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Arts Funding in a Web 2.0 World

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I tend to agree with JG Ballard when he said:

The funds disbursed by the Arts Council over the decades have created a dependent client class of poets, novelists and weekend publishers whose chief mission in life is to get their grants renewed….

The trouble is the alternatives to pursuing public funding are so damned hard.  They traditionally rely on someone liking your art enough (or believing it to be a decent investment proposition), to want to actually buy it at a price that does not lose the artist money and that values their time and skill reasonably.

But what if we set up a site where artists could pitch their projects at the ‘drawing board’ stage, including the budget necessary to create the work, and then donations were crowd sourced from the web?

It could look a bit like this from the US.

  • Does such a platform exist here in the UK?
  • Could it?
  • Should it?

Making Social Marketing Work – 29th July Leeds

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This practical workshop will introduce you to the theory and practice of social marketing – how to use marketing techniques to achieve specific behavioural goals designed to lead to social good.

Whether you are trying to promote healthy lifestyles, encourage people back into work or to start a business, get back into education, or engage in a campaign, an understanding of social marketing can help you to:

  • find new people who want to work on your agenda
  • support them on their journey to make real change happen
  • get the right people at the right events at the right time

What Will You Learn?

You will learn how to:

  • Develop marketing collateral (leaflets, posters and websites) that might just work
  • Use the media effectively – PR and role models that work
  • Build ‘Word of Mouth’ strategies and referral networks
  • Work with ‘gatekeepers’ to ‘gain entry‘
  • Manage introductions in the community

The day will involve some theory and explore a number of examples of good and not so good social marketing campaigns.  Participants will have the opportunity to apply what they learn to a real campaign of their own.

Agenda

What is social marketing and how can I use it?

What behaviours are we trying to promote?

Using Segmentation to Increase Impact

Eating an Elephant – bite sized chunks….

Social Marketing Tools – with a focus on emerging social media (twitter, facebook, wikis etc)

The Role of Traditional Marketing and PR

Developing a Social Marketing Campaign (making a start)

Marketing through Relationships and Networks

Find out more and book your space – http://socialmarketingworks.eventbrite.com

Dad, I Want to be an Entrepreneur! Will You Help?

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These are not words I am expecting to hear anytime soon – but who knows?

If David Cameron gets his way and he finds an army of entrepreneurs to go into local schools to promote the ‘joy’ of entrepreneurship and the job market continues to go west – it could well happen.

How would I respond?

Well, if they say they want to be an entrepreneur and ask for my help, then I will refuse it, and do all I can to persuade them away from the idea.

If they say they have to be an entrepreneur – because it is the only way they can do the work that they feel they have to do then I will roll up my sleeves and help with enthusiasm.

Why the distinction?

Because however you wrap it up, in spite of what people like Cameron say, entrepreneurship is hard.  Especially if you do not have a large bank account to bale you out when things go wrong.  I don’t think I have met a single entrepreneur in my work who would describe the experience as joyful.  Dramatic, yes.  Full of highs and lows, yes.  Scary, yes.  But joyful…not so much.

So why promote the lie?  Why continue the enterprise fairytale?

It doesn’t even help to build an enterprise culture as with increased start-ups come increased failures and more bad experiences of entrepreneurship.

It couldn’t be to do with an obsession with outputs over social impact could it?

I will leave the last word to Noel Coward:

Some years ago when I was returning from the Far East on a very large ship, I was pursued around the decks every day by a very large lady. She showed me some photographs of her daughter – a repellant-looking girl and seemed convinced that she was destined for a great stage career. Finally, in sheer self-preservation, I locked myself in my cabin and wrote this song – “Don’t Put Your Daughter On The Stage, Mrs. Worthington”.)

Don’t put your daughter on the stage, Mrs. Worthington

Don’t put your daughter on the stage

The profession is overcrowded

The struggle’s pretty tough

And admitting the fact she’s burning to act

That isn’t quite enough

She’s a nice girl and though her teeth are fairly good

She’s not the type I ever would be eager to engage

I repeat, Mrs. Worthington, sweet Mrs. Worthington

Don’t put your daughter on the stage

So Em amd Meg – unless it is something that you have to do, ignore Messrs Cameron, Brown (remember him – architect of much enterprise policy) and their army of enterprise evangelists and give entrepreneurship a miss – at least until you have some real knowhow under your belt.

On the other hand if this is the only way that yo can do good work, and you are prepared for the journey that lies ahead, then, and only then, let’s go for it…

Treading the Line Between Courage and Stupidity

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Yesterday’s attempt at a satirical post on ‘How to Depress an Enterprise Culture‘ has triggered some interesting responses through both public and private channels and I have been reminded of something that my Dad once said to me,

It is a thin line between courage and stupidity.

I never thought of the post as ‘courageous’ but nor did I intend it to be a ‘stupid’ wrecking ball in a professional life that depends to some extent on working with the public sector and its partners.  My judgement was that by holding the mirror up I might provoke some reflection and the possibility of innovation as we move into an austere period for those of us interested in the role of enterprise and entrepreneurship in developing cohesive and effective communities.

Phil Kirby (@philkirby) is perhaps on the money when he says,

this is too close to the truth. There has to be a fraction of fiction for it to count as satire….Never a good idea to tell the truth so bluntly.

I suspect he maybe right in professional and corporate terms.  I have previously been warned, politely and through ‘diplomatic channels’ that ensure ‘sources’ remain anonymous, that making comments about public service providers and funders that are less than fully complimentary may be harmful to my ability to work in that sector.

I think this is fascinating and sad in equal measure.  Public sector agencies that tweet and maintain facebook pages about their workshops and services but NEVER enter into a dialogue.  Who think that they can ‘protect’ their brand by closing down dissenting voices instead of working with feedback and advocating their position.  Who take private disgruntlement at a blog post but never choose to post a comment to put forward their perspective or constraints.  Who believe that they can pursue ‘world class’ by engaging yes men and women who will never risk pointing out the apparently naked emperor.

A regeneration professional was also in touch about the post, privately, saying,

I agree with 75% of what you say. As an employee of a consultancy to RDAs/Business Links etc I don’t really have freedom to say so. Corporate life.*

Clearly they have taken a different stance in weighing up the risks and rewards of speaking their truth – of following their path, wherever it may lead.  I find it deeply ironic that so many enterprise professionals are ‘pragmatic realists’.  They deal with things the way they are, do the best they can given the limitations and demands of funders, and are willing to put professional integrity and the possibility of doing ‘good work’ in thrall to paying the mortgage.   They are ‘reasonable’ men and women who adapt themselves to the world.  Who subjugate personal values and beliefs in order to effectively carry out the work of the system, to follow orders. I think such ‘reasonableness’ holds enormous risks – not only to our enterprise culture but to our personal humanity and self-esteem.  To our ability to forge communities of work and life that recognise and value us for who we are and who we are becoming and not simply as a willing pair of hands.

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

George Bernard Shaw

Diminishing ourselves to fit in with a ‘corporate world’ is surely a sign of malaise both in our own development as a human being but also in the modus operandi of our employer.  This is the methodology of unreconstructed industrial bureaucracy. Not of a modern, knowledge based service industry working in a wired up world.

I have written before about enterprise being the emergence of identity.  A process for becoming more fully human, of the development of potential.   It is a process for the idealist.  One who sees a difference that they wish to make and sets about making it.

“Life isn’t about finding yourself. Life is about creating yourself.” – GBS again…

I find it deeply ironic that so many working on enterprise culture have taken the opposite path.   To bite their tongues, to hold back their truths and to do the bidding of funders, wherever it may lead, while encouraging others to take the plunge into entrepreneurship.

* The 25% difference in opinion was around the fact the enterprise and incubation centres are not always poorly utilised and that loan and grant schemes can be effective.  Now I agree with both of these points.  Enterprise and incubation centres in places that have vibrant enterprise communities can work brilliantly.  I have yet to see the success replicated in areas of multiple deprivation.  In such areas the centres are usually half empty, or social objectives are quickly relaxed  to appeal to a more affluent target group who can help to pay the rent.  If you know of an incubator or an enterprise centre that is working well and sustainably, serving primarily those who live in deprived communities, I would love to hear about it.

Grants and loan schemes can also work well.  My point is that they should not be managed by the same organisation, or under the same brand, as the organisation providing the coaching advice.  Several reasons for this:

  • Some (sometimes many) clients will be attracted to the coaching service by the allure of cash rather than by the possibility of transformation.  This distorts the coaching relationship, discourages disclosure and makes progress difficult.
  • Loans and grants are just one source of finance for the would be entrepreneur – the coach and their parent organisation needs to be free to help the client explore all funding options and not simply refer them to an in-house solution – especially when adoption of the in-house solution forms part of a ‘payment by results’ contract with a funder.
  • Organisations that provide loans and grants are seldom loved in poor communities.  They are a place of last resort.  Requests for support are either turned down or, if accepted, result in obligations and repayment terms that again frequently lead to a degree of tension that is not helpful.  It is hard to be coached by someone who has lent or given you money.

A funding service does need to be there, and it needs to be well managed, but in my opinion it should not be managed by the same provider who runs the coaching service.

And as I sit here about to press the publish button, I am reminded of another old saw of my Dads,

When you find yourself in a hole – stop digging

The Enterprise Fairytale – InBiz Style

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If you’d like to manage your work around your life, self-employment may be the answer for you. All it takes is a bright idea and the determination to succeed.

InBiz – advert in RAW Magazine and TMP Website (emphases are mine)

This is another one for the Advertising Standards Authority in my opinion.  The implication that all you need is a bright idea and some determination and “hey presto!”.  Anyone can surely muster these resources?  The implications of such a message are both absurd, hurtful and unhelpful.

  • No hint of risk or downsides to self employment
  • No hint of the challenges involved in succeeding at self employment in an increasingly competitive environment.
  • No mention of the tensions and strains that a decision to go self employed might put on relationships with families and friends – or how it could end up in increased debt.

A naive and incredible appeal to the hopeless, the gullible and the many who are referred by the Job Centre at pain of losing their benefits entitlement if they don’t give it a go.  After all it only needs a bright idea and the determination to succeed (subtext “What IS wrong with you people?).

Of course I understand why we do it.

It works in the short term to get people through the door and onto our programmes so that we can trigger payments from funders.  Until of course the truth about this brand becomes widely understood.  It might work for a minority but for most it will be yet another false dawn – simply adding to feelings of learned helplessness.  But then we just repackage and rebrand the offer and it is BIG Business as usual.  If these services are so very good, and all it requires is a bright idea and some determination then how come the worklessness problem is so persistent?

We must start to be much more honest with people.  A bright idea helps.  Determination is good too.  But it might also take months or years of skill development.  Hours and hours of hard graft pushing for business and dealing with customers.  A credit history that allows you to borrow and invest at the right time.  A degree of financial literacy to ensure that you are not ripped of by lenders. Family and friends who are supportive and understanding.  A resourcefulness and resilience to get through some really tough times. And in my experience a lot of luck too.

Self employment is a double edged sword.  For some it transforms their lives for the better.  Much better.  For some it becomes just another attempt to get off benefits.  For some it results in serious indebtedness, misery and worse.

Until we start to build an honest dialogue with people that we purport to help about the nature of our products and services and provide long term, skilled, person centred support that mobilises the resources of the community to help people to make progress then I am afraid we are likely to make little impact on JSA figures.

(With thanks to Charlotte for pointing out this line.)