Better Do It “Right”

“Santa Claus is real,” “taxes are not optional,” and “arts managers are always allowed to do the right thing.” Sorry to be the one to break the news to you but only one of those items is true (spoiler alert: it’s the middle one).

Adaptistration People 008I don’t have any advice to offer about Santa that may soften those emotional scars but the last item has a good bit of gray inside the larger black and white world of arts management. In fact, we could dedicate an entire month to that topic as applied to just about every aspect of arts management but let’s start with something simple, like being required to pursue a course of action that will likely marginalize your marketing performance.

I published an article at ArtsHacker.com last week that covers this scenario and I think this topic may be a good way to approach the “Improved Marketing In An Environment Of Utter Chaos” angle we started to examine in April, 2016, but more from an managerial overview perspective as opposed to the strictly nuts-and-bolts approach at ArtsHacker.

To that end, any topics come to mind you want to see covered first?

Read Wrong Done Right at ArtsHacker.com

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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