Melanie Harker

After such an amazing experience last year in Portland, I am delighted to be returning with fellow dog & pony dc conspirator Rachel Grossman to Americans for the Arts' National Arts Marketing Project Conference in Atlanta. This year’s conference theme of “all the places we’ll go” caught my eye for two reasons; first due to the well-executed Dr. Seuss reference, and second because of the definition of “we.”

Who is the “we” in “all the places we’ll go”?

The obvious “we” is the arts administrator. The marketer. The engagement manager. The managing director. The donor relations associate. The small army of hard working people who work tirelessly to make sure the art happens, that it has a space, and that people hear about it.

The NAMP Conference is excellent at highlighting the efforts of these roles, providing a space to share specific practical techniques and tactics, and bringing speakers in from other industries to inspire our thinking in infinite positive directions. My assumption going into this year is that much of this conference is going to investigate this definition of “we” -- the “we” of the field. Arts administrators are driving the arts institution train and we need to be armed with the best methods if we have any hope for the future.

I think what we forget most often is that we’re not the only ones riding this train.

“Engagement is everyone’s purview, and to everyone’s benefit.”

When talking to others about Rachel’s concept of connectivity, she and I will most often talk about redefining the concept of “currency” for ourselves. (We love divergent terminology.) In everyday discourse, currency refers to the system of money that is in use in a particular country. Money assigns value to objects, goods, services, ideas, etc. Currency defines how we set our budgets and goals for the fiscal year. It’s a metric that we use to define success or failure of a project to ourselves and our organizations. However, we’ve noticed in the arts that exchange rates can get fuzzy. What’s the currency exchange for an empty seat? When a patron tells five of their friends that they “have to see this exhibit” and then their friends actually show up? When a community stakeholder contributes a new idea or new insight?

We postulate that rethinking and redefining the currency you hold and your organization holds is key to shifting what engagement can mean and how it can be assigned value. We as humans value a variety of experiences, arts related and non-arts related, and reassign our currency exchange rates as we see fit.

“All of the places we’ll go” is a theme meant to look at the future of arts marketing and audience engagement. What if in these new, future places there evolved an expanded concept of “we”? What if first we decided to ride the train with audiences, donors, volunteers, and mega-fans?

I know what you’re thinking secretly, deep down inside. But MELANIE. What if they get up to the front of the train and throw a wrench into the gears and make it explode off the rails and we all die?

Listen, everyone. This isn’t Snowpiercer. It’s evident that if we don’t start opening our eyes to who and what is really around us and just how valuable they are, we won’t have a shot at progressing into the future of arts organizations. We as administrators won’t have a shot at reaching our full potential and spreading our reach. I’m not saying progression is necessary for survival (because we all need to start believing by now that survival isn’t our greatest concern; see pretty much every Dinnervention briefing paper. I’m saying progression is inevitable. We can either continue to believe we are alone in this journey to “bring art to the people,” or turn around and start engaging the communities we’re trying to serve in a new way.

What we need is to expand our circles of attention and train our eyes to soft focus; sounds like a lot of work, I know. But if all members of any given arts institution or organization (yes, really I mean all) can shift towards that paradigm even a little bit, I think the places we go in the future will be bright, vibrant, and incredibly exciting .

 Melanie Harker will be presenting with her colleague Rachel Grossman and others in the session "Creating the next, new thing Now!" at the National Arts Marketing Project Conference. 

The Arts Marketing Blog Salon is generously sponsored by Patron Technology.