Editorial Cartoon: Award Time

Adaptistration’s editorial cartoonist, Paul Dixon, decided the field needed a new award to help validate advances in new model thinking. And since a picture is worth a thousand words, I’ll leave it at that.

Editorial Cartoon Award Time

And just for fun, if this wasn’t fictional satire, who would you vote for?

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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20 thoughts on “Editorial Cartoon: Award Time”

  1. hvs, how do you know that Michael Henson hasn’t hired security guards…to guard himself? There’s a reason WCCO reported that legislators are concerned that the Minnesota Orchestral Association has spent state dollars on “security.” http://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2012/12/20/lawmakers-call-for-hearing-into-minn-orchestra-finances/ I’m guessing the only reason that Henson hasn’t hired security to guard the hall is because it’s under construction. I fully expect armed guards to be posted once the hall re-opens on September 28, 2013, when management still hasn’t offered a respectful contract to musicians, and Bill Cosby, not the Minnesota Orchestra, opens the renovated Orchestra Hall, much,to the anger of rowdy patron picketers. If you think I’m being satirical…….. http://www.minnesotaorchestra.org/events-a-tickets/browse-calendar/eventdetail/288/-/- By that time, Mr. Henson will have taken about $400,000 in donors’ dollars for presiding over an orchestra…that won’t have played a single note under his auspices for over a year.

    Of course everyone who has been following the meltdown in the Twin Cities knows how deeply I love Michael Henson, so the least I can do is to help him win this award. His hard-hearted arrogance, ethical slipperiness, general incoherence, love for lobbies, palpable disdain for both patrons and the press, and eager willingness to serve as Jon Campbell and Richard Davis’s posh little English puppet all helped to jump-start my career as a music writer. And for that I’ll be forever grateful. So thanks, Michael Henson, for the memories. Hope you win the award! Cheers!

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