The RSA and Arts Council England collaborated to produce the ‘State of the Arts’ conference last week – a long and packed day of presentation and discussion. We heard from both Jeremy Hunt and Ben Bradshaw, two very similar men to the naked eye. Bradshaw’s speech seemed to me to have a certain valedictory feel to it, Hunt was clearly trying to not to appear too cocky, but came across as passionate and open. Neither really broke any news, although Hunt’s proposition that emerging policy makers should aspire to have jobs at DCMS rather than, say, ACE, did make a small shudder run through the 500 plus crowd.
The sessions I attended varied in their impact. The session on business models had some interesting speakers – I wanted to go and work for Coney immediately, or at least volunteer for the Society of Codenames – but reinforced the need for more people in the sector who can frame a model, or a theory about how the sector actually functions. It only takes us so far to say ‘be great at what you do’. We need replicable models if we are to convince politicians and policy makers. (And voters too, actually.)
Highlights of the day were (therefore, I might almost add) the highly contrasting Helen Marriage and Bill Ivey. Helen Marriage spoke about the work of Artichoke in transforming cities – but only on a temporary basis. She made a sound argument for ‘the power of the temporary’ and the ‘cultural value of the merely spectactular’, based not just on what she’d seen work in London, Liverpool and Durham, but on how she thought that actually happened. She put together an argument for large-scale investment in the temporary in a way I’d never quite heard before, stronger for having what I can only a methodology behind it. And she ended by reciting a poem, which I always think is a good trick, though don’t all start doing it please, it’s one of my own favourite techniques.
Bill Ivey could learn a thing or two about powerpoint from some of the other speakers, but apart from that was really impressive in applying his ‘Expressive Lives’ thinking (see here for my thoughts on that) to the idea of a cultural bill of rights. Challenging and intellectually rigorous, the tone wasn’t quite maintained throughout the debate. The questions from the floor suffered from a kind of solipsism, a framing of things only within the arts. Freedoms of expression and of movement are not being restricted for artists because those people are artists primarily, but because of broader political issues. They can’t be addressed simply as artistic issues, but need to be put in a bigger context. But then the earlier discussion around whether artists could change society suggested a deal of nervousness about getting explicitly and deliberately political… For this reason, allied to my inate triviality, I therefore had the Beastie Boys and Public Enemy running through my head for the latter part of the day. (‘You gotta fight – for your right – to PAAA-RTY’ and ‘Party for your right to fight’ respectively.)
I believe there are already plans a foot to make this an annual event – we shall see in what roles Messrs Hunt and Bradshaw might be there. That's a really healthy thing, as this kind of serious discussion needs to happen on a regular basis, and be informed by more serious research and provocation.
Showing posts with label RSA. Show all posts
Showing posts with label RSA. Show all posts
Monday, 18 January 2010
Wednesday, 4 November 2009
Paradoxical times?
IPPR North’s recent publication Public Sector Paradox draws together some conclusions from the Commission on Public Sector Reform in the North East. These centre on ways out of what they believe is a paradox: public services in the region are working well but the North East is not closing the inequality gap on the rest of the country. (The same pattern could be said to pertain to the arts in the region and participation levels.) The Commission puts forward a number of striking (and pithily expressed) theories, such as that public services ‘may be hitting targets but missing the point’ and need more local definition and freedom from Whitehall centralism.
To mark the publication and to discuss what the ‘inevitable’ (it's a quote, yes, but I also think we need to emphasise the constructed quality of the inevitablity) public sector cuts will mean to the North East and how to respond, IPPR and the RSA organised a conference today at St James Park in Newcastle. (No, I didn’t see anyone putting ‘sportsdirect.com’ signs up.) Speakers included Sir George Russell, who chaired the Commission, Matthew Taylor from the RSA, John Tommany for Newcastle University and Deborah Jenkins, one of the founders of Common Purpose.
There was much talk of leadership – without it ever being defined and without who it might refer to being narrowed down much. The spectre of the Great Man model was behind a lot that was said. The idea of a more networked leadership model, which allowed for a greater diversity of voices, seems an important one to explore – though challenging to many orthodoxies.
The North East is clearly vulnerable to cuts in public sector spending, given our relative dependence on government funding. (I was reacting strongly against this word during the day, but struggle to avoid it. It suggests government funding is a kind of drug we need to be weaned off, rather than a positive investment with a particular kind of return on investment. Do people talk about dependency on financiers? I guess so.) But one possible reason for the seeming paradox was given by John Tomanny in an ironic quite: it’s the economy, stupid.
Matthew Taylor suggested a scarily believable nightmare scenario for the North East, where a retrenchment into the so-called essentials leads to the region becoming less attractive to talent and investment, leading to even less achievement and so on. You might call this the ‘It’s Grim Up North Again’ scenario. (My phrase, not Matthew’s, in case anyone wants to take offence.) He suggested turning the potential weakness into a strength by becoming a centre of excellence in public sector productivity and innovation, by adopting an Innovation Charter, clusters of new thinking and creating international links rather than regional or national ones. (And yes, Matthew, as you guessed, we are doing some of that already, but not boldly or quickly enough.)
The biggest barrier to this is probably what was described as the first pre-condition for innovation: a sense of otherwise-unavoidable-crisis-or-disastrous-problem. I was reminded of something I’d read in the Guardian this morning, where Ben Bradshaw accuses the arts sector of ‘sleepwalking’ towards a difficult future (under a different government than his own oddly enough.) Certainly in some of the cultural sector broadly there is a kind of complacency disguised as either fatalism or oppositional critique that worries me. There is not, it seems, yet what the change specialists call ‘a burning platform’. I have to think it’s the optimist in me that can smell burning, not the fatalist. (I’m optimistic we can find great new ways of working – to engage more than 1 in 10 adults on a very regular basis, for instance - but only once we realise some of our old and current ways are part of an urgent and damaging problem. I think it's about more than the next election too.)
The question I personally came away with was this: how do I use my last few months as a North East leader-with-job-title to make sure I can still play my part – in fact even build my part in some ways – in the future? I’m thinking on it, believe me, but your answers on a postcard welcome.
To mark the publication and to discuss what the ‘inevitable’ (it's a quote, yes, but I also think we need to emphasise the constructed quality of the inevitablity) public sector cuts will mean to the North East and how to respond, IPPR and the RSA organised a conference today at St James Park in Newcastle. (No, I didn’t see anyone putting ‘sportsdirect.com’ signs up.) Speakers included Sir George Russell, who chaired the Commission, Matthew Taylor from the RSA, John Tommany for Newcastle University and Deborah Jenkins, one of the founders of Common Purpose.
There was much talk of leadership – without it ever being defined and without who it might refer to being narrowed down much. The spectre of the Great Man model was behind a lot that was said. The idea of a more networked leadership model, which allowed for a greater diversity of voices, seems an important one to explore – though challenging to many orthodoxies.
The North East is clearly vulnerable to cuts in public sector spending, given our relative dependence on government funding. (I was reacting strongly against this word during the day, but struggle to avoid it. It suggests government funding is a kind of drug we need to be weaned off, rather than a positive investment with a particular kind of return on investment. Do people talk about dependency on financiers? I guess so.) But one possible reason for the seeming paradox was given by John Tomanny in an ironic quite: it’s the economy, stupid.
Matthew Taylor suggested a scarily believable nightmare scenario for the North East, where a retrenchment into the so-called essentials leads to the region becoming less attractive to talent and investment, leading to even less achievement and so on. You might call this the ‘It’s Grim Up North Again’ scenario. (My phrase, not Matthew’s, in case anyone wants to take offence.) He suggested turning the potential weakness into a strength by becoming a centre of excellence in public sector productivity and innovation, by adopting an Innovation Charter, clusters of new thinking and creating international links rather than regional or national ones. (And yes, Matthew, as you guessed, we are doing some of that already, but not boldly or quickly enough.)
The biggest barrier to this is probably what was described as the first pre-condition for innovation: a sense of otherwise-unavoidable-crisis-or-disastrous-problem. I was reminded of something I’d read in the Guardian this morning, where Ben Bradshaw accuses the arts sector of ‘sleepwalking’ towards a difficult future (under a different government than his own oddly enough.) Certainly in some of the cultural sector broadly there is a kind of complacency disguised as either fatalism or oppositional critique that worries me. There is not, it seems, yet what the change specialists call ‘a burning platform’. I have to think it’s the optimist in me that can smell burning, not the fatalist. (I’m optimistic we can find great new ways of working – to engage more than 1 in 10 adults on a very regular basis, for instance - but only once we realise some of our old and current ways are part of an urgent and damaging problem. I think it's about more than the next election too.)
The question I personally came away with was this: how do I use my last few months as a North East leader-with-job-title to make sure I can still play my part – in fact even build my part in some ways – in the future? I’m thinking on it, believe me, but your answers on a postcard welcome.
Wednesday, 14 October 2009
Does democracy have customers?
I wrote about cuts and choices recently , suggesting the debate needed to be about what we are prepared to do without. Matthew Taylor, on his RSA blog, puts his finger on the underlying problem: which is, as it so often is, an inappropriate metaphor:
'Modern representative democracy, as it is practised in England, is based on a false metaphor – that of consumerism. We think the task of democracy is to give us what we want, the customer is always right. In contrast, I want to argue that representative democracy is actually much more about trying to agree what we can’t have and coming to accept the reasons why. This, after all, is the question posed by the public spending deficit and by the even bigger challenge of reducing our national carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. But deciding how to make sacrifices is much harder than promising everyone goodies. The way we think about and undertake representative democracy is incapable of supporting this kind of discussion.'
I also relate this false metaphor to my unease when people - especially in the media - say certain things are 'owned' by the tax payer, or that 'the tax payer now pays some bankers' wages' because the government invest in them. It feels inaccurate. And maybe that's because it's based on the metaphor of consumerist shareholding for profit/goods rather than (jargon alert!) community stakeholding.
Matthew also says 'every policy option has a downside and involves a real political choice' which is something I feel is often overlooked by the sector in responding to arts policy. (And sometimes by policy makers themselves!)
This could be explored further, but no time for that now unfortunately - but felt it was a useful insight.
'Modern representative democracy, as it is practised in England, is based on a false metaphor – that of consumerism. We think the task of democracy is to give us what we want, the customer is always right. In contrast, I want to argue that representative democracy is actually much more about trying to agree what we can’t have and coming to accept the reasons why. This, after all, is the question posed by the public spending deficit and by the even bigger challenge of reducing our national carbon emissions by 80% by 2050. But deciding how to make sacrifices is much harder than promising everyone goodies. The way we think about and undertake representative democracy is incapable of supporting this kind of discussion.'
I also relate this false metaphor to my unease when people - especially in the media - say certain things are 'owned' by the tax payer, or that 'the tax payer now pays some bankers' wages' because the government invest in them. It feels inaccurate. And maybe that's because it's based on the metaphor of consumerist shareholding for profit/goods rather than (jargon alert!) community stakeholding.
Matthew also says 'every policy option has a downside and involves a real political choice' which is something I feel is often overlooked by the sector in responding to arts policy. (And sometimes by policy makers themselves!)
This could be explored further, but no time for that now unfortunately - but felt it was a useful insight.
Wednesday, 8 July 2009
Do we have to think small to think big?
At some recent briefings for regularly funded organisations, one of the hot topics was the national engagement campaign we’re planning. It would be fair to say reactions ranged from enthusiasm to scepticism. Some people suggested we should just focus on the quality of the art and the audiences would take care of themselves. Some people suggested we were only taking about increasing audiences because we felt pressured to by government. Some people suggested it was really complicated to get new audiences for the arts, and that we risked dumbing down quality work by taking an approach that might be too populist. Some immediately thought about how they might use the campaign to promote their work, or how they could partner with the campaign, and had some very practical suggestions and issues. Some seemed to think we only wanted ‘big numbers’, and that big numbers were suspect. They were interesting discussions.
This is clearly not a easy nut to crack. But shortly after I read a really useful article in the new RSA Journal by ‘persuasive technology’ expert BJ Fogg: the new rules of persuasion. I’ll leave aside the technological aspects of his argument – though they’re obviously important. I’ll also not expand on his ‘behavior model’, though you can read more about it here. (It’s basically motivation + ability + trigger = behaviour.)
What particularly struck home was his advice to think simple – because it’s something I think neither the Arts Council or the arts sector are good enough at. Indeed, I feel there is often a resistance to ‘simple’, and a preference for (as Facebook would have us say) ‘It’s complicated.’ It has applications to lots of areas of arts development, but especially to encouraging 'everyone' to engage with the arts.
This quote illustrates the challenge to our tendency to want to change the whole world at once:
‘The first critical step in designing for persuasion is to select an appropriate target behaviour. I believe the best choice is the simplest behaviour that matters. Often this requires a team to reduce their ambitious long-term goal to a small near-term objective. For example, last year I worked with a large health-care company whose goal was to help people reduce their stress levels. That goal was too vague and too large-scale. So for starters we picked a smaller target behaviour: let’s persuade people to stretch for 20 seconds when prompted. Note that this smaller goal was so simple that anyone could achieve it, and the success rate was measurable. This was a good starting point for the larger goal of reducing overall stress level.’
Fogg advises that we should start small and fast and then build on small successes: ‘As the small offerings succeeded, they then expanded. That approach to innovation works. In contrast, services launched with many features or ambitious goals seem almost always to fail.’
He concludes with this thought: ‘Simplicity requires courage. Inside big companies and academic research labs, thinking small will rarely boost your status. An innovator who says 'no' to complicated designs and unrealistic goals may appear timid to colleagues or clients.’ The challenge for everyone in the arts, then, may be learning to think small in order to really think big, or learning from those already doing it.
This is clearly not a easy nut to crack. But shortly after I read a really useful article in the new RSA Journal by ‘persuasive technology’ expert BJ Fogg: the new rules of persuasion. I’ll leave aside the technological aspects of his argument – though they’re obviously important. I’ll also not expand on his ‘behavior model’, though you can read more about it here. (It’s basically motivation + ability + trigger = behaviour.)
What particularly struck home was his advice to think simple – because it’s something I think neither the Arts Council or the arts sector are good enough at. Indeed, I feel there is often a resistance to ‘simple’, and a preference for (as Facebook would have us say) ‘It’s complicated.’ It has applications to lots of areas of arts development, but especially to encouraging 'everyone' to engage with the arts.
This quote illustrates the challenge to our tendency to want to change the whole world at once:
‘The first critical step in designing for persuasion is to select an appropriate target behaviour. I believe the best choice is the simplest behaviour that matters. Often this requires a team to reduce their ambitious long-term goal to a small near-term objective. For example, last year I worked with a large health-care company whose goal was to help people reduce their stress levels. That goal was too vague and too large-scale. So for starters we picked a smaller target behaviour: let’s persuade people to stretch for 20 seconds when prompted. Note that this smaller goal was so simple that anyone could achieve it, and the success rate was measurable. This was a good starting point for the larger goal of reducing overall stress level.’
Fogg advises that we should start small and fast and then build on small successes: ‘As the small offerings succeeded, they then expanded. That approach to innovation works. In contrast, services launched with many features or ambitious goals seem almost always to fail.’
He concludes with this thought: ‘Simplicity requires courage. Inside big companies and academic research labs, thinking small will rarely boost your status. An innovator who says 'no' to complicated designs and unrealistic goals may appear timid to colleagues or clients.’ The challenge for everyone in the arts, then, may be learning to think small in order to really think big, or learning from those already doing it.
Tuesday, 23 December 2008
Are making music and cooking connected?
I mentioned in passing earlier this month that I’d attended a seminar on commissioning opera. This was to mark the creation of Skellig the opera – with libretto by novelist David Almond and music by composer Tod Machover. One of the things I didn’t know before that day was that Tod Machover was also involved in the technology used in Guitar Hero, in his role at MIT. The new RSA Journal has an article by Tod about the creation of ‘personal instruments’ for opening up genuine musical creation (as opposed to Guitar Hero’s game-based application of the technology) for those without musical training. It’s particularly interesting to learn how it has been used to enable musical creation by people with physical impediments that mean traditional instruments are impractical. He also talks about the role of the youth chorus in Skellig and his aspirations for ‘a new model for the interrelationship between experts and amateurs in musical listening, performance and creation’.
He goes on to make an analogy with food and cooking which I think reveals more of a challenge than he suggests. He claims we ‘all’ have a food culture or ecology in which appreciating the achievements of experts – the Michelin-starred chefs and so on – sits happily alongside our own participation in both daily, improvised cooking expressing our personality and special occasion meals. Whilst there is evidence of that in some parts, there is also plenty of evidence that actually the distant relationship many have with the arts is mirrored in an even more dislocated relationship to food and cooking, with many people simply not eating well at all, losing the traditional skills and rituals associated with food – and the family and social capital that goes with it. I can’t imagine my life without either music or cooking – I get frustrated if I go too long without playing or listening to music or being able to cook - but there are many people who can. (And after all I did work as a chef for 6 years before working in the arts...) To create that healthy ecology in the arts we have to address some very big issues. (See Jamie Oliver’s ‘Ministry of Food’ work for just one take on this.)
The new RSA Journal, coincidentally, has another article that might give some clues as to why this is the case, Crossing the class divide by Lynsey Hanley. It’s worth a look.
He goes on to make an analogy with food and cooking which I think reveals more of a challenge than he suggests. He claims we ‘all’ have a food culture or ecology in which appreciating the achievements of experts – the Michelin-starred chefs and so on – sits happily alongside our own participation in both daily, improvised cooking expressing our personality and special occasion meals. Whilst there is evidence of that in some parts, there is also plenty of evidence that actually the distant relationship many have with the arts is mirrored in an even more dislocated relationship to food and cooking, with many people simply not eating well at all, losing the traditional skills and rituals associated with food – and the family and social capital that goes with it. I can’t imagine my life without either music or cooking – I get frustrated if I go too long without playing or listening to music or being able to cook - but there are many people who can. (And after all I did work as a chef for 6 years before working in the arts...) To create that healthy ecology in the arts we have to address some very big issues. (See Jamie Oliver’s ‘Ministry of Food’ work for just one take on this.)
The new RSA Journal, coincidentally, has another article that might give some clues as to why this is the case, Crossing the class divide by Lynsey Hanley. It’s worth a look.
Thursday, 28 February 2008
Are the arts prone to ‘producer capture’?
I have Matthew Taylor of the RSA and a recent blog to thank for a new phrase – ‘producer capture’. Not sure I’m going to be able to slip it into conversation very easily, but it is, I think, a useful concept: ‘the process whereby the goals of an organisation reflect the interests and prejudices of its employees (the producers) rather than those it is supposed to serve (the consumers, customers or citizens)’. (His posting is inspired by a dispute at the charity Shelter, and Ken Loach’s intervention in it.)
Minimising ‘producer capture’ has apparently driven much New Labour reform, especially in the public sector. Matthew Taylor relates it to the voluntary sector, but it might be a useful check for arts organisations – including, of course the Arts Council. Why are we doing what we do, and who for – and what shapes our work most? When we argue for funding – either to government in the Arts Council's case or to the Arts Council or local authorities for many organisations - are we really sure we’re doing it for those we serve rather than for our own protection? These are good questions for any cultural organisation to ask periodically.
In the arts sector itself - as opposed to the arts funding and development systems - the idea is of course complicated by the central importance of artists and other kinds of ‘producers’ – they are far, far more than ‘employees’. Their individual artistic vision drives things. My sense though is that organisations that avoid ‘producer capture’, no matter how strong and individual the artistic vision, have more impact than those that don’t. They are also – as I would argue our recent case to government in the Comprehensive Spending Review result shows – more likely to put forward persuasive cases to funders.
Minimising ‘producer capture’ has apparently driven much New Labour reform, especially in the public sector. Matthew Taylor relates it to the voluntary sector, but it might be a useful check for arts organisations – including, of course the Arts Council. Why are we doing what we do, and who for – and what shapes our work most? When we argue for funding – either to government in the Arts Council's case or to the Arts Council or local authorities for many organisations - are we really sure we’re doing it for those we serve rather than for our own protection? These are good questions for any cultural organisation to ask periodically.
In the arts sector itself - as opposed to the arts funding and development systems - the idea is of course complicated by the central importance of artists and other kinds of ‘producers’ – they are far, far more than ‘employees’. Their individual artistic vision drives things. My sense though is that organisations that avoid ‘producer capture’, no matter how strong and individual the artistic vision, have more impact than those that don’t. They are also – as I would argue our recent case to government in the Comprehensive Spending Review result shows – more likely to put forward persuasive cases to funders.
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