Rebooting and gifting

I have been reading a book by Catherine Allen called Reboot Your Life.  Apparently, I am not taking time off the right way.  She suggests that we go through 4 phases in order to guarantee we gain from our sabbatical.  Here are the 4 phases:

Phase 1: Clearing out – Take time to clean you life from all the physical, mental and emotional clutter that has accumulated over the years.

Phase 2: Reconnecting – Reconnect with yourself and others to discover who you are at this moment in time.

Phase 3: Exploring – Take time to research and explore all the different possibilities for your next chapter in life.

Phase 4: Re-entering – This is the transition phase back into the mainstream.  Tasks like sprucing up your resume and focusing, planning your next goal to make it happen.

I have been officially off since April 13th.  In this time, I went from phase 1 to phase 2 and 3 and back again to phase 1 instead of allowing myself to naturally go through each phase.  I think I have flunked out of sabbatical school!  Seriously though, it has been challenging for me to let go in order to have the time needed to recharge and regroup.  I still feel a little burnt out despite my one month off, and probably because I’m not allowing enough time off before getting back to it.

Right now I am researching and exploring other business options, but after a conversation with my new friend, Ron Evans, I think I may need to start researching for what is going to make me happy and fulfilled.  I have been getting this piece of advice in different forms.  “Think of yourself first this time.” or “Think about what you want to have happen to make yourself happy.”  The advice is all coming from a place I am not very familiar with.  Most of my life has been spent helping others achieve their goals.  Taking time to explore what I want and need?  Well, easier said than done, but well worth shifting to this way of thinking if I can.

So, yes, this month I have discovered that I am a little out of balance at the moment.  There has been too much giving and not enough receiving.  The good news is that I have been working on the receiving part of the equation through a strangely, oddly, never would have thought about it exercise.  I have been reading the book 29 Gifts by Cami Walker and started my own round of giving for 29 Days.  For someone who naturally gives, I don’t have a problem with coming up with gifts.  Often, I can simply record what I already do during my normal days.  What this exercise is doing for me, it is making me focus on my gifts to acknowledge that what I give is a gift.  It is also teaching me gift giving boundaries.

The book mentions that the Universe will provide and you will start receiving during this process.  I can happily say that I have been receiving in weird and wonderful ways.  Gifts of advice from others have popped into my life.  We received a free dumping fee at the waste disposal depot since they forgot to weigh us at the initial weighing station (should have just said it was a free dump which I happily yelled during the fact, “We got a free dump!”).  I was gifted a free plant at my favorite garden nursery.  I also am realizing how much giving my friends and family naturally do too. I can’t wait to see what is in store for the rest of the month.  I am half way through this round.

What this all comes down to, after giving myself to the arts my entire life, maybe I need to focus on the arts giving back to me and take time to recharge through my own artistic goals and plans as well as partaking in arts events without any work objective.

I sometimes write about how we get hung up on the negatives and forget how lucky we are to have all the positives in our lives.  One post in particular comes to mind about losing and gaining our passion.  We can all stand to enjoy ourselves more and focus on the positives in our lives by stepping back and giving ourselves time to recharge, rethink and to find our current passions.

The one decision I have confirmed is I no longer want to be a consultant in the same sense as before.  This means that ADS will be different or replaced by another business, job, or path.  As I mentioned to Ron in my conversation, I will always be an advocate for the arts, but I now know that I have to be more of an advocate for myself.

Time off will continue with spotty posts for a little while longer.  I’m allowing everything to unfold in due time.  Thanks for listening, and I know you, dear reader, are a gift as well.

Shoshana

Taking time off

My LinkedIn Profile is reminding me that ADS had been in business for over 5 years now.  During this time, I have been proud to say I have accomplished most of what I put my mind and energy toward.  I have helped to build audiences for artists and arts organizations.  I have spread the love for audience development and arts advocacy.  I have written a book (use code VERNUM through March 31 to get 20% off) to clarify the meaning of audience development and what it can do for you.  I have been fairly consistent in writing my blog posts and doing other freebies along the way, such as #auddev chats,  as well as setting up webinars that were useful to the people who attended.

To be honest though, I am feeling pretty crispy.  Despite a very enthusiastic fan base, which I am so grateful to all of you for your support, promoting audience development has been quite a challenge.  It is still a buzz word and people are not sure what it means and what it can do.  Plus, many people are buzzing about it incorrectly (which is particularly painful to see).

The good news, the buzz for audience development is heightening.  Funders are clamoring for it now.  More people are genuinely seeing it as a potential solution. People are realizing that building an audience in a more authentic way is of front and center importance.

The bad news is and has been, ADS has not grown past a part-time endeavor.  Does this mean people do not need audience development as I originally and continually thought?  No, they actually need it more than ever.  What has really happened?  I seem to have created for the need before the desire kicked in.  Simply put, I created before the people wanted.  Now sometimes this is a good way to start a business.  However, it only works if a major industry shift happens to see that the need is actually a want.  This has not happened yet.  Generally, people are still holding onto doing things the same way as before.  I have only been able to help the few that are truly wanting to create a bigger and better audience.

My other concern is for the folks that attempt to hire someone to implement audience development in the realm of marketing.  I have seen this not work out so well.  It puts audience development in a bad light because they do not know what audience development truly is and instead are attempting to fit it in the box of typical marketing.  No wonder this path is not working!

You can add to this the fact that some brilliant minds are being pushed back and ignored due to needing to remain status quo (which obviously is outweighing the need to change for building audiences).  We have mostly been all talk and little action.

As you can see, I am starting to get ARTSitis and it is best to step back and get well instead of joining the ranks of the complainers and yes, but-ters.  I think I may have more frustrations than the artists and organizations at this point, yet, it is still not good to join the crowd of people that keep doting on the negatives instead of solving for the positives.

I am officially taking a little break to evaluate and brainstorm in regard to the future of ADS.  Despite the work I have done which has been beneficial for my field and for my clients, I have yet to make ADS beneficial for myself.   It has been quite the adventure, which I have updated you from time to time.  All the minor changes did not make enough of a splash.  A major change may be needed!

I am scheduling a month off – the month of April – when most of ADS activities will stop for this time frame.

For my blog followers, there are a ton of archives to sift through to help you get ideas churning.  I myself am amazed at all that has been written, and I dare say, sometimes I am starting to repeat myself a bit.  Time off will do the trick to freshen my outlook and get a clean and clear new perspective!

If you follow me on Twitter, I will still be around, but more for conversation.  My brain has been picked freely over these 5 years, and instead, I might be asking you a few questions to figure out my next steps.  We will, however, be having our already scheduled #auddev chat:

Thursday, April 18, 2013 – Noon ET on Twitter
Orchestra Management and Audience Relations
Drew McManus, Orchestral Arts Consultant and author of Adaptistration.com will be chatting with us about Orchestra Management and how it affects audience relations, especially during the negotiation season. How can we make sure our audience relations are positive experiences even in challenging times.

For my eMazing News followers, I will be sending you a message soon to let you know my thoughts about this format.  I am finding myself increasingly uncomfortable with one-way formats.

For all my other social media followers, again, I will probably still be around, but not with as much frequency as before.

It is time to take this step back, this time off, to figure out what you truly want and need at this moment in time.  One of my idols, Albert Einstein, is giving me the advice that I need.  It is time to stop and make a change so I can have different results.

Thank you for understanding, and I hope to hear from you during my time off.  See you on the flip-side!

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza

Audience Development Specialists

http://www.buildmyaudience.com

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

Please consider supporting ADS so we can continue our work.  Donate here! 

***Purchasing my book will help support ADS and our mission.***

Going in circles or Artsitis

Artsitis – Will you work for the cure?

I feel the arts are a bit dis-eased.  Budget cuts, shrinking audiences, and other gloom and doom that hits the news regularly are casting a murky illness over what we could be doing to better the situation.  I have good news and bad news.  Which would you like first?  The bad news?

The bad news is that the majority in our industry have Artsitis with the nasty symptoms of going in circles, feelings of paralysis, and whoa as me pox.  The symptoms worsen with each focus on the negative and each complaint about what is going wrong, which leads to migraines and nervous breakdowns.  This group of arts folks keep bashing out the what is wrong scenario.  They hire expensive research teams to calculate and articulate what is wrong and what should be done, over and over again.  They attempt to paint a different picture to funders while doing the same clunky, tired out programs.  The puss builds and oozes, the germs spread, the infection infects, particularly in bigger gathering places, where frequent Artsitis outbreaks have been documented.  You see, the shoulds and all the talk about the problems add up to more dis-ease.

This dis-ease makes my skin itch and my brain twitch.  I am sick with concern that as an industry, we are heading in the wrong direction and/or moving at such a snail pace that life will run us over and bury us in its dust.

The good news, which is desperately needed to ease the pain, there is a cure for Artsitis and some artists and arts organizations have already been applying the dosage.  It’s called audience development in all its varying forms:

• Research that focuses on solutions that turns into programs for building your audience
• Technology formats that engage, educate and inform your audiences
• Outreach projects with the intention of starting relationships with people that are not attending
• Social media which is social
• Diversity programs that bring people of varying cultures together
• Fundraising projects that get the audiences involved

I could go on and on.  In order to be effective, what do all of these audience development points have in common?  Focused planning and committed action.  Instead of contracting Artsitis, going in circles, and applying bandages of conversation, action (the antidote) is being taken. There are examples out there of people experimenting with their dosage in order to get to what works to cure their dis-ease.

Artsitis is making us turn blue (and green with envy of those already working toward their cure), and making us feel blue about our industry.  We feel panicked and out of control.  We feel fear that we don’t have enough time to turn things around.  Misery loves company, so we talk and talk and talk about what needs to happen, what needs to shift, instead of actually doing something about it.

Maybe we all (myself included) need to take a big dose of reality medicine and realize that if we don’t start taking action to make the changes, Artsitis will eventually kill us.  Strikes and bankruptcies galore.  This is not the arts world I would like to envision.

Aren’t you tired of going in circles or moving at a speed that is easily passed by?  I know I am.  So, I will be taking a huge dose in the coming month of April.  I am taking time to evaluate, research and plan for the next phase, and then action will happen at an experimental speed!  We all can take this dose of medicine any time we want.  There is no shame in taking the time out to mentally and physically prepare for action. In May, I will shift to action.  I admit that I have contracted a little bit of Artsitis, and now it is time to cure what is ailing me.

It’s the action, in the end, that will cure Artsitis after all.   Will you help me work for the cure?

What action are you taking to build relationships with your audiences?  Let’s talk about solutions!

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza

Audience Development Specialists

http://www.buildmyaudience.com

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

Please consider supporting ADS so we can continue our work.  Donate here! 

***Purchasing my book will help support ADS and our mission.***

Copy and pasting for arts audience development???

I hope you had a nice weekend!  I found this weekend to have a common theme that I wanted to share with you.  The concept of copy and paste and how it is affecting our artistry, audience development, and the future of arts administration.

I started off the weekend reading The Art of Possibility by Rosamund Stone Zander and Benjamine Zander.  I am about 2/3 into this book, and it offers a fresh perspective on how to relate to people with a broader mind and more creative agenda.  It starts out with an example of 9 dots in a box formation, and you are asked to connect all the dots in one line (without lifting your pen/pencil).  The solution is not forthcoming if you confine yourself to this box.  You have to go beyond the borders in order to accomplish the task, and the line (spoiler alert) does not form a box in the end, but a triangle.

I also went out to dinner to celebrate a friend’s birthday.  She is a professor at our local university.  She was mentioning the challenge of presenting her work without using a PowerPoint presentation and instead relaying the information in a more visual way.  She is a believer that her students will learn more with this visual aspect, that they will absorb more by really listening and paying attention.  She received complaints on her feedback from the students.  60% wanted her to go back to her typical PowerPoint.  They wanted everything point by point.  They wanted the .pdf of the presentation. They do not want to “waste time” listening and attempting to create the lesson in their own words.  They are afraid of missing what will be on future tests.

We had a big discussion about how education is becoming a copy and paste function instead of a creative learning process.  With all the standardized testing formats, the PowerPoint bullet presentations, there is no outlet for students to take a concept and run with it.  Instead, they feel uncomfortable going beyond the box and would rather copy and paste the content to get the grade.  Getting the grade and graduating is the objective, not learning and creating for themselves.

If graduate level education has resorted to this copy and paste mentality, we are certainly heading toward a slippery down slope for propagating the next generation of creative minds. This also will most certainly present problems for the up and coming arts administrators in our future.  We are already starting to see the Arts, in terms of audience development and marketing, falling into this same copy and paste mode, despite the fact that we are the creatives in our world.

There are still a few among us that are generating new content and new ways of outreaching to our audiences, but I see a great deal of “buzz words” and “buzz programs” being copied and pasted.  Despite the original idea being sound, this will not increase our audiences because one size does not fit all.  You can take a program from one area, and it may not work when recreating this same program for another area.  Copying and pasting will not work for us.  We all have different audiences, unique people that are attending our events.  We need to get beyond the copy and paste mentality to create our own specific programs in order to build our individual audiences.

To me, this is a slightly worse scenario than the templates I had mentioned before.  At least with a template, you can tweak it a bit to fit your own needs.  With copy and paste, there is no individuality at all.  Our audiences are being subjected to another audiences’ ideal, not their own.

So, yes, I am concerned about the future of arts and education if the copy and paste mentality becomes the norm.  The only way we can get out of this box is if the arts leaders of today start creating outside of this box themselves.  I do hope that they will!

Thoughts?

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza

Audience Development Specialists

http://www.buildmyaudience.com

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

Please consider supporting ADS so we can continue our work.  Donate here! 

***Purchasing my book will help support ADS and our mission.***

“Free” for arts audience development

Leave it to Seth Godin to send a whammy to my inbox this morning.  It was a real doozy for me since it hit too close to home for comfort.  As you know, dear reader, I have been contemplating how to get myself to the next level for some time now. I know what I do helps the common good.  I am fairly loud in pushing the audience development goodness forward. I absolutely love and believe in what I am doing, yet it has been challenging, especially when people want my services for free.  I know I am not the only one that feels this way.

I see it all the time in the “gigs” section of the job listings.  “We need an artist, band, graphic designer, insert other artist title here, in exchange for some publicity and food (well, maybe food if you’re lucky).  I hear artists grumbling about not getting fair pay for all the hard work that they are doing.  I discussed this with a photographer friend who always used the phrase, “you have to pay to play” in order to get his photography business off the ground, and he is one of the most talented photographers I have come across for his particular niche. He certainly deserved to be paid for those photos at that level of quality. They got his talent for free.

Free can be good and lead you to a better place, but sometimes free ends up being a vicious cycle that is difficult to get out of.

Is free really “free?”  Or, are we going in a negative direction?   Godin asks us to weigh the benefits against the free.  If it is worth it and will advance your career, help build your audiences, then by all means, take the free opportunity.  If free is selling yourself short and not adding to a positive outcome, stop and step away from the free.

I have many free services that I do for the public.  I blog, distribute articles, leave tip of the day and mini-podcast audio clips, give free talks/seminars/webinars at times, etc.  I absolutely love what I am doing.  The free is adding up though, and every time someone asks me “can I pick your brain?” a little piece of my dream of making a living doing what I enjoy dies.

In the meantime, I have seen nonprofit arts organizations and agencies with more resources go under.  It didn’t make sense to keep going when they weren’t able to pay their employees or foot their bills.

There are more people clamoring for the spotlight, more people starting new businesses hoping to make the big time.  In the five years I have been trucking along, I have seen consultants come and go depending on whether they land a full time job instead.  Meanwhile, I’ve been in it for the longer haul.  I have continued to take the free opportunities to put myself out there.

However, if I don’t do somethings for free, I may not be working at all.  I can recall certain gurus of our time going beyond and saying not to be stingy with your gifts and giving freely of yourself will reap positive benefits for all.  When I come across this line of thinking, I end up asking myself – maybe I am not doing enough for free?

I would love your thoughts on this one. As you can see, there is a back and forth in my mind about all this free business.   There must be a way for talented artists like you and me to make money from our businesses instead of dealing with too many free-doms.  So I ask you –   When does free start costing more than it’s worth?  How far should a small business entrepreneur go down the free path before it just doesn’t make sense any more?

In the end, as artists with valuable talents and gifts, we do need to ask ourselves these questions.  Putting in sweat equity makes sense, yet bleeding yourself dry really doesn’t.

To end on a positive note, I want to thank all the people that have paid for my services, donated money, bought my book, or offered me some well needed friendly advice.  I am so grateful for the people that valued what I do and want to see me succeed as well!  Without you, I would not be hopeful enough to keep going.  Huge thanks to you!
Please let me know your thoughts.

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza

Audience Development Specialists

http://www.buildmyaudience.com

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

Please consider supporting ADS so we can continue our work.  Donate here! 

***Purchasing my book will help support ADS and our mission.***

Human algorithms and arts audience development

The latest and greatest idea is the use of algorithms (check out You’ve Cott Mail’s line-up)  to produce suggestions for our audiences based on what they have already purchased.  Amazon and Netflix formats are being worked on underground to become the next big thing for arts websites.  At first I was excited about the possibilities.  Finally, I thought, we will be able to increase exposure to the arts by suggesting more arts that will matter to our audience members!

Today, I am applying the breaks based on a “rebuttal” from Adam Huttler, Fractured Atlas’s founder and Executive Director.  He did bring up the fact that these computer based algorithms could go astray and make suggestions that make as much sense as a ballet purchaser being suggested a grunge concert (although, maybe that would work for some?).

When I was reading the “buts” about the new computer algorithm formats, I came up with a major one myself.  I replied on his blog post and will save some time by quoting myself here:

Algorithms could be quite useful, but in all the hub bub on this brilliant discovery, we seem to be forgetting that back in the day, the customer services, sales, box office staff used to suggest other offerings to their patrons based solely on knowing their audience member’s tastes personally. There are talented people that can serve as an algorithm if they would take the time to get to know their audience members and keep track of preferences in their databases. Old fashioned up-selling should not be ruled out in favor of a computer attempting to fill this void.

Are we again attempting to go by the lazy side and use computers to build our audiences for us?  The last time this happened, the online ticket purchase without needing to speak to or see someone from the arts organization, we experienced patrons falling through the cracks.  And now, the computer algorithm suggestions may not only have people falling through the cracks, but cracking up when the suggestions are ludicrously spit out.

Why do we keep attempting to save time and effort when time and effort is what we need to get back to?  Word of mouth is the best way to build an audience for an event.  We have surveys upon surveys that are proving this.  Word of mouth involves human interaction.  We trust our families, friends and colleagues.  Do we trust a computer interface when it artificially computes word of mouth?  Most of the time we laugh at it because it is yet another inhuman form of mass marketing in disguise.

We need to humanize the arts again.  Good old fashioned interaction – face to face, people to people.  The golden age of customer service can’t come back too soon for us.  People make the world go round.  People energy creates an idea and catapults it into becoming a reality.  I will put my money on the Human Algorithms every time, and if you want to build the best audiences for yourselves, I hope you will too.

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza

Audience Development Specialists

http://www.buildmyaudience.com

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

Please consider supporting ADS so we can continue our work.  Donate here! 

***Purchasing my book will help support ADS and our mission.***

Excuses for arts audience development?

Excuses, excuses. We may want to accomplish something, however, as humans, we also tend to make excuses.  We want to grow as individuals and artists, to better our art and organizations, yet we ourselves build road blocks to our success.  Silly humans!  So, I wanted to talk about two of the biggest excuses for why people do not start audience development planning and programs.  For my email subscribers, you will need to click on the web link to take you to the page to listen.

 

Any comments and feedback are appreciated.  Happy Monday to you too!

PS We are getting very close to announcing all of the 2013 offerings – stay tuned!

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza

Audience Development Specialists

http://www.buildmyaudience.com

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

Please consider supporting ADS so we can continue our work.  Donate here! 

***Purchasing my book will help support ADS and our mission.***

Focus is key for arts audience development

I have been thinking a great deal about focus.  In a conversation, I mentioned that what you focus on is what will come to life.  I also expressed how many non-profit executives are scattered when it comes to what is on their plate.

In my humble opinion, I feel that a majority of organizations and some artists have too much on their plates.  They feel everything is important, but what tends to happen with this mentality of spreading yourself thin?  You tend to do everything half-assed (excuse my crudeness).  Certain tasks end up falling through the cracks, and you can end up damaging important relationships, in addition to not seeing very good results overall.  Furthermore, if you have capacity issues, this will only add to the burden and staggering weight on the people involved and burn everyone to a crisp.

This spreading yourself thin can apply to the overall strategic planning for the year, how your staff and board functions, your programming in attempts to please everyone, etc., etc.  Spreading yourself thin is only going to deliver “thin” results.  Don’t you want fat, gargantuan, successful outcomes?

In order to get away from this mentality, some very difficult decisions need to happen.  You need to evaluate and prioritize and ultimately let some things go.  If you keep attempting to focus on everything, nothing big will really happen.  If you allow yourself to go through this, albeit difficult process, you will reap the benefits.

Here is a point by point example of what you will want to do:

• Start with your mission – remind yourself who you are
• Take a look at all that you have on your plate and get rid of the programs/projects that are not in alignment
• Think about what you want to ultimately achieve – dream big – and pick one or two objectives for the year
• Choose your audience development goals using this big picture
• Plan out your audience development programs, in alignment with your mission and audiences, and implement over the year
• Track and evaluate throughout the year and decide to change, carry over to next year, or replace with a different program if necessary

If you really want to develop a quality audience, figure out what is important to you, make sure it is aligned with your mission, who you are, and who your audiences are, and plan on focusing on a little at a time to get bigger results.  I am seeing that when artists and organizations use this laser like focus, amazing results are happening!

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza

Audience Development Specialists

http://www.buildmyaudience.com

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

Please consider supporting ADS so we can continue our work.  Donate here! 

***Purchasing my book will help support ADS and our mission.***

The changing face of classical music for arts audience development

Inspired by the article, The changing face of opera, posted in the Oxford University Press’ blog by Meghann Wilhoite, I give you my first mini-podcast for 2013.

Have a great weekend!

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza

Audience Development Specialists

http://www.buildmyaudience.com

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

Although we are not a non-profit, if you would like to support ADS to continue our work, you can donate here.

***Purchasing my book will help support ADS and our mission.***

Resolution vs Commitment for arts audience development

I wanted to share a quick thought that has been on my mind lately.  There is a big difference between a resolution and a commitment.  I have mentioned this thought in passing, but now I want to expand upon it.

You may desire to build your audience.  You might also have a resolution this year, “I will build my audience by x% in 2013.”  However, if you do not make a commitment to take the actions necessary, the resolution will only be a desire, a want.

I view desires or wants as the seed for change, but without water and sunlight and a plan that you put into action to provide everything for that seed to grow, nothing will change.

For 2013, let’s you and I make commitments to take actions for the changes we desire and want.  Let’s create a plan and commit to bigger and better audiences.  Let’s commit to finding you the best audiences for you.

After all, commitment could be the 5th C of audience development, if you commit to it!

Cheers to happy and loyal audiences,

Shoshana

Shoshana Fanizza

Audience Development Specialists

http://www.buildmyaudience.com

“Never treat your audience as customers, always as partners.”
~James Stewart

Although we are not a non-profit, if you would like to support ADS to continue our work, you can donate here.

***Purchasing my book will help support ADS and our mission.***