Adaptistration Turns Nine!

Actually, last Saturday was the official anniversary but given the flood of current events, the only safe place to fit in an article like this is while I’m away in Germany for a few days and can’t keep up with breaking news anyway.

celebrateIt’s been a stellar year for the entire Adaptistration Network (the original blog, a subscription resource site, a cartoon strip, a free jobs board, and an outreach resource center). I plan on covering specific details in the traditional year-end wrap up but two recent conversations with colleagues got me wondering about how the blog should evolve.

I respect their opinions a great deal and when both of them, in the same week no less, wrote to ask why I don’t write more about my consulting work, it got me thinking.

Traditionally, I’ve kept most of my arts consulting work away from the blog. I don’t like the feeling that the blog is used as some of shill delivery system and ultimately, it’s about the orchestra business, not my consulting business.

Nonetheless, after the last Minnesota Orchestra Redline Agreement (MORA) installment, both of my colleagues, who I’ve known for years, wrote in to say they had zero clue that part of my consulting work included individual contract counsel and negotiation for board, individual CEOs, and musicians. Consequently, that got me thinking that it’s time to reassess where the line between good to know and shilling falls and perhaps erring on the side of caution for the former has been a bit over judicious.

Now, that doesn’t mean I plan to post an onslaught of articles that focus on my projects; quite the contrary, the vast majority of my work is conducted under a non disclosure agreement so that wouldn’t happen anyway. But that doesn’t mean there aren’t ways to reference segments of my work to good effect, just like the way it was done in the MORA article.

In the end, I hate to assume so let’s use a reader poll to see what you think.

Would you enjoy an increase the frequency of references to my arts consulting work?

About Drew McManus

"I hear that every time you show up to work with an orchestra, people get fired." Those were the first words out of an executive's mouth after her board chair introduced us. That executive is now a dear colleague and friend but the day that consulting contract began with her orchestra, she was convinced I was a hatchet-man brought in by the board to clean house.

I understand where the trepidation comes from as a great deal of my consulting and technology provider work for arts organizations involves due diligence, separating fact from fiction, interpreting spin, as well as performance review and oversight. So yes, sometimes that work results in one or two individuals "aggressively embracing career change" but far more often than not, it reinforces and clarifies exactly what works and why.

In short, it doesn't matter if you know where all the bodies are buried if you can't keep your own clients out of the ground, and I'm fortunate enough to say that for more than 15 years, I've done exactly that for groups of all budget size from Qatar to Kathmandu.

For fun, I write a daily blog about the orchestra business, provide a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, keep track of what people in this business get paid, help write a satirical cartoon about orchestra life, hack the arts, and love a good coffee drink.

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