Commentary

Violinist Holly Mulcahy published an intriguing article at Inside The Arts on 4/13/2014 that focuses on how musicians can improve their own survivability by learning how to eat better while simultaneously saving money and wasting less. And even though she approaches the process from the perspective of helping her fellow musicians, everything she covers is equally well suited for arts managers; especially since many of them in early career positions scrape …

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Joe Patti posted a fascinating article over at Butts In The Seats on 3/17/2014 about earnest examination of failure which got me thinking about the upcoming conference season and how much more useful service organizations could be if they spent as much time examining failures as everything else done during a typical conference. One point in particular worth noting from Patti’s article is the stigma associated with failure is strong enough …

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I was saddened to learn the news that Doug Whitaker unexpectedly passed away on 1/9/2014. For those who didn’t know him, Doug was the Director of Artistic Operations at Memphis Symphony and an absolute archetype of the sort of professional arts manager that keeps this field running, often in spite of boom or bust cycles. He was the type of professional that won’t get singled out for attention vis-a-vis some gilded …

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