Drew McManus on the Orchestra business | est. 2003

Read At Joes

Tue, Feb 2, 2015
by Drew McManus
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I want to take a moment to highlight the 11 year anniversary for Joe Patti’s excellent culture blog, Butts In The Seats; Musings on Practical Solutions For Arts Management. I was enormously pleased when Joe decided to include his blog among the Inside The Arts ranks and with more than 1,600 posts it is one of the longest running culture blogs around.

Year 11 has been one of not only deserved growth but Joe has garnered an equally warranted amount of attention including being listed by Barry Hessenius 2014’s Top 50 Most Powerful and Influential People in the Nonprofit Arts (USA) and his 15 Favorite Nonprofit Arts Blogs. Add to that, the always sharp Thomas Cott has been including more and more of Joe’s posts in a number of You’ve Cott Mail newsletters.

If that wasn’t enough, he’s also a regular contributor at ArtsHacker.com where several of his posts are among the most site’s most frequently visited so you aren’t already familiar with Joe’s blog, stop by and set aside a meaningful amount of time to go through everything Butts In The Seats has to offer.

Butts-In-The-Seats-Wall-Sign

About Drew McManus

"I hear that every time you show up to work with an orchestra, people get fired." Those were the first words out of an executive's mouth after her board chair introduced us. That executive is now a dear colleague and friend but the day that consulting contract began with her orchestra, she was convinced I was a hatchet-man brought in by the board to clean house.

I understand where the trepidation comes from as a great deal of my consulting and technology provider work for arts organizations involves due diligence, separating fact from fiction, interpreting spin, as well as performance review and oversight. So yes, sometimes that work results in one or two individuals "aggressively embracing career change" but far more often than not, it reinforces and clarifies exactly what works and why.

In short, it doesn't matter if you know where all the bodies are buried if you can't keep your own clients out of the ground, and I'm fortunate enough to say that for more than 15 years, I've done exactly that for groups of all budget size from Qatar to Kathmandu.

For fun, I write a daily blog about the orchestra business, provide a platform for arts insiders to speak their mind, keep track of what people in this business get paid, help write a satirical cartoon about orchestra life, hack the arts, and love a good coffee drink.

View all posts by Drew McManus | Website

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Adaptistration by Drew McManus LLC is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International.
Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at https://adaptistration.com/about/terms-of-use-and-permissions/.

PROFESSIONAL DISCLOSURE

Given the author’s position as an arts consultant and technology provider, he does not publish articles examining or focusing on current clients without first obtaining the client’s written permission.

EDITORIAL COMMITMENT

In order to ensure accuracy and provide a comprehensive perspective on any topic, I allow any individual or person officially representing an organization that appears in any Adaptistration article to submit a response which will be published, unedited. Responses are limited to 200 words and must address the issues at hand and the individuals and/or organizations must also be willing to maintain an open dialog for continued discussion.