Rewarding the Creators

There’s a must read column in today’s on-line Forbes by Silicon Valley technology entrepreneur and strategy consultant Saramana Mitra. Anyone who thinks about the role of creativity, of invention – the absolute thinking processes we learn from and through the arts – should ponder it.

Writing about our economy, Mitra says,

“We’re not having any recovery. We need the innovators, the entrepreneurs, the creators, the scientists, the technologists–those who build value, those who create jobs–to lead us out of this nightmare. Not a bunch of speculators who make money regardless of whether value gets created or destroyed. In fact, many of them are incentivized to destroy value by spreading fake rumors about companies and stocks, and they do so often. Some get caught, most don’t.

And our talented youth gets seduced by this profession of speculation known for its easy and abundantly flowing financial rewards, avoiding those that require much greater intellectual capacity. Most importantly, very early in their lives, our talented youth come to realize that fields that may earn them a Nobel Prize–cancer research or multi-core computing–may not make them rich. But moving money from here to there will.

And thus, we lose Berkeley Ph.Ds in nuclear physics to hedge funds and MIT computer scientists capable of delivering computing to 6 billion people to derivative manipulation on Wall Street.”

Mitra’s focus on nuclear physics and computer scientists could well have included the documentary film maker, the author, the composer, the designer whose creativity and innovation should also lead the way.

Until we see that creativity is fundamental to economic as well as social progress, and make creativity a fundamental (and attractive) value throughout our culture, we’re stuck. Intellectual property is the currency of the future. What drives its creation?

Creativity and innovation.

Arts Marketing for Success 2009. Part 1.

There are three things that can happen to an arts organization (or any nonprofit) during a recession.
1) You can close your doors and basically go dormant. 2) You can scrape by, maybe in worse shape, but making it. 3) Or you can thrive.

Sounds crazy, doesn’t it – THRIVE. Yet it is happening. People are lined up in the rain outside the Chicago Arts Institute for the Edvard Munch show. Movies are selling out hours before show time. Symphony concerts, popular artists, lecture series – shows in venues coast to coast are selling all tickets. People are responding to arts and culture.

How can you ensure this kind of good news? Follow these rules and tips as a start, and come back next week for more in the tool kit.

ArtsMarket’s Rules to Live By

1. Plan to thrive. That’s right. Plan for success. Even now.
2. Budget to thrive. Invest resources where you can see results.
3. Program to thrive. Do what will stand out, be noticed, and program what will “demand” an audience.
4. Market to thrive. Create a compelling story. Share it. Prospect. Link.
5. Brand to thrive and image to thrive.
6. Govern and lead to thrive. This is exactly not the time for fear. Careful stewardship, for sure. But thinking for long term success now will let you open the box of your thinking (see my logo, above), explore new opportunities, edit back that which will go nowhere, and focus on the goal.

Over the next few weeks, I will be translating these into tools for the month. We’ll start with marketing, because April is the start of prospecting season for most performing arts organizations. It is when major budget allocation decisions are being made for next year’s marketing budget. Next month, we’ll focus on governing and leading to thrive, so you can move forward with those plans in May in June.

Using the ArtsMarket Rules to Live By in Your Next Season Marketing.

Your marketing effort for next year isn’t going to work if it is only about survival. You have a brilliant chance, right now, to emerge from the shadows and be the answer to consumer needs and wants for great art, great entertainment, great food for the soul. THINK AT 40,000 Feet. Plan for increased participation, and increased revenue. I challenge you to NOT set low expectations.

When you plan and budget to thrive, there are 10 things not to do in the current economy. Address each of these, and you will succeed.

1. DO NOT cut direct marketing. There is so much less clutter out there right now that every piece of mail is noticed, and if written write, provokes a response.

2.DO NOT stop prospecting. Everything is about prospecting. Remember that the #1 rule of business is to get a new customer who WILL COME BACK. So first you get them in the door, then you provide a great experience, and they return. You must prospect. People who don’t keep your organization top of mind are probably – like all of us – a little too numb to pay attention to what play is on stage where next Saturday night. Remember, your house list faces bigger churn in a recession so you constantly need to find newcomers.

3. DO NOT stop PR. There are more PR opportunities out there now than ever, more keyed to age groups than ever. For your networking savvy folks, you have the cocktail party atmosphere of Twitter where you can drop a hint, ask a provoking question, start a dialogue. You’ve got the Starbucksian atmosphere of Facebook, and the ever so professional conference of Linked In groups. You can Flicker, YouTube (and I challenge anyone to take on Carnegie Hall to an even higher level of community building), and so much more. At the snail level, there is a plethora of new micro newspapers emerging with the demise and cuts of metro dailies – ever so accessible. The web sites of existing media, the newsletters and the links….we’ve never seen such ability to use so many PR channels. And let’s not forget the real essence of PR – doing good for the community. Any time you can get out there to help others, right now, you WILL be seen. A number of you have read my blog and Twitter notes on the organization that has been giving tickets to the local food bank so that families can attend performances. The tickets are on the shelf next to the canned soup, and anyone can take them. No one in the audience knows who used those particular tickets.

4.DO NOT sell extravagance. This isn’t the time to market to the luxury-for-me crowd. But it is time to market wonderful experiences that create lasting memories you can enjoy and replay in your mind for months to come.

5. DO NOT cut your back office investment in database excellence. If the fire alarm goes off what is the most important investment you must save that probably isn’t covered by insurance. You got it: your database. And it isn’t just the data, it is how the data is organized and how much it allows you to customize the offers you make. Well structured data lets you personalize your prospecting.

6. DO NOT think that e-marketing, alone, will save you. It will save you a lot, but every arts audience out there has a sizable proportion of older individuals who will not follow you via email and an equal portion of all ages that has opted out of the e-marketing grid for financial or philosophical reasons. They want to see if you care enough about them to get your info to them. Do you?

7.Do not disappear between events. This is particularly important for organizations that have only a few major events a year but are there all year. I know many museums in this boat – especially as special exhibitions have decreased. Find ways to be visible every week, and to create curiosity so that people have to follow what you are doing and thinking. It might be your blog. Or it might be that you start offering salsa classes in the galleries on Friday evenings.

8. DO NOT stop leading. Your organization signals hope, confidence, and meaning to your community. Be out there living the message. Help other organizations. Facilitate civic plans. Be visible, and be confident.

9. DO NOT cut advertising. Okay, you very well might cut advertising dollars, but you’ll do better if you rearrange your advertising dollars. To all of you who have cut back your major entertainment page spending: with so many fewer competing ads, yours will be more visible. To those of you who have wondered where to advertise: you have terrific options now between on-line news media (banner ads), civic calendar/ticketing sites, local cable (incredible deals), and even traditional media. It is turning into a buyer’s market, so take advantage of your opportunities.

10. DO NOT stop saying thank you. In fact, thank your audience and attendees more than you ever have in the past.

I want to come back to point 4, and really every other point about image, atmosphere, communications… I read a recent analysis of Allstate Insurance’s most recent round of TV ads. They are a brand and image marketing giant –i.e. “Like a Good Neighbor We’ll Be There”, “You’re in Good Hands,” etc… Do you remember this winter’s NFL ads, using the Frank Sinatra/Nancy Sinatra “Feeling Kind of Sunday..” tune? It would be hard to find something that did a better job, this difficult year, of creating a happy kind of glow…that tune and sensibility sticking with you until you felt hey, it was Sunday, and time to kick back….so you might as well be there with Allstate…

I challenge you to come up with your own “Feeling Kind of Sunday” imaging for upcoming season. Feeling kind of museum…feeling kind of theatre… Send your ideas and you may see them on the next tips and tools!

And, last but not least, I want to come back to prospecting. What you don’t want to do now is waste money. But you do want to get a call for action/great offer out there to people who will respond. We regularly put together prospect mailing lists like this to target people who wouldn’t be likely to know about a performing arts series through the web. It can be a real challenge, but we see how incredibly well it works. When your returns zoom up there, this is the kind of prospecting to use. For example:

These criteria for everyone on the prospect list (Sample criteria for a given geographic area)

Over 60 (figuring this is still the age group less likely to contain high level web searchers)
Self identified interest in performing arts
Self identified interest in gourmet food
Self identified interest in reading books
Take music/arts classes
Responsive to mail offers

It works.
Remember, PLAN TO THRIVE.

Good News on the Horizon: Research from other sectors

A big part of what I do is bring trend information to the table for clients. I look beyond the arts to other sectors that can guide us. Today’s good news comes from Commercial Property News, a publication I regularly comb for trends regarding cultural center development, arts facilities in mixed use development, and even the trends witnessed by retailers who are the prime tenants in commercial properties.

This week’s issue focuses on a new study by RREEF Research, which is a highly regarded property research company, in this case through a study they did for Deutche Bank, on trends in US commercial real estate.

1. They see that the decline in sales of commercial properties will halt by mid summer, and that we will start seeing upturn by the last quarter this year.

2. Vacancies will decline by the start of 2010.

3. Neighborhood and community centers will be the first to start doing better.

What does this mean for our field?

1. Be ready. Those projects that you may think won’t be forthcoming may be just timed right for investment. Construction costs are lower by far than they were, and good deals can be found. Timing is great.

2. If yours is a community center mixed use venture, you should be working now to line things up. Developers will be ready to move by the last quarter of this year.

There’s one other interesting finding here. CPN reports that the “luxury goods” retailers will be among the first to see the uptick by the end of this year. I look at that and think that your subscription ticket sales next fall may be better than we could anticipate right now. A week ago, when I read that the Chicago Art Institute was increasing its admission prices to $18 come May, I thought it was not such good timing. But they seem to be right in line with this report of pent up demand meshed with a bit more expendible money. All in all, a good read of tea leaves that gives new energy to us all as we look to next season! Let’s banish fear, and get to work.

Happy New Year! The trends for the year will be…

May 2009 be a good year for everyone. We’ll be in tight financial times until mid year, at least, according to the leading economists. But then growth will gradually start. Historically, we’ve seen that recessions are an excellent time to plan and prepare for that new growth. So that means the next six months are very important for any type of planning.
* For feasibility studies, this is the time to get your homework done. Feasibility studies done now will likely focus on more doable structure than at the boom time of the market, which means these projects will be seen as viable by more funders. While capital is not out there right now, projects looking for land may find this is a sweet time for deals.
* For strategic plans, this is the time to think deeply about entirely new operational models, finance models, efficiencies and structure. We think the market has been overly flooded by entertainment options in many places, and that a little correction along with leaner operations may be very good for the long term.
* For policy plans, this is an excellent time to take the long view and focus on: 1) strategies to help organizations think about new business models that may create efficiencies while building market share; 2) strategies to build(rebuild) market loyalty by audiences; 3) helping organizations rebalance their financial models and expectations. Gaining audience loyalty this year will likely require deep discounts and price realignment in tickets and admissions, so budgets will need major reworking; 4) building for stability for the long term. During sobering times, we all do a better job of focusing on the real priorities.
* For marketing plans, this is an excellent time to focus on customer service and building customer loyalty. Marketing media continues to evolve at lightening speed. The Obama campaign organization showed us the incredible value of text messaging: this is a key time to build your own text messaging capacity. You’ll also want to build your CRM capacity, to target market as effectively as possible. And don’t forget the increased role that social networking plays in linking your audiences together.
* For cultural development in general, this is the time to think about how to benefit from the stimulus packages that are already moving through the pipeline. Programs like the federal WIRED grants have been around for a few years and will now get much larger, and offer opportunities for arts jobs the likes of which were last seen in the CETA era.

This is exciting. There is a lot of good, proactive work to do that will profoundly advance thinking about the mechanisms, support, and market for arts and culture. Let’s get to it! Happy New Year!

The Real Power of a Cultural Plan is Who Uses It

One of the biggest problems in cultural planning is figuring out who is supposed to use the completed plan. Who is the steward who moves it forward? Who leads the charge? Who monitors its accomplishment? Who keeps all the competing interests aligned?

We’d all like to believe that a cultural plan is implemented by all those organizations and interest groups that care about arts and cultural development in their communities. An arts council takes one role, a foundation another, a government entity yet another, and so on. Sometimes this indeed happens, and the outcomes can be fabulous. More often, it doesn’t happen. The steering committee members go back to their own organizations and priorities, and all those good ideas become a wish list rather than an action plan.

A great way to make sure this doesn’t happen is to call the document “a plan for cultural development” and note from the get-go that the plan is a policy document to guide a particular agency or funder in achieving key outcomes. There has to be an entity that fully implements the plan, that takes it and runs with it, and that has the full support of the power-brokers (funder/s) in making the plan happen.

As a policy document, the plan has to guide the actions of the implementing agency. I believe that internal agency planning has to be an integral component, to fully align the arts council or economic development agency or foundation – whatever entity is going to do the plan – to get the plan done. That agency plan, in turn, has to be supported in full by the agency hierarchy – the mayor, the county executive, the economic development agency – all those whose support is essential to turn policy into action. There has to be an infrastructure behind it.

Within the plan, there have to be policy priorities. Basically, what will the lead implementing agency focus on for the next two or three years that will have a specific outcome, responding to specific findings from the cultural development planning work? As a client once told me, if there are so many goals that you can’t remember them all, the plan will not get done. If yours is the lead agency, you want a plan with outcomes you can deliver. Keep your eyes on the priorities and know that you can accomplish the most important developmental work.

More on the creative economy…

Randy Cohen, the research director at Americans for the Arts, noted in response to my post yesterday that they actually do include musical instruments manufacture! Thanks for the clarification, Randy. He’s also been great to send along the links to the reports they offer at the congressional district level and the state district level – incredible advocacy tools.   My hope is that AFTA will offer their reports at the MSA level, and/or the county level, to correspond with the way that a lot of planning work happens on the ground.   Those of us in the field using IMPLAN to give accurate pictures of economic activity at the micro level could really benefit.  And, I’d love to continue the dialogue to include many, many more industries in the “creative economy” definition.