Drew McManus on the Orchestra business | est. 2003

It's Guest Author Time

Wed, Aug 8, 2011
Guest-Author
I’m away at the Grand Tetons Music Festival through August 16 and that means you’ll be treated to a series of posts from gust authors. We have a good mix of returning guest authors alongside some new faces and from what I’ve seen from some of them so far, it going to make for some

Upgrading Habits

Tue, Aug 8, 2011
If you’re anything like me, you have a rather large list of blogs and other online news RSS feeds. For some time now, I’ve used my Google homepage to aggregate those feeds but it has never been a perfect solution. But not long ago, I started using the news reading application from Pulse on my

The Pen Is Mightier Than The Board

Mon, Aug 8, 2011
Denial is a crazy thing; particularly when it comes to crisis management. One tip on knowing when your organization might be taking the first step off of a very large cliff is when more stakeholders focus on insignificant items to the detriment of obvious, high priority tasks. For example, if your orchestra’s senior management team

Time To Change Things Up A Bit

Fri, Aug 8, 2011
During a time when the word change is saddled with all sorts of cringe inducing imagery, it’s high time to remember that change can bring good news and improvements as much as it can be used as a metaphor for something unpleasant.

The Way Funding Should Work

Thu, Aug 8, 2011
The 8/3/2011 edition of the Stanford Social Innovation Review (hat tip, LinkedIn) published a brilliant article by Kevin Starr, Mulago Foundation and the Rainer Arnhold Fellows Program Director, that examines the value of unrestricted foundation funding. Given yesterday’s article about the perilous minefield that is foundation support within the orchestra business, Starr’s article couldn’t be