48PM[SHARE]
Tuesday, November 1, 2016

If We Build It, Please Don't Come by Joe Patti

I am interested to see that artists are gaining an increasingly sophisticated view of their role in gentrifying neighborhoods. Non Profit Quarterly reported on a gathering in Miami to discus…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 09:42PM[SHARE]
Monday, October 31, 2016

Gasp! Orchestra Strike Post That Doesn't Devolve To "Overpaid Bums" by Joe Patti

On the Marginal Revolution blog, economist Tyler Cowen quotes bits of a Wall Street Journal article on orchestra strikes by Terry Teachout and ends with what seems to be an implication that …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 08:24PM[SHARE]
Thursday, October 27, 2016

Not Everything Is For You by Joe Patti

There is a video of Nina Simon speaking at the Minnesota History as part of her Art of Relevance book tour early this month. Many things she said jumped out at me and I am going to pass the …

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 12:12AM[SHARE]
Tuesday, October 25, 2016

Too Much Art To Learn, No Time For Managing You? by Joe Patti

One last post about the arts entrepreneurship conference I attended a couple weeks ago. Tomorrow it will be on to other things. There are increasingly productive efforts being made toward te…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 11:31PM[SHARE]
Monday, October 24, 2016

Can't Brag About Them And Not Invite Them To The Table by Joe Patti

I attended a presentation by Mosaic Education Network about their efforts working in conjunction with the Barnett Center at Ohio State University to provide some entrepreneurship workshop…

SOURCE: Butts In The Seats at 11:25PM[SHARE]

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