Arts Administration + Shirky: it's a Whole New World

Over at his blog, The Artful Manager, the ever-relevant Andrew Taylor reflects on a recent conference, and combines that with some fascinating (and transformative) perspective from Clay Shirky, to raise this question:

...each of those three words -- ''professional,'' ''arts,'' and ''organization'' -- is in radical flux at the moment. That suggests that a phrase (and an assumption) combining all three could mean less and less in shorthand form.

And while the National Storytelling Network is not a "professional arts organization," at this particular junction in its life cycle, the leadership and members would do well to consider Taylor's initial thoughts on the relevancy (or, the increasing irrelevancy) on the traditional roles of an organization.

Link to Taylor's post: The Artful Manager: Three words, three problems

Link to Clay Shirky, describing the concepts in his new book, Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, in a 42 minute lecture at Harvard's Berkman Center for Internet & Society. (Also available on YouTube).

1000 True Fans Revisited

Kevin Kelly revisits his "1000 True Fans" hypothesis, in which he suggests that microniche artists could make a living from a limited fan base.

On his blog, he's beginning a series of interviews with artists who are using this very model, and the first one is ambient musican Robert Rich, who's been self-producing for 30 years. In his response, Rich tempers Kelly's enthusiasm with a hard dose of reality:

In reality the life of a "microcelebrity" resembles more the fate of Sisyphus, whose boulder rolls back down the mountain every time he reaches the summit. After every tour I feel exhausted but empowered by the thought that a few people really care a lot about this music. Yet, a few months later all is quiet again and CD/downoad sales slow down again. If I take the time to concentrate for a year on what I hope to be a breakthrough album, that time of silence widens out into a gaping hole and interest seems to fade. When I finally do release something that I feel to be a bold new direction, I manage only to sell it to the same 1,000 True Fans. The boulder sits back at the bottom of the mountain and it's time to start rolling it up again.

Hat tip to Sean for this one.

New Models for Performers: Kevin Kelly's "1000 True Fans"

(via boingboing)

I've been aware, pretty much since the rise of Napster in 1999, that the Web was changing the way performing artists connected with their audiences and changing the way artists would generate revenue.

While new models are still evolving, even National Public Radio has recently reported on how artists (like Jane Siberry) are tapping into their fan bases to create highly decentralized patronage systems... working on commissions from your audiences.

Kevin Kelly, he of Wired fame (or, for you old timers like me, the Whole Earth Catalog) has posted his analysis of these new emerging models on his blog (link):

A creator, such as an artist, musician, photographer, craftsperson, performer, animator, designer, videomaker, or author - in other words, anyone producing works of art - needs to acquire only 1,000 True Fans to make a living.

A True Fan is defined as someone who will purchase anything and everything you produce. They will drive 200 miles to see you sing. They will buy the super deluxe re-issued hi-res box set of your stuff even though they have the low-res version. They have a Google Alert set for your name. They bookmark the eBay page where your out-of-print editions show up. They come to your openings. They have you sign their copies. They buy the t-shirt, and the mug, and the hat. They can't wait till you issue your next work. They are true fans.

Kelly's post is required reading for self-employed performing artists (this means you, storytellers).

More thinking needs to be done to create a workable model for storytellers. The typical working storyteller has thousands of fans, but upwards of 90% of them are in an educational setting. Regardless of whether these kids have disposable income, a school setting is not an appropriate venue to push sales. Even if you could find a venue outside of school, kids aren't going to spend a hundred dollars a year on their favorite storyteller.

Then, as you move to teenagers and 18 to 25 year olds, you have to find the true fans amidst the sea of audiences who are accustomed to getting their culture digitally for free.

For storytellers, even those with adult audiences, $100 per true fan per year may be high. But I think $50 is doable.

And I suspect that a storyteller who has taken either Doug Lipman's marketing course or Sean Buvala's Outside In Boot Camp, and combines it with this True Fan model, will lead the way in creating an alternative model of making a living at storytelling.... one that does not depend on the whims of school board or state funding of elementary schools).

(This is not to take away from those storytellers right now who are making a living at storytelling... they work hard, and they deserve every penny. But I'm intrigued by the alternative model that Kelly describes.)

Is the Met the Future?

(I sent this to the Storytell list, in response to Gregory's post (below), but then thought it was too good to let disappear behind the gate of a closed listserv)

Author and storyteller Gregory Leifel (in his post, here) mentioned the Met (that's the Metropolitan Opera Association of New York City), which now has high definition live performances beamed via satellite to movie theaters in the U.S., Canada, and Europe.

The Washington Post also notes that the Met is not content to share its performances in movie theaters:

One hundred additional live performances will be broadcast either over the Internet or on digital radio, with another 1,500 broadcasts from the past 75 years -- the Met's entire recorded history -- to be made available soon through an audio-on-demand service.

"It's only possible because the unions have put their faith in our ability to deliver what we promised them -- a means to build the audience and secure the health of the Met -- and, indeed, the health of opera as an art form," Gelb said in an interview. "Our audience is aging fast, and this technology will help us galvanize a new generation."

These transmissions will be possible because of a just-concluded arrangement with the Met's orchestra, chorus, ballet and stagehands, who voted in favor of a new media agreement after extensive negotiations this summer.

In the past, unions have demanded substantial upfront payments to all parties involved in performances -- making recordings, broadcasts and telecasts prohibitively expensive. Gelb calls the new revenue-sharing arrangement a "shift to a more fluid concept of media, in keeping with the infinite possibilities offered by modern technology."

(Tim Page, "Live Opera to Come to Movie Theaters", Washington Post, September 7, 2006)

More recent articles note that the first year was a success, that the Met is tripling the number of screens, and expects to reach one million viewers for the 2007-2008 season. (Ann Midget, "Met Opera to Expand in Theaters Across Globe," New York Times, August 9, 2007)

Can you imagine? An arts institution, 128 years old, confronts the reality of its marginalization by breaking out of its home, and brings what it does best out into the world. This, despite having multiple unions to deal with, and no doubt demanding donors.

This doesn't mean the Met will stop producing live opera. It can't. All the digital delivery systems in the world won't help you if you're not producing quality content.
Now I will grant you that there are no storytelling festivals with the endowment, the donor base, the general manager, or the history of the Metropolitan Opera.

But think of the storytelling festivals you've attended, or heard about.

Is their audience base shrinking or growing?
Is their audience aging?
Is the Festival locked into a specific venue and place, even if access to that venue limits the audience that can attend? (By capacity, or geographic distance, or obscurity, or lack of accomodations for out of town visitors)
Does it get any media attention (tv, radio)? And if it does, how deep is it? Is it a mention on the community calendar, two minutes on the news, or an hour long profile?

I know there are many logistical and economic hurdles keeping storytelling from being beamed live via satellite to movie theaters. I'm not advocating that, although it's a grand vision.

But how about radio?
How about television?

You can't claim that broadcasting a festival (either live, or after the fact) is technologically unfeasible.

And in this day and age, it is no more onerous to record and make available digitally live recordings from festivals than it is to do radio and television, and, I would submit, it's probably less expensive upfront and revenue generating over time. (Okay, I'll grant you, in many regions doing so would be ahead of the curve of what your audiences are looking for)

Sure, there are logistical hurdles. Working with partners new to the Festival environment (broadcast engineers, lighting and sound technicians).
Paperwork, legal releases. Revenue sharing arrangements.

My prediction: a savvy Festival, with a focused plan and diligent execution, could place itself as the premiere "brand" for storytelling in the mind of the public (even eclipsing those Festivals with longer histories or more clout in the storytelling community).

My further prediction: a startup venue will leap frog past all existing Festivals and do this within ten years. (The planning and technical execution you could do in two years, but it would take a few years to build the reputation... (and overcome the backlash from the existing storytelling community (and possible, some National organizations) that decry the "media"-ization of their beloved art form)). That's not to say this will come out of nowhere. Just that too many existing Festivals now are making the same mistake that the railroads did with the advent of the automobile and highway system: they focused on rails and trains, and not on the transportation business. Look around. You can see some new models of producing popping up. Keep an eye on them.

What are your predictions?

Tim Ereneta, National Storytelling Network Directory

Technical bugs were worked out, apparently, although if you visit the NSN Teller Directory you can't find my page yet. I have to wait for a human being to approve my content before the page is included in the "Search" function.

But I paid for a page that I could update anytime (in fact, part of the purchase stipulates that I, as the purchases, am responsible for keeping it up to date).

So rather than wait for approval, I'm announcing that my NSN Directory page is live. Here it is: link.

Caveat Emptor: National Storytelling Network Directory Listing

There are two online storytelling directories out there.
For years, I have used the one on Storyteller.net.
It's gotten me business, it's a bargain, and it's easy to use.

The other one, at the National Storytelling Network's Storynet.org is not a bargain. Or wasn't, until recently. In what I presume is a need for a fast influx of cash, the last quarter of 2007 introduced a fire sale and dropped the price below Storyteller.net's Premium option. I bought one, partly because it makes business sense, but frankly, also out of a charitable impulse, since the Executive Director put out a call to "help out" the organization.

Caveat emptor.

I purchased a page in the NSN Directory in December with the understanding that the site would not go live until January. When I made the purchase, it was explictly stated that I could modify and update my listing in December but it would not go live.
After five business days without a word from NSN (save for my receipt saying that I would receive my purchase withing two business days), I complained to both Board and Staff at NSN. I did not expect a response, as I knew the office was shut for the Christmas holidays. But someone at customer support picked up my complaint, and promptly changed the NSN web site to say that you could purchase a listing in December, and wait until January to modify and update it. I also received an email saying that I would have to wait until January to modify and update it.

On Dec. 28 I got the go ahead to create my listing. On Dec. 30 I logged in to play around with it. There was not any guidance on how the page would be formatted or any allowable html, so I cut and pasted some dummy text to try it out.

Jan. 2 I got an email from NSN who were surprised to find my directory listing in Latin. (I wasn't surprised, I had entered it in Latin.)

So I spent nearly an hour on Jan. 2 re-doing my entry in English... I would enter data, and then preview the page, but when I tried to correct my entry, the site usually discarded everything I had entered. After my third time, I figured out I needed to save first, and then attempt further editing. I did, even got a confirmation that I had updated my page.

And I waited for my page to go live. This week, I searched, it wasn't there. So I logged in... my page was back in Latin. It had reverted back to an earlier iteration that NSN was loathe to publish.

For the life of me, I don't understand WHY the National Storytelling Network has to have a live human being review my page before I publish it.

The whole point of the Directory re-launch, I had thought, was that "the new Teller Pages allows storytellers to manage and maintain their own page."

Apparently not storytellers who use Firefox as a browser.

And apparently "manage and maintain" means "with the approval of one of our staff members."

Is NSN worried that someone is going to enter a naughty word or an inappropriate photo?

I could see that happening on a free site (although, looking at Storyteller.net, I don't see that it does), but who is going to pay for a directory listing in order to hack the directory?

(Hmmm. A disgruntled customer might....)

FYI: on Storyteller.net, when you make a change on your page, it appears instantly (well, as long as you refresh your browser/reload the page). No one has to "approve" my changes.

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Here's a tip for both storytelling directories out there:
You need disclaimers on them. Like the one here.