1. Headspace: Artists, and creative people of all kinds, need intellectual room to breath. Headspace requires time, and – depending on one’s personal preferences – a certain amount of solitude and quiet. When interacting with others, creative headspace needs constructive feedback (both positive and not) and an emotionally supportive atmosphere. Too many conservatory environments, to provide one counter-example, include teacher-centered classes in which the master teacher expounds on his or her own work, negating the validity of the budding student artist. This teaching method does not promote the kind of headspace needed for students to be innovative and creative. Headspace is akin to the image I included last week as well as this: a wide open expanse filled with possibilities – ideas don’t happen inside closed minds!
2. Physical incubator space: Artists need physical space in which to develop work. Artists need physical space in the same way scientists need laboratories – a place to experiment and evolve ideas long before they are ready for exhibition to or performance with the public. Many of my region’s emerging visual, media, and performing artists were bred at the university at which I work, but once graduated, they lose access to the physical space in which to create the new work they were taught to value and create. Without physical space in which to develop work, the fertile headspace will lead only to frustration.
3. Networking space: Artists benefit tremendously from interaction with one another. The coffee shop next door (or inside) of the incubator space can serve this purpose physically, and the web provides those networking opportunities virtually. My colleague Jake Pinholster is developing a networking web-based space for metro-Phoenix artists called AMOK: Arts-Materials-Organization-Knowledge that, once it goes live, will create a networking space not only to facilitate the exchange of ideas, but the exchange of materials as well. How cool would it be if artists could use a site like this to create a local barter economy in art-making materials (and I don’t just mean visual arts, but performing arts as well)? There are some models for this nationally (the Ohio Theatre Alliance comes to mind for materials and Springboard for the Arts (Minneapolis) for knowledge sharing and other important infrastructure support – like healthcare) so we need not re-invent the wheel, at least not from scratch, to create such space.

My own headspace is opening up significantly as I begin a much needed sabbatical. No doubt my imprecise ideas on this subject will continue to evolve over the next several months.

Since I touched on the subjects of networking and virtual spaces, I’ll let you know that the p.a.v.e. symposium website has just gone live. It contains a mere tickler of information at the moment, but as the schedule develops, we’ll be posting updates. Registration for this free event will open in October. See http://theatrefilm.asu.edu/initiatives/pave-symposium.php

How does my minor epiphany relate to the arts entrepreneurship curriculum we’re developing? Here there’s a more direct relationship with my current reading, although its still involves reading between the lines. I’m working on a chapter for a book on “signature pedagogies for disciplinary habits of mind” with two colleagues from Australia. Our chapter is, as you might imagine, about arts entrepreneurship/enterprise education so I have been doing a lot of reading on business entrepreneurship pedagogy. Reading between the lines of that scholarship (and there’s a lot of it compared to the scholarship on arts entrepreneurship pedagogy) and about the fine work Rick Cherwitz is doing at UT as well as my own experience with the p.a.v.e. program at ASU I have come to realize that we need to teach students about ownership in the business sense by first providing them SPACE to have ownership over their own learning about arts entrepreneurship. I want students to come into my arts entrepreneurship classroom with a commitment to their own work. Then I need to get out of their way to provide them the space to be as creative as possible, providing a backstop where necessary on the issues that can, if misunderstood, put a premature end to their creativity: financing, IP protections, and the like.

Perhaps my interest this week in SPACE is more personal. As I embark on a bit of a professional transition, I find myself looking ahead (and looking forward) to having more space – space to think, to write, to teach, and to find connections that will help support the creativity of emerging artists.

While I have your attention, don’t forget to mark you calendars for the second biannual p.a.v.e. symposium on Entrepreneurship and the Arts, to be held April 1-2 2011 in Tempe AZ. Ben Cameron of the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation will be our keynote speaker and ETA’s very own Lisa Canning will be conducting a workshop on “Discovering your WHY? Artist Empowerment and Self-mangement.” We’re partnering with the Arizona Commission on the Arts to help get the word out, and the symposium coincides with the fast-growing Phoenix Fringe Festival, a project that the p.a.v.e. program helped to launch.

Lately, I feel a bit like the mouse being asked to bell the cat or the canary hired to go into the coal mine (or the monkey being sent up into space). Why? Because I have been asked repeatedly recently to identify “the elephant in the room” – the missing piece of curriculum, the most surprising faculty issue, or the problem with assessment. The people or organizations who ask these questions must know the answers, they must see the elephants too, or they wouldn’t pose those questions to me. But what is so dangerous about providing the answers that prevents them from engaging with the questions themselves? What are the consequences of facing head-on the questions of relevancy and sustainability. Is what we teach our (arts) students relevant and sustainable? Is the faculty teaching it relevant? How should we evaluate the curriculum? And the faculty who teach it?

And so, I get back on my soapbox to champion the idea that we should teach our students the importance of creativity, create environments that enable innovation rather than stymie it, and provide skills training that will help young artists sustain their lives and careers. Until we create the infrastructure to do so, ridding the room of elephants will be like….well…..herding cats.

I had an opportunity to host an amazing celebration last week. The celebration was in honor of the twelve student teams that received seed grant funding from the p.a.v.e. program in arts entrepreneurship this year. It’s a diverse group: grad students and undergrads, for profit and nonprofit, technology-focused and human-centered (often at the same time), led by students across all of the fine and performing arts disciplines. Part of what made last week’s celebration so amazing is the networking that went on between the students. To nudge the networking forward, I employed an old icebreaker game. Each project team randomly picked a card with another team’s logo on it, had to seek out that team, and learn enough about them to present the other team’s project and project progress to the assembled guests. Much lively discussion ensued!
Here’s a rundown of the projects:
WORLD IS STAGE is a multimedia content distribution network focused on connecting local performance artists, businesses, and community audiences through geographically specific media being developed by Dan Roth and Brandon Mechtley, graduate students in the joint Theatre/AME program in Interdisciplinary Media and PhD Computer Science programs.

THE SOMEWHAT THRILLING TALES OF THE MONOCLE is a steampunk-inspired animated web comic under development by a large interdisciplinary group of Herberger Institute freshman led by film major Brad Decker.

SHONTO ARTISTS PROJECT is a pilot for a facility for community artists working on the Navajo Reservation being developed by music graduate student Joshua Hill.

THE GLOBAL CABARET is a multi-location live variety show that builds community through an artistic emphasis on regional music, performance and stories from School of Theatre and Film and AME students Sara Schwabe and Dustin Chaffin

CLOPET THEATRE is dedicated to producing new and devised plays with and for the underserved 13-19 year-old demographic; the youth serve as directors, designers, technicians, and playwrights as well as performers. M. Yichao Wang is the team leader.

THE IMPROVIDERS ASSOCIATION, developed by Ned Simonson, is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing improvisational theatre workshops that will develop communication and coping skills of caregivers of patients with Alzheimer’s and other dementia-related diseases.

DANCERS AND HEALTH TOGETHER. Originally conceived as an awards presentation to raise money for health-related research, Mary Lane Porter has evolved this project into a community-based workshops focusing on dance as a means to achieving a healthier lifestyle.

SCRATCH THEORY is Chris Gallego brainchild for an interface between a DJ turntable and western musical notation.

URBAN ARTS CONNECTION is a networking website for student artists

RADIO HEALER is a performance and research enterprise focused on the interaction between technology and indigenous communities

THE DIFFERENT FROM WHAT? FILM FESTIVAL under Lisa Tolentino’s direction brings together films, filmmakers, and audience members exploring the nature of disability on film. Differentfromwhatfilm.com

JOIN AND CAST VENTURES is a field guide to the visual arts in Phoenix consisting itself of original artworks by urban artists.

For a more in-depth article about the most recent p.a.v.e. awardees, see http://entrepreneurship.asu.edu/newsletter/2010/04/29/pave-winners-2010

Finally, you’ll see me signing off on this posting an all subsequent postings with a reminder of our second biannual p.a.v.e. symposium on entrepreneurship and the arts April 1-2 2011 in Tempe AZ.

A BUDGET IS A PLAN.
A budget is only a plan for how the venture is going to spend the money it raises and earns. So, in the simplest terms, the budget plan is a list of all the sources of revenue and a list of all of the anticipated expenses. The accounting that happens afterward is an opportunity to assess how well the plan worked in achieving the goals of the venture or project.

REVENUE SHOULD EXCEED EXPENSES.
My quick lesson on financial management is equally simple: the total revenues must meet or exceed the total expenses. THIS IS NOT ROCKET SCIENCE.

It will probably come as no surprise to hear that sometimes student arts entrepreneurs don’t include everything they should on their planning budgets. What is surprising is that the most common mistake on the revenue side is the exclusion of earned income from the budget. That’s right, they don’t realize they can count the money they will generate from ticket sales or DVD sales, or tuition to the community arts workshop they’re starting in their budget. These students are smart and have big ideas, but they’re not yet fully thinking entrepreneurially. My guess is that leaving earned income off the budget plan is a problem of mindset. These students don’t expect to make a profit right off the blocks (if at all) so why include earned income. Because……

REVENUE AND PROFIT ARE TWO DIFFERENT THINGS.
Revenue is all the money that comes into the project. Profit (or deficit) is the difference between the revenue and the expenses. Most of our student arts entrepreneurs aren’t out to make a profit out of the box, but it is our hope – and theirs – that they’ll make the money needed to sustain their venture.

BUDGET PLANNING DOES NOT REQUIRE HIGHER LEVEL MATH
Some arts entrepreneurs are intimidated by the math needed to create a budget. There really isn’t anything more than basic arithmetic needed – primarily addition and subtraction. Multiplication may be needed if sales projections are part of the plan, but that only involves multiplying the unit price (e.g. ticket price) by the number of units projected to be sold.

RESEARCH REQUIRED
Sometimes, student arts entrepreneurs leave key items out of their budget or grossly underestimate the cost of something important — like marketing materials. It just takes a small amount of research to find out what it would cost to print and mail a thousand flyers, buy a domain name, or the like.

With a little research, some basic arithmetic, and the necessary foresight, putting together a budget can be pretty simple – especially when we’re only talking about four figure numbers. Multiple funding streams will make things more complicated, but by the time there are multiple funding sources to keep track of, the venture may want to consider a professional business manager or accountant. Think ahead, face your fears, and get started!

Often, my postings here have focused on the pragmatic – and I’ll return to the pragmatic topic of budgeting next – but it is important to periodically fuel our spirit and remind our souls of why we do what we do. I’m driven to provide opportunities for young artists because I believe in the transformative power of art. It elicits joy and sorrow, makes us think, helps us heal. The world we will live in tomorrow will look completely different from the world my father grew up in – or, for that matter, the one I grew up in. The next generation of artists and designers will have the responsibility of creating the culture of tomorrow, and we cannot even conceive of what that might be.

In her talk yesterday, Goldbard asked, “What do we want to be known for?” “Do we want to be known for our prisons?” “Do we want to be known for what we stop people from doing?” Or, as she implied, for what we help people to start? How can we help people to start? Public funding in its current model doesn’t work. Goldbard has been advocating for a new WPA, one that would put 120,000 artists to work in communities as painters, writers, actors, dancers. A program like that would transform the lives not only of the newly employed artists, but of the communities with which they come into contact.

Imagine that!

Let’s unpack these points a bit. While the origin points are Leni’s (as is the image of the Triple Bridge on Ninth Avenue in NYC), I’m doing the unpacking.

Explore your vision – an artistic vision is like a landscape. It can have breadth and depth, with high points and low points. The artist can move around in this vision and find new and interesting areas to explore within it. To do that, the artist needs to be in motion rather than static, constantly examining and re-examining their vision, moving through the landscape in search of the next project, the next opportunity.

Take Risks to Discover – there are two important concepts here, “risk” and “discovery,” risk being the means to discovery, the goal. Discovery comes at a price, or at least at the potential of a price. Entrepreneurship of any type involves risk. What are you willing to risk to discover a new place in your creative landscape?

Focus your efforts – I’m not a very good pianist. I’m a very good lighting designer. The lesson seems obvious to me.

Expand you medium – at first blush, I thought this was a contradiction to “focus your efforts,” but instead it’s a complement. Once the artist focuses their efforts, they can expand their medium. How? By taking risks to discover – to discover new meanings and new ways of expressing them, by advancing the medium itself technologically and creatively.

Ask for support – that landscape of creativity need not be a desert or deserted. How much more fun is it to work with a team or on a team? More than just fun, how much more productive and creative can one be when joining forces with other smart, productive, creative people. There are resources out there – seek them, find them, ask them.

Next month, we’re hosting a talk by Arlene Goldbard, community arts activist and author. Stay tuned for some thoughts from and about her in mid April.

In a class that may be taken by as many as 80 student artists per year, I have to recognize that not every one of those 80 will start the next great arts-based venture. The take-aways from the class need to be as much the self-actualization mindset as the fiscal literacy and knowledge of business models. In the hierarchy of needs (at least as defined by Abraham Maslow), self actualization is at the very top. Is it ethical to focus on self-actualization without providing some means by which the student artists can achieve the lower rungs of that hierarchy (food, shelter)? Balance will again be key. Students will – hopefully – leave the course not only with an understanding of opportunity creation but also with a solid professional looking resume and some self-management and self-marketing skills that will help them climb above the first two rungs of the hierarchy of needs.

Another question I struggle with is around the teaching of creativity and innovation. My arts entrepreneurship course will have as a prerequisite a lower level course called something like “Creativity and Innovation across Design and the Arts.” My own intellectual struggle is around whether or not it is possible to actually teach people this topic. There’s plenty of literature out there, especially recent literature from the cognitive and behavioral sciences about creative process, literature on exercises that incite creativity, and great inspiring talks on Ted.com by really creative people. My current view is that before creativity or innovation can be “taught,” we need to create an environment in which students are actually allowed to be creative and innovative. Creativity and innovation is rarely linear, so teaching step-by-step processes and testing and assessment can be limiting and counterproductive.

Yet, we live in a culture where evaluation and assessment are valued to the extreme, especially as both private and public arts funding shrinks. Granting organizations often require both self- and external assessments, and academic courses include student assessment and faculty assessment. One of the course modules I’m struggling with the most is the one near the end of the course on self-assessment. Venture success can be measured by the financial balance sheet, but creativity, rather than productivity, is harder to measure. Despite my struggles, I’m having a really good time searching for and reviewing the literature!

Your input is welcome. Send me your comments, suggestions, and resources.

How then can we impart a spirit of entrepreneurship in our students? I’m not convinced that it’s through business plan competitions (as Eastman and others are doing), although such competitions can certainly be one part of a multi-faceted approach to arts entrepreneurship education. Some students in the arts need foundational or even remedial education in topics like financial literacy and career planning, and that might be another facet. But those too are not enough. We need to look at Craig Barrett’s charge to create an environment for innovation, an environment where student artists can be seen as co-creators, not merely empty vessels to be filled with the wisdom of past masters. Only through innovation and the creation of new work (and new forms of work) will the arts and culture (and the economy) advance.

How many times have we gone to a performance at our regional professional nonprofit theatre and been greeted at curtain time by the artistic director or managing director making a plea for support? The curtain speech plea has become ubiquitous in the last 18 months as theatres have struggled to stay alive. But, it’s a technique not confined to the nonprofit market. Broadway cast members have been making their annual Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids fundraising plea for the six weeks leading up to the New Year. Both certainly have the air of the begging cup about them. The most successful development efforts, however, have nothing to do with begging during a curtain speech. Successful development efforts have at least three major components: partnering with community, developing audience, and effective grant-getting.

When development focuses solely on asking for money, it is doomed to fail. (So Jim, I agree with you on this point.) However, when a theatre (or any non-profit arts organization) meets a community need, then the community will support it. The question is not “how can we avoid the begging cup?” but rather “who can we partner with in our community?” and “how can we better serve our community?” I don’t have any easy answers, but in general, arts organizations need to be focused outwardly rather than inwardly: “who are our constituents and how can we give them something of value?” rather than “what do we need to do to maintain our current programming and structure?”

This is where the second component comes into play: audience development. If the current audience is not supportive, its time develop new audience, which usually means a change of direction or expansion of programming, rather than a contraction. I’m trying to expand our audience for my current institution by offering more performances, some at nontraditional times. Is it working? Unfortunately it’s very unclear, but we haven’t lost anything in the trying (yet). We took a risk. We’re expanding services to niche audiences like elder hostels and children. But we can’t measure success based on ticket revenue alone. We will measure success on whether or not the organizations and programs we partner with want to continue the relationships we form.

I listed effective grant-getting as a component of development because grant writing and grant-getting have several benefits. The mere act of writing grants (which are usually only available to nonprofits) forces an organization to focus and articulate its mission. Grant getting is also a form of community partnerships. Foundations want to partner with organizations that help advance the mission of the foundation. It is a bi-directional relationship.

Jim expressed a utopian idea of having many small for profit theatres, privately owned, and risk taking. Here Jim and I disagree. We have a model of for-profit theatres: Broadway. Some are privately owned, some owned by large corporations, but very very few are risk-taking and none of them small. (The risk-taking exceptions are the commercial Broadway productions mounted by nonprofit theatres – here we see riskier fare like Sarah Ruhl’s “In the Next Room”). But, much as small independent bookstores and mom-and-pop grocers are few and far between, so too would be privately owned for-profit theatres. Such theatres would have no choice but to pander to the ticket buying audience (a demographic not always known for risk-taking) and, driven by a profit motive, would not stay small for long because if successful, there would be buy-out offers from Comcast or Universal or Disney. Making art is risky enough without the art makers having to invest and risk losing significant capital.

That having been said, maybe theatre makers should look to filmmakers for a for-profit model in which a company is formed around a specific project, money raised for that project, and then return on investment may (or may not) take place after distribution. Perhaps the way to have a for-profit theatre infrastructure is to avoid the institution structure completely and consider each project as an independent venture. That would be an idea worth pursuing – but fundraising for a for-profit project-based venture brings us full circle back to the begging cup. Perhaps there’s no escaping it.

HAPPY NEW YEAR! (And don’t forget to give generously to the arts organization of your choice!)

When I talk to people though, people who run theatres, people who work for nonprofit theatres, people who know about theatre management, their mantra is almost 100% in unison: cash flow, cash flow, cash flow. A theatre that can manage its cash flow, whether by maintaining a cash reserve or accurately predicting revenue and expenses — or better yet both — seems more likely to persist. I note that given the current economy, it’s a lot easier to do the former (maintain a cash reserve) than it is to do the latter (accurately predict revenue and expenses) but both are challenging.

I’ve been preoccupied with academic matters recently, but hope to resume more regular postings after the first of the year!

Students have some of the coolest ideas.  With their permission, I’m sharing some information about the six awardees with you all.  Yes, it’s a little bit of bragging, but it’s also sharing some of the interesting ideas that we’ll be mentoring and supporting in the months to come.  (And, yes, there were a few proposals that just made you roll your eyes, but those were very few.) A lot of proposals were for projects that could be termed “social entrepreneurship” as much as “arts entrepreneurship,” a combination I find both interesting, and hopeful.

With that, I bring you the Fall 2009 p.a.v.e. awardees:

Join and Cast Ventures: Two Art (Intermedia) students, Jennifer C. and Catherine A., are producing a field guide to the downtown Phoenix arts scene that is itself a work of art.

Radio Healer: Led by Arts, Media Engineering (AME) graduate student Christopher M., Radio Healer presents mediated performances that foster intercultural dialogue in Native communities.

Dance and Health Together Awards: Led by undergraduate Dance major Mary P., the DaHT Awards is a combination of dance recognition award and fundraising enterprise benefiting the Susan G. Komen Foundation.

Co-op Film Productions – Film and Media Production/Marketing student Chelsea R. and her team are creating a support infrastructure for student collaboration across arts and design disciplines.

Different from What? Film Festival – AME graduate student Lisa T. in collaboration with Education student Federico W. is producing a film festival focused on films by, for, and about adults with disabilities.

Scratch Theory – Filmmaking Practices major Chris G. and his collaborators are developing a software/hardware interface that will first notate and then play back via synthesizer DJ scratching.

I’ve been doing some research lately on measures of the fiscal health of not-for-profit arts organizations, especially theatres. This got me thinking about the factors that support the fiscal health of individual artists and arts entrepreneurs. In a 2001 article, Mark Hager examines four measures of fiscal stability – of the ability of an organization to withstand the kinds of economic shocks we’ve experience over the last twelve months. (He adapted these from some earlier work by Tuckman and Chang.)

The four measures are: equity balance, revenue concentration, administrative cost, and operating margin.
How can we translate these four organizational measures into something useful for individual artists and arts entrepreneurs? Here is some of my preliminary thinking:

1. Equity balance. It’s always nice to have some money in the bank. From a practical standpoint, having a cushion in the bank can help support the artist in lean times. Building up that cushion during lean times is difficult but should be a priority during the fat times. I even think there’s a story about that somewhere regarding Joseph and a pharaoh’s dreams.

2. Revenue concentration. It’s much easier for an arts entrepreneur to withstand the sudden withdrawal of one client if they have more than one. So, if you’re counting on that one big commission, you may want to backstop that with several smaller commissions as well. Multiple revenue sources guard against permanent damage when any one of those streams dries up.

3. Administrative costs. Believe it or not, studies (Hager’s and others) indicate that it’s worth investing in the people and equipment necessary to run your arts-based business. Doing so has two positive effects on financial stability: 1) solid administrative capacity and 2) there’s somewhere to cut if the times get really really lean.

4. Operating margin. Pretty simple – don’t spend more than you earn. If you do, you’ll need to dip into that equity balance from item one, further diversify your revenue, or sell off the new copier/scanner you purchased to support your office operations.
It all sounds like common sense to me and I’ve been glad to find out that that common sense is actually backed up by empirical research!

1. Communicate
2. Know your team members
3. Ask questions
4. Do your research
5. Look for the “next thing,” not the last thing
6. Look for relationships
7. Be “deep generalists” rather than “narrow specialists” (Bennis)
8. Work together toward a collective purpose
9. Articulate the group’s mission
10. Be optimistic
11. Embrace the idea that groups are temporary and project-focused
12. Find commonalities
13. Listen, then adapt
14. Listen, then participate
15. Reach consensus
16. Respect your team members

As Walter Bennis points out in “Organizing Genius: The Secret of Creative Collaboration,” “one is too small a number to produce greatness” (p. 3). At the end of the book, Bennis offers some “Take-Home Lessons,” including “Greatness starts with great people” (p. 197). He goes on to define the need for great people to make up great groups. These are people who “have more than enormous talent and intelligence. They have original minds. They see things differently. They can spot the gaps in what we know….They see connections. Often they have specialized skills, combined with broad interests and multiple frames of reference. They tend to be deep generalists, not broad specialists. They are not so immersed in one discipline that they can’t see solutions on another…” (p. 198).

The attributes Bennis lists are important to the formation of an effective arts entrepreneurship team. To cite just one example, a conductor starting a new community orchestra (as one of our p.a.v.e. students did) needs to assemble a team that includes not only musicians, but musicians with knowledge of community cultural development and a marketing manager who not only understands marketing but also has a deep knowledge of music. Fledgling arts entrepreneurs will need to learn to be open to input from their teams, because teams are smarter than individuals (see Bennis and also “The Wisdom of Crowds” by James Surowiecki). They need not “hang on for dear life” to one singular idea, but rather open their arms wide to embrace both the broad interests and specific skills of those smart and talented individuals they want on their teams.

The next challenge, then, is to locate appropriate team members and recruit them effectively. More on that next time!

At the workshop my p.a.v.e. colleagues and I led two weeks ago, one of the student attendees was very concerned about confidentiality, about the proprietary nature of his ideas. This student was way ahead of me in considering the protection of his ideas. I wish I had been as wary (I hesitate to say “paranoid”) twenty-five years ago when I designed a summer production of a new musical bound, I found out later, for Broadway. Imagine my surprise/disgust/dismay when a version of the custom templates (aka “gobos”) I designed for the finale appeared in the Broadway production a year later, “designed” by someone else.

I think we all want to be good collaborators and citizens of the global arts community, but at what point do we hold up our hands and say: “That’s mine and not yours and I deserve the credit and the financial reward!” Should we ever do so? Students are starting to submit applications for our next round of p.a.v.e. funding. Without sharing any specific information, or divulging anyone’s intellectual property, I note with interest that one team’s business plan actually calls for credit and revenue sharing equally in a kind of artistic co-op. While this idea isn’t new, I’m intrigued by the idea of revenue sharing within an entrepreneurial framework. With all the misplaced accusations of “socialism” in the media lately, what I’m seeing from the trenches of academia is that it may be possible to be both socialistic and profitable. That it just might be more innovative to share one’s intellectual property freely than hold on to it for dear life.

I’m a lighting designer, I’m an entrepreneur, I’m an educator, and I’m a researcher. There are other descriptors too, but they’re probably not relevant to this site! I smiled when in yesterday’s posting, Jim wrote “When I was active as an actor in New York, following graduation from Yale School of Drama,” because I date my own interest in entrepreneurship to “when I was an active lighting designer in New York, following graduation from New York University [then YSD’s main rival in theatre design education].” I probably didn’t even know what the word “entrepreneur” meant at that time (and who does now – but that for another day). What I did know was that I was creative, had ideas, and needed to get producers and directors to recognize me. In other words, I needed a launch, a boost, a kick in the pants to get me moving forward on a creative trajectory. Fast forward 25 years and that’s what I try to do as an educator: give smart creative young people a launch or a boost – and sometimes a kick in the pants – to get them moving forward in their creative lives.

In addition to directing a large interdisciplinary school, I lead ASU’s arts entrepreneurship initiative p.a.v.e. (the performing arts venture experience). The program includes a student arts-venture incubator. Funded in large part by a grant from the Kauffman Foundation, we’re able to provide creative students with that launch or boost that they need by providing seed money, mentorship, and office space. The first question that keeps me up at night is “What is the efficacy of this program over the long run?” Now in its third year, we’re seeing some positive results, as well as some enterprises that have failed to meet their potential. Thus, I wonder too, “How does the efficacy of this program compare to that of other arts venture incubators?” This latter is the subject of my next research project, so if you have benefitted from an arts venture incubator, I would be really interested in hearing from you.

The really big questions that keep me up at night are about public funding for the arts. I’m really intrigued by libertarian (my description) economist Tyler Cowen’s call for an arts agency that can “offer support to individual artists on a relatively arbitrary and indiscriminate basis” with far less accountability than the NEA has now. He even writes “Direct subsidies have worked best when accountability is absent.” (both quotes are from Cowen, Tyler (2006) “Good and Plenty” Princeton University Press, p. 134)

Here are a few other questions (it’s a miracle I sleep at all):
Is some artmaking fundamentally incongruous with environmental sustainability?
Can one teach “innovation?”
How does environment and geography affect arts entrepreneurship?
How can we get students more engaged in (arts) entrepreneurial activities?
Does the traditional definition of “entrepreneur” really fit the arts?
Is there a “right balance” between the new and the traditional?

That’s enough for now. As I consider these and other questions related to entrepreneurship and the arts, I’ll share my thoughts with you. I’m sure I won’t have any definite answers, but the musings will hopefully be interesting.