As If There Weren’t Enough Problems Already

A colleague of mine posted a picture of a frozen rat on a Chicago city sidewalk via his Facebook wall yesterday with the caption “Even the rats are suffering, folks. Even the rats. #PolarVortex” and on the same day, one of my clients in Florida sent an email noting that there was a 93 degree difference between her temperature and Chicago, 123 degrees if you factor in the wind chill. And …

Read more

Patron Group Attempts To Help Dislodge MOA From Orchestra Hall

ADAPTISTRATION-GUY-124

The latest news out of the labor relations scorched earth that is the Minnesota Orchestra Association (MOA) is an effort from the patron advocate group Save Our Symphony Minnesota (SOSMN) to pressure the city of Minneapolis to kick the MOA out of Orchestra Hall for defaulting on lease terms. The 1/03/2014 edition of MinnPost.com published an article by Jake Anderson with additional details along with providing a copy of the 31 …

Read more

Getting Real About Transparency: The Compensation Double Standard

There’s an intriguing article by Eleanor Turney in the 1/2/14 Guardian Culture Professionals Network blog (h/t Thomas Cott) where she discusses the need for realistic changes within the arts field during 2014. One of her points is on transparency and the need to talk about money openly and honestly; I couldn’t agree more and to that end, there’s one area within the orchestra field that would benefit by adopting this post …

Read more

There’s Nothing Quite Like Beating Your Goals

New Venture Sales Site

2013 was a banner year for The Venture Platform; our first economy of scale business model produced the first major upgrade threshold in March which brought a slew of system enhancements at zero cost increase for users. By the end of the year, new users tripled and at the present, we have another four new users in development and one existing user amidst a major design improvement. In short, this has …

Read more

It Has Come To Our Attention That The Musicians Are Armed

When you work in this field long enough, you come across opportunities to snag some rare items that document some of the more remarkable occurrences. For example, my wife has a copy of the Richmond (VA) Symphony memo sent to musicians reminding them that firearms are not permitted at services. She keeps a framed copy in the dining room for posterity and it never fails to serve as a great conversation …

Read more