Drew McManus on the Orchestra business | est. 2003

JURY DUTY!

Thu, Aug 8, 2009
by Drew McManus
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It was bound to happen at some point after moving to Chicago but I’m spending the day in a Cook County Circuit Court today along with my fellow Cook County registered voter citizens for jury duty cattle call. Nonetheless, this might be a worthwhile happenstance as it convinced me to postpone what was originally scheduled for today’s post in order to set up a little experiment…

blind justiceTake a moment and head over to Proper Discord and read the post titled Get Off The Podium. I’m not going to give you any indication as to what it’s about but what I will say is tomorrow’s post examines this article and reactions to it elsewhere on the web, so familiarizing yourself now without predisposition will be a good thing.

Thanks to the Marc “Marathon Man” Geelhoed over at Deceptively Simple for pointing out the article at his Facebook page otherwise I would have completely missed it.

Postscript: According to the Cook County Juror FAQ, the current pay for serving on a jury is $17.20. I didn’t think there were many activities that were more lucrative than serving on an audition committee but there you go.

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.