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Andrew Taylor: ‘Austin’s Cultural Ecosystem,’ Part 1
Andrew Taylor is the director of the Bolz Center for Arts Administration, an MBA degree program and research center in the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business. An author, lecturer and researcher on a broad range of arts management issues, Taylor specializes in business model development for cultural initiatives and the impact of communications technology on the arts.
Taylor is also an intrepid blogger having kept ‘The Artful Manager’ blog on artsjournal.com since 2003 (i.e., blogging’s earliest days).
As part of CreateAustin and Austin Creative Alliance initiatives, Taylor will be in Austin next week. He will meet with various sectors of Austin’s creative community to discuss the interconnections of commercial, nonprofit, community, and informal creative enterprise in Austin. Then, he’ll his findings in a public presentation on Wednesday, June 24.
Andrew Taylor: ‘Austin’s Cultural Ecosystem’
6:30 p.m. June 24
Carver Museum & Cultural Center, 1165 Angelina St.
Q: In this economy, why is it important that arts groups think like businesses?
Andrew Taylor: In this economy, I think it’s essential for ANY enterprise to rethink what they do, and how they do it. For arts groups, it’s not so much thinking like a business, but realizing that they ARE businesses, regardless of how they think. They aggregate people, resources like money and buildings, to advance a purpose. That’s a business. On the other side of the question, for-profit businesses also need to rethink how they work, often finding more ‘artful’ approaches to their markets, their management, and the means by which they work. And finally, any organization — for-profit, nonprofit, public, informal — needs to rethink its place in a world increasingly driven by digital communications. Users are generating their own content, services, products, and conversation. That completely changes the game for most industries, including arts and culture.
Q: What are some of the obstacles the keep arts groups from thinking or acting like businesses?
Taylor: The myths and methods of the nonprofit, professional arts organization were extraordinarily effective over the past three decades, as new money and new markets provided opportunities to form arts organizations and grow them over time. Many of the inputs and environmental factors that formed those organizations have plateaued or reversed directions. It’s difficult for any industry to change in response to external changes — we’ve seen that in banking, investment, automobiles, telecommunications, and elsewhere. The challenge of the nonprofit arts organization is that it’s form makes it particularly resistant to innovative change.
Q: An Urban Institute study found Austin to rank #2 in the nation in terms of arts offerings, but ranked #51 when it comes to philanthropic giving. We don’t have large foundations here nor major corporate headquarters nor the ‘old money’ demographic. Austin arts groups raise money through lots and lots of small to medium donations. Can a city’s philanthropic culture ever change?
Taylor: I’d suggest that there’s no ideal model for community support of arts and culture, and the most productive conversation explores the systems already at work in a community, rather than longing for a different system. Sure, many other cities have a more established and pervasive emphasis on individual philanthropy for arts and culture. There’s every reason to believe there are positive ways to grow that tendency in Austin.
But I’m guessing there are also qualities to Austin’s arts, culture, and entertainment ecology that would be the envy of other communities (in fact, I know that’s the case). Before my public presentation, I’ll be meeting with many groups in arts, theater, entertainment, public policy, and business. I’m hoping to weave in much of those conversations into my public session. I’m really looking forward to the opportunity to learn and share!
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