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 presentations. Show all posts
Showing posts with label presentations. Show all posts
Monday, 18 January 2010
Thursday, 4 June 2009
How Soon is Now?
On Tuesday I was the keynote speaker at the national conference of ENYAN – the English National Youth Arts Network – at the Customs House in South Shields. This was a very suitable venue given the Customs House’s involvement in Creative Partnerships and now Find Your Talent. (The Customs House was the first RFO to run an ‘independent’ Creative Partnerships area, in North and South Tyneside – a model we had to work hard to convince people would work, but which is now more or less the model adopted across the country.)
I’d been set a topic which was possibly some kind of revenge for the kinds of questions young people get in exams, about policy and investment and the importance of ‘young leaders of the future’. I did address it but with a different emphasis. If I say I titled the presentation ‘How Soon Is Now’ that will give both my age and theme away.
Whilst there is a greater policy emphasis on young people and their leadership skills, and more investment there are three key themes I drew attention to. (You can read the policy stuff in ENYAN’s excellent publication Young Arts Leaders.)
Firstly that we need young leaders now, not in the future. (Apart from anything else, they’ll be older by then…) If diversity is a central element to a good leadership team (apply that as broadly as you want, organisation or sector-wide) and innovation vital, we need to develop a more multi-generational model of leadership. In my talk I skipped the research about the way in which Babyboomers, GenX and GenY and what I saw described as Gen@ interact, but it’s not uncomplicated bringing different generations together.
Secondly, ‘professionalisation’ is affecting how young people enter the workplace and their roles there, especially given how the workplace itself is changing. I did a straw poll in our office and the highest concentration of MAs, for instance, is probably at the more junior levels rather than the more senior levels. What happens when managers are less academically-qualified, but have more dirty-handed experience from the University of Life, running a theatre company from the back of a van or a poetry press with a long-arm stapler? We need to develop less hierarchical versions or visions of leadership.
Thirdly, the workplace demands this adaptation and diversification, but is arguably crowded with older folk working hard and productively. The management tiers are not emptying out to make room for talented young people. The leadership programmes are arguably struggling to cope with this, in bringing younger leaders through. The definition of young gets pushed up - sometimes as high as 40 as it was when I joined the British Council's UK -South East Europe Forum at the age of 39.9.
This means it is harder to be trusted and given the risky opportunity to run things, even small things, at a young age. I was 32 when appointed as Director of Cleveland Arts, my friend and predecessor Reuben Kench was just 27. One of my antecedents in this job – or perhaps ancestor is more the word, given he was actually running Northern Arts – Peter Stark was New Activities Co-ordinator in the Midlands for Arts Council Great Britain at 22 and Director of South Hill Park at 25, with 50 staff. Talking to both, we found it hard to think of recent examples of such trusting appointments of young people. There is less room in many senses perhaps.
The further question I was left with, after spending the morning at the conference, was might the recession create a bit of ‘clear space’ in which young leaders can carve out the chance to both fail and succeed - ie grow - in safe but not too safe circumstances?
I’d been set a topic which was possibly some kind of revenge for the kinds of questions young people get in exams, about policy and investment and the importance of ‘young leaders of the future’. I did address it but with a different emphasis. If I say I titled the presentation ‘How Soon Is Now’ that will give both my age and theme away.
Whilst there is a greater policy emphasis on young people and their leadership skills, and more investment there are three key themes I drew attention to. (You can read the policy stuff in ENYAN’s excellent publication Young Arts Leaders.)
Firstly that we need young leaders now, not in the future. (Apart from anything else, they’ll be older by then…) If diversity is a central element to a good leadership team (apply that as broadly as you want, organisation or sector-wide) and innovation vital, we need to develop a more multi-generational model of leadership. In my talk I skipped the research about the way in which Babyboomers, GenX and GenY and what I saw described as Gen@ interact, but it’s not uncomplicated bringing different generations together.
Secondly, ‘professionalisation’ is affecting how young people enter the workplace and their roles there, especially given how the workplace itself is changing. I did a straw poll in our office and the highest concentration of MAs, for instance, is probably at the more junior levels rather than the more senior levels. What happens when managers are less academically-qualified, but have more dirty-handed experience from the University of Life, running a theatre company from the back of a van or a poetry press with a long-arm stapler? We need to develop less hierarchical versions or visions of leadership.
Thirdly, the workplace demands this adaptation and diversification, but is arguably crowded with older folk working hard and productively. The management tiers are not emptying out to make room for talented young people. The leadership programmes are arguably struggling to cope with this, in bringing younger leaders through. The definition of young gets pushed up - sometimes as high as 40 as it was when I joined the British Council's UK -South East Europe Forum at the age of 39.9.
This means it is harder to be trusted and given the risky opportunity to run things, even small things, at a young age. I was 32 when appointed as Director of Cleveland Arts, my friend and predecessor Reuben Kench was just 27. One of my antecedents in this job – or perhaps ancestor is more the word, given he was actually running Northern Arts – Peter Stark was New Activities Co-ordinator in the Midlands for Arts Council Great Britain at 22 and Director of South Hill Park at 25, with 50 staff. Talking to both, we found it hard to think of recent examples of such trusting appointments of young people. There is less room in many senses perhaps.
The further question I was left with, after spending the morning at the conference, was might the recession create a bit of ‘clear space’ in which young leaders can carve out the chance to both fail and succeed - ie grow - in safe but not too safe circumstances?
Monday, 18 May 2009
How do you approach presentations?
One of today's jobs is working on a keynote I'm going to be giving next month to the national conference of the English National Youth Arts Network. (This is a 'youth-led conference' and they seem to be getting revenge for something as they've set me what one member of our team called an A level question about 'Youth Enterprise, Innovation and Leadership within the Cultural Industries:' as the theme.) Anyway, as luck would have it, looking for something else I came across these 10 commandments from the TED Conferences for good presentations. (Apparently TED speakers get sent them on an actual tablet of stone...) I can't think of a conference I've ever attended that wouldn't have been improved if every speaker had followed them.
So here's what I shall be trying to live up to:
So here's what I shall be trying to live up to:
1. Thou Shalt Not Simply Trot Out thy Usual Shtick.
2. Thou Shalt Dream a Great Dream, or Show Forth a Wondrous New Thing, Or Share Something Thou Hast Never Shared Before.
3. Thou Shalt Reveal thy Curiosity and Thy Passion.
4. Thou Shalt Tell a Story.
5. Thou Shalt Freely Comment on the Utterances of Other Speakers for the Sake of Blessed Connection and Exquisite Controversy.
6. Thou Shalt Not Flaunt thine Ego. Be Thou Vulnerable. Speak of thy Failure as well as thy Success.
7. Thou Shalt Not Sell from the Stage: Neither thy Company, thy Goods, thy Writings, nor thy Desperate need for Funding; Lest Thou be Cast Aside into Outer Darkness.
8. Thou Shalt Remember all the while: Laughter is Good.
9. Thou Shalt Not Read thy Speech.
10. Thou Shalt Not Steal the Time of Them that Follow Thee.
Meantime I'm interested in experiences of how different generations work together leading arts projects and organisations, as well as how 'young leaders' operate in their own spheres. If you've any stories to tell, let me know.
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