“We have to stop asking questions and start answering some.” I heard this at a branding / social media session. How true.

We are sitting around asking questions like, “what is your company doing with social media?” I’ve heard this a lot here at the South by Southwest conference in Austin.

I’m all for people gathering information in this field and reporting their findings, but there is a bit of the situation we face where we can tend to tell people what they should do even though we’ve really never done it ourselves. Or, we just ask them what they think they should do.

Ten years ago there was an ad on TV where two consultants finished delivering their proposal to the CEO. The CEO thought about it and said, “Great. Go do it.” The two consultants squirmed and looked at each other nervously for a few seconds and one replied, “We don’t actually ‘do’ what we say.”

To me, that’s what so many discussions are like around social media experts. Very few seem to do what they say. I’m guilty sometimes. I have to try to catch myself.

I see an organization and think of things that they could be doing, but I may not have actually been in their position before to really know. It’s easy to come across as arrogant.

Gotta watch that!

What’s the answer? Talk about actual situations that have worked and stop asking so many questions of clients and instead suggest some helpful answers.

“If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.”
- Albert Einstein

Getting things to be simple can be very difficult. This is true of marketing messages.

How often do you see a message that is so convoluted that you don’t know what it is about?

Having attended dozens of performing arts booking conferences since 1986, I’ve seen a lot of marketing materials of performing artists and the “pitches” made by them or their representatives to say what they do and why they are so wonderful, delivered in such a convoluted way that it was difficult to get any sense of what they really did.

I’ve seen hundreds of applications to showcase at the annual marketing conference, Pacific Contact. The ones that were clear in their message, in both their written description and the supporting materials were rare.

More recently, I’ve been on the advisory panel and administered some arts granting programs where I see “pitches” made by arts groups for money. It’s very rare to read the “brief” description and come away with a sense of what the actual proposal is.

The challenge for any of us making a pitch to a prospective buyer or funder is to simplify our message so that the intended audience can easily grasp what it is you are selling.

There are many ways of doing this depending on who the audience is and what you are “selling.” It’s not easy to make something that’s abstract, simple, but we have to try.

I’ll take a stab at it for my own business. Let’s say I run into someone who I think may be able to hire me (no point pitching to people who aren’t interested in what you’re selling).

I’d say, “I am a graphic designer working in print and online media for small to midsize arts organizations and artists.”

If I think I’d have time for one more sentence I would add “I also consult in the area of effective marketing in the non-profit sector.”

I know this is really brief, but having to reduce it to this short a description made me focus on what it is I really do and what the core is. Just doing the exercise is helpful.

I highly recommend trying to reduce your message to something this short. The core message you come up with will become the kernel for a more extensive message when you have the time and attention of your audience.

Can you explain in two sentences what you or your organization offers or does?

I’m reading Seth Godin’s book Linchpin right now and it has my brain spinning about small, non-protit arts organizations and how those with a linchpin are successful and how those without one, are not.

A Linch Pin (from Wikipedia) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Lynch-pin.jpg

A linchpin in this case is a key person in an organization who holds things together so that it thrives and is successful. You could even think of it as someone who keeps the wheel from falling off, though they are much more inspiring than how that sounds.

Non-linchpins (most people) often think little organizations can simply be run “by the book” and that everyone is replaceable. In 25 years working in the arts, I have never once encountered an arts organization or small group that has been run successfully “by the book” (except for the really boring ones, and for those, who cares?).

A successful organization, even if it has only a few people, comes down to having at least one linchpin somewhere in the organization who can move mountains, inspire, push, rebel, fight, speak and essentially, LEAD.

Succession planning…
Though well intended, I’ve often heard from funders that succession planning is lacking and that if only these organizations put in place principles and plans, they would be successful. Bah, not a chance. It’s a nice idea and lots is paid to consultants to show how it can be done. They often use models of large organizations or government to show how systems can be put in place to ensure success.

The trouble is, little non-profits and artistic companies work differently than large ones and it always comes down to one person: a linchpin. And that’s the way it should be.

Find the linchpin in your volunteer organization and 90% of your battle is won. If you hire staff, hire a linchpin and let them do their work, and 90% of the battle is won.

Small non-profit arts organizations are not for the world of the bureaucrat.

Yes, linchpins may make mistakes. Yes, linchpins will have failures, but the failures aren’t nearly as “sure” compared to when you try to submit everything and everybody to yet one more strategic planning session and develop a manual for who comes next and what procedures are to be done all as if you run a 19th century factory.

From what I’ve observed, small arts organizations thrive when its leader and those who care about their organization, act like linchpins.

If your organization is in the doldrums, I’ll bet you have no linchpin. They either left the organization or if you were once the linchpin yourself, maybe you just got bored. Whatever the case may be, find the linchpin in your organization or your community and get behind them and cheer them on. If you can’t find one, pack up shop now.

I am in New York City to attend a one-day seminar/workshop by author Seth Godin. He’s written books on marketing and networking such as The Purple Cow, Permission Marketing and more recently, Tribes.

Tribes is a short book, but packed with his take on leading networks of people and movements. I think he explains the need for and role of social media in leading groups very clearly and in a more poetic way than many do.

Reading Tribes, coupled with my recent “conversion” to using social media tools with my own business (see previous post), has really reignited my interest in the way networks actually work. Kevin Kelly writing about 1,000 true fans and Seth’s take on tribes are all really great places to learn and think about how social media can be implemented in an arts business/organization, large or small.

Coming to an event like this is a rare thing for me to “splurge” on but I’m quite excited about what I’ll learn and pick up from the day. Check back in a few days for my review and thoughts on what was learned.

But, before that, I have today to check out the Guggenheim. Yay.

I started paying attention to “WOW” in about 1998 when I began reading some books by Tom Peters. The Pursuit of WOW was the one that introduced“WOW” to me though he wrote more titles where“WOW” factored highly. He writes about making everything in a business be a“WOW” whether it’s a part of customer service, the design of an office memo or how you launch a new product.

When I was executive director at the BC Touring Council from 1998 to 2001, I worked closely with my colleague, Sheryl McGraw, to incorporate“WOW” into everything we could. It wasn’t about money (there wasn’t any) or about other resources, but rather about using any opportunity to do things in the absolute opposite way of mediocre. For us, we responded to emails really quickly and often got comments from members thanking us for being so fast. We supplied more comprehensive information at the annual booking conference for presenters and artist/agents to have at their disposal and had comments from them such as “wow, this is amazing.” We began all of our projects with the question “how can we make this wow?” The results:

• Membership increased 100%.
• Attendance at the annual conference increased immensely.
• Member satisfaction skyrocketed.

It left me in no doubt as to the power of making all projects and services ““WOW.”

One of the best parts of making things“WOW” is that it makes work more fun for the person or organization actually doing it, and often because what you do is more fun, it shows up very positively in the work that you’ve applied the “WOW” to. Though it may be fun, it doesn’t mean it’s easy. In fact, nine times out of ten, making something“WOW” is very hard (but incredibly rewarding).

In a perfect world, everything we do would be a “WOW, knock your socks-off” event, project, service, design. Sometimes we hit it, sometimes we’re close, sometimes we miss the mark and it’s not “WOW” be we have to try.

I’m creating a little “WOW Award” for things I see that make me say “WOW” and I’ll post them here from time to time. My first one will be about a photographer I recently worked with. Stay tuned.

The BC Government has drastically cut funding to the arts. They have wielded a large axe. What baffles me is just how economically unwise their actions are. Every dollar of investment in the Arts pays back far more than what goes in and, the payback is throughout the province.

A friend of mine who is passionate about the role of arts in our society said to me today “What’s missed in these discussions is the perspective that over many decades governments have fostered the creation of the non-profit volunteer sector to do the grass roots work of creating a healthy, civil society, work that is crucial to its sustainability” and that “the non-profit sector is a partner with government not a petitioner looking for a handout.” What’s happened to this partnership?

Though funding to the arts has edged up over the years it has certainly not been a situation where we’ve experienced a boom because of “irrational exuberance” by the provincial government, but we certainly are seeing a “bust” coming. The current cuts will be deep and wide. I’ve been involved in the arts community in BC for 25 years and these are the most brutal cuts I’ve seen.

Clear-cutting is back in BC and the arts community are the trees. Growth will happen again, but in the meantime, look out!

About 200 people attended consisting of artists, arts organizations and funders from Metro Vancouver. More of these summits will be produced throughout BC in the next couple of years.

The keynote speaker, Diane Ragsdale was really fantastic. (Her Keynote is posted on the Alliance for Arts website: Surviving the Culture Change ) She is a program officer at The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation in New York. An interesting aspect of her message that I took away was that perhaps we could change the term “non-profit” to “social-profit.” It is a more positive way of looking at what these types of organizations do. They add value to society. I still run into people who don’t really get what non-profit means and I can’t help but think that in the arts community, it also doesn’t help the “poverty” mentality that persists. Social profit just sounds a heck of a lot more positive.

During her keynote, Diane also referenced author Kevin Kelly who made a huge impact on me back in 1999 when I read his book New Rules for the New Economy. (He has the book posted on his website and now suggests it’s as relevant today as it was in 1999 except that he would change the title to “New Rules for the Network Economy.”) Diane’s reference was directed at a blog Kevin Kelly wrote called 1,000 True Fans which explores how artists (or arts organizations, for that matter) need 1,000 true fans to reach the critical point for success. It’s a great blog read.

The “1,000 True Fans” concept is so interesting to me because what it means is that an artist—or, I would maintain, also arts organizations—need to create better one-to-one, meaningful relationships with their fans (customers, members). Having been the executive director at two non-profit arts service organizations, I can attest to how difficult this is, but how rewarding and beneficial it can be. It also strikes me as unfortunate that so few organizations actually nurture and work at making their members “true fans.” It’s not hard, but it does take time. I can see how some of the new Web 2.0 tools can really help to make this possible and given that I work with arts organizations and artists, it’s exciting to be able see how these concepts could be implemented.

Besides my design work, I am also the coordinator for the Community Presenters Assistance program which is a granting program of the BC Arts Council which offers assistance to performing arts presenters in communities throughout British Columbia. Last year was my first time coordinating the program and I’ll be doing it again this year.

In addition to this “admin” work, I also took part as a consultant in a conference call regarding a business plan being prepared for a potentialArts Health Network. This potential organization could have some similarities in structure and functions as the Creative City Network of Canada which I worked with in 2001-2004.

On the design side, I helped AMSSA with their National Safe Harbour posters as they roll out a program in Alberta as well as preparing ads for another one of their programs, the Diversity Health Fair (see bus poster).

Busy week.