Hoong Yee, Richard, Janet

&

Barry

Blogging for a better world

At this year’s conference, I was joined by two other bloggers to capture in words the spirit and essence of this universe we call grantmakers in the arts – Richard Kessler and Barry Hessenius.

What is art about, really?

If you have ever heard Dr. Manuel Pastor speak, you would know what he would say.

Dr Manuel Pastor writes and speaks frequently on issues of demographic change, economic inequality and community empowerment.  At his keynote speech at the Grantmakers in the Arts 2011 Conference, he said many things I thought were cool:

On December 15, 199, we became a majority/minority state.

Collaboration and conflict go together.

Collaboration is principled conflict.

Do you know the difference between chess and jigsaw puzzles?

Chess                                                                                               Jigsaw puzzles

2 colors                                                                                            many colors

some pieces are more powerful than others                              every piece is important

you gain by knocking a piece out                                                 you gain by putting pieces together

the goal is to win                                                                             the goal is to complete

As a nation we play way too much chess

Art is making things of beauty with friends

Frances Phillips and her Beowulf socks

Frances Phillips is a quietly impressive force with a knitted sock patterned with the opening lines of Beowulf beginning with, “Hwaet…” wrapped around two slender needles tucked away in her pocketbook.

Hwaet?

“I’ll send you the instructions, you’ll love it.”  Frances clearly loves literature and knitting to depths beyond me and the rest of the GIA Knitting Circle.  ”Just remember to weave in your strands when changing colors mid row.”

Believe it or not, that makes sense to me.  Later on during the conference, Tommer asked me if I had lost a ball of green yarn.  At the moment I am knitting something in a silver cotton so no, the yarn did not belong to me.

“Hmmm, I wonder if Frances is using green in her Beowulf socks.  Lynn Stern might be, she is working on a pair of multicolored gloves.  Let me put the word out for you.”  In my opinion, the fact that I know this stuff is actually impressive as an example of niche knowledge, thank you very much.

I turned to Frances, smiled bravely thinking to myself, “Wonderful!  Just in time for holiday knitting.”

We were serenaded at the plenary brunch by Eugene Rodriguez, Linda Ronstadt, David Hidalgo and Los Cenzontles.

Throw me the lemon

Throw me the lime

Throw me the key

To your heart.

You are my dear

You are my love

You are my dove

That sings at sunrise.

Here’s something Linda Ronstadt said at the closing of the conference:

Mexican audiences know just when to howl and they know when to be quiet.

Hwaet everybody!

About the Author: Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer writes about how to be a nimble nonprofit, make life creative and make a difference at www.hoongyee.com.

She is also the Executive Director of the Queens Council on the Arts. Hoong Yee can be found surfing in the Rockaways whenever there are waves.

Do you want to know the fears, visions of perfect worlds and world changing advice of your peers and keynote speakers?

I have a special bonus post for you of interviews I conducted with people during the conference.  Just leave me a comment with your email or better still, subscribe at www.hoongyee.com and get my interview post and new style notes for people who change the world delivered to your inbox.

Marc Bamuthi Joseph

How do you listen to a whirlwind?

If the whirlwind has a name, such as Marc Bamuthi Joseph, and he is before you – natty, smart, hey let me check you out stylish with a sharp lid tossed casually to the side as he picks up speed and lets the words fly -

- you sit back.  Now.

As a conference blogger, I sat at Marc’s Keynote Performance at the Plenary Breakfast Session on Monday at the Grantmakers for the Arts 2011 Conference, confident in capturing the essence of the experience while having my morning coffee with a ballroom full of my colleagues.

It became very clear that Marc operates at speeds unfamiliar to most people and I was left both delighted and bewildered by his message.

So in the spirit of capturing the wind, here is what I caught from that performance:

If you can’t outrun it, get out in front of it and figure out where we’re going

Let’s transform the iconography of an environment

Practice the art of believing that these things, dance, buildings, art, have redemptive quality

Here’s a recipe for a creative ecosystem of critical adjacencies -

Take equal parts revenue potential, artistic presence and invested audience consistency.

Mix well.

Let rise.

Voila! A localized interdisiplinary network.

No amount of Facebook contact can compete with public proximity and investment

Art happens everywhere for anyone

Art is not and object or an outcome only

Art is a process and an opportunity for community

It is hard for grantmakers to track outcomes and creative stimulus but perhaps we should be looking at metrics to measure the scale and health of creative partnerships in our ecosystems

Success is tied to the growth of others

Good changes in structure focus on interdependence, not products

Invest in artists who create contextual work within communities

Let’s shift nonprofit practice and structure to value accumulated surpluses

Formula for changing the world -

Audience development + good fiscal health = healthy arts field

Whew!  If you want to get closer to the wind and get more of Marc, check out http://www.lifeisliving.org/

Let me leave you with my favorite piece of current wisdom from Marc:

If you can’t outrun it, get out in front of it and figure out where it’s going.

About the Author: Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer writes about how to be a nimble nonprofit, make life creative and make a difference at www.hoongyee.com.

She is also the Executive Director of the Queens Council on the Arts. Hoong Yee can be found surfing in the Rockaways whenever there are waves.

Do you want to know the fears, visions of perfect worlds and world changing advice of your peers and keynote speakers?  I have a special bonus post for you of interviews I conducted with people during the conference.  Just leave me a comment with your email or better still, subscribe and get new style notes for people who change the world at www.hoongyee.com.

Good morning!, originally uploaded by hoongyeeleekrakauer.

Red lanterns on the summer boardwalk, originally uploaded by hoongyeeleekrakauer.

The truth is, I am probably heavier after all of the dine-arounds and dinners out. My card case will explode with all of the business cards I collected. My eyes glaze over thinking about where to start first.

My mother, the evolved Buddhist from Bayside, did not achieve her state of grace without believing in some basic universal truths. She would say,

“Get over yourself. You are just a speck in the grand scheme of things so relax. Take one step at a time.”

Thanks, mom. I know she meant to say something like “a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step” but after living in Queens you start to sound like a local. Anyway, here are some of my impressions and images from this year’s American For The Arts Convention in San Diego:

Come hungry for ideas and inspiration

Any vestiges of plane fatigue vanished the minute we stepped into the room for dinner with the oh-my-god amazing Ovation crew.  I have been following their programming over the years and truly appreciate their commitment to capturing the stories of this arts landscape we are all part of.

So smart to be reaching out to the field to build local viewerships that will grow, as Elizabeth Streb, my dear friend and awesome dancer likes to describe this as, “like rhizomes”.  Talk about grass roots with grip!

I will also be getting a better camera or phone with a better camera so my shots come out clear.

me, nancy glaze and sonia tower

Wear comfortable shoes

This is a big hotel.  To do your best in dashing from one session to another you must be able to explode from the starting gate, leap over buildings in a single bound and look fabulous.  Make sure you have the right shoes.  Like my friend Naj.  Now here’s a man whose shoes scream comfort.

barbara schaffer bacon and naj wikoff

What’s your story

Caught Dinah walking out of a workshop on storytelling.

“Anything worth blogging about?”  I asked.

She smiled and said, “Couple of things.  For me as a funder hearing from groups in the field, I would suggest they pay attention to really communicating the story of what they do beyond the field so other people get it, and use normal words, no jargon.”

Wise words to remember, everybody!

dinah walls and mitch menchaca

Ladies who laugh too much

Beware!  You could be fired for laughing too much.  Or much worse.

Obviously that doesn’t bother either Danielle or her sidekick, Ramona, who have made laughter a prerequisite for entering their circle.  I am so thrilled to have shared a chuckle with these ladies.  Check us out on AFTA’s Facebook page.

danielle brazell and ramona baker

How to say stuff in Arabic

Shannon wore a T shirt with something written in Arabic.  It is part of a project her partner is involved with to make this language more visible graphically, on T shirts and cards.  Shannon has kindly shared two of these notecards with me that each display a beautifully written word in Arabic.  One that says, “artist” and one that says, “designer”.  It makes me want to learn more.  Seth too.  He wants to know how to say, “Frosted Flakes” in Arabic.

shannon daut and seth, my conference eye candy

As a speck in the universe, I have decided to follow up on just three things today:

1.  Write this blog post for you

2.  Get a comfortable pair of shoes

3.  Call my mother

I am so looking forward to seeing how everyone is doing at next year’s convention in San Antonio, Texas.

Hoong Yee Lee Krakauer is a surfer from Rockaway Beach who blogs at www.hoongyee.com about how to live artfully.   By day, she is the Executive Director of the Queens Council on the Arts.

It was a cold and dreary morning.  Clouds in the sky, clouds in my coffee, chance of showers all day.

Perfect!

There is no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.

I am happily prepared for bad weather dressed in my cool white trenchcoat and my silver Donna Karan sneakers which I remember buying months ago thinking to myself that yes, I will need these for a rainy horrible day.  Seth and I once went to the hardware store and came home with my wedding dress.  Talk about being prepared.

Well, what about writer’s block?

There is no such thing as writer’s block, only bad planning.

As the weather warms up, does it cross your mind that eventually you may find yourself on a beach on a very hot sunny day?  Of course you do!  And you go out and get yourself a bathing suit, a pair of flip flops, sunblock, cool shades and a stack of summer reading.  You are ready to rock the beach.

This simple philosophy is true for most things in life and especially for what strikes dread in the hearts of aspiring authors everywhere – writer’s block.

If this is something you know you are going to face, you should put down that pina colada,  shut off the Beach Boys and put down that sexy summer sizzler you are in the middle of reading and picture yourself staring at that blank screen.  What can you do to plan for this?

Here’s are seven do’s and don’ts that work pretty well for me:

1. Do something physical before you sit down to write. Take a brisk twenty minute walk, stretch, take a deep breath and touch your toes.  If you can get your blood moving, your creative juices can’t be far behind.

2. Don’t come to your desk emptyhanded. Some of you may interpret that to mean a plate full of chocolate chip cookies.  Not a bad idea but not what I meant.  When you are ready to write, bring all of the observations you have made throughout the day, the five headlines you wrote for your next blog posts, an outline for a series of articles you are thinking of writing – notice how I am speaking in plural.  If you can think of one story, you can think of several.  Make lots of lists and bring a fistful of them to your writing.

3. Do a quick straightening up around your work area. Clutter is the great mind killer.  You will work so much better when your surroundings are not chaotic.  Bring a calming sense of order and space to you writing area.  Make sure you have all the tools that you need at the ready.

4. Don’t just warm up, set up. If you simply can’t get started, common wisdom would tell you to do some kind of warm up.  I prefer to jump right in and do something that gets me somewhere faster.  Forget the warm up.  Just set up your writing.  If you need to produce a week’s worth of blog posts like I do, set up five draft posts with titles and sub headings on one day, add links and footer text the next day, images or videos the following day, until you have set up every one of your posts.  Once you have all that infra structure done, you will be surprised at how quickly you will be able to write.  If you are writing a longer article, put down an outline so you can see how it will flow.  I like to include notes like, “open with a short punchy sentence”  or “descriptive narrative with quotes”.

5. Do give yourself a high five for whatever you accomplished. We so often remember to beat ourselves up for not doing everything we set out to do.  A much better way to approach this is to appreciate what we have done.  It is important to recognize the effort and the work we have done so that we look forward to doing it again.

6. Don’t leave your desk without a list for tomorrow. This is one of my favorite things to do.  The very last thing I do before I leave my desk is my to-do list.  I feel better parking the things I did not get to on a list that I will get to the next day.  Having this list gives me a clear sense of what I am going to do and allows me to think about each item on the list ahead of time.

7. Do this often so it becomes a habit. It gets easier.  You are all busy and you have to seize the time to write.  Writer’s block is the last thing you need.  Following just a few of these tips will help you tremendously in maximizing your time so you can actually enjoy your writing experience.

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

photo by Gabriele Hengeveld

Of course you are an artist

Is this you?

“Me, an painter?  Oh, I can’t draw a straight line!”

“Me, a musician?  I sang in the high school chorus.”

“Me, an artist?  Gee, I would really like to write poetry.”

There are a lot of you out there who like art, seeing movies, going to museums, listening to music.  You are art lovers, you are arts curious.  You are the most important person in the art world.

I am sure that many of you have a creative demon lurking in the depths of your soul who whispers things like, “Hey, you should be singing cabaret.”  It knows that there is an inner artist within you that is longing to emerge.

You have a unique story to tell.  And a perspective that is yours alone.  I equate story with art in this instance because I believe true expression of the soul is the art of telling a story in all of its endless and glorious creative forms.

My inner artist has recently picked up her head and howled, “You never pay attention to me!  I want out!”

This is very bad for balance in your life and for your skin.  Of course, I had no choice but to stand back and release the hounds.  I am hard at work in my atelier honing my nonprofit ninja marketing skills.  High on creative juices and caloric deficit.  What’s not to love?  Here is more good stuff about being a creative communicator by Kivi Leroux Miller, someone I admire greatly for her ability to help others creatively market their story.

In a recent post by Beth Kanter, she captures key points about creative integration of technology and content in a conversation with Emmett D. Carson, Ph.D., CEO and President of Silicon Valley Community Foundation.  The two takeaways for me were:  leading with the heart and making a challenge a solution, not the problem.  Here’s an excerpt:

He discussed the topic of regional philanthropy and giving.    He urged people in the room to lead with the heart, not the head.   He said that the heart wants to know the stories, not the statistics and jargon.   Collect the anecdotes and then follow up with the numbers.   He also talked about the lost opportunity for continued donor engagement.  “Once we get that first check, we say – oh, we’ve got them.  Put them on the donor  list.   The only time we reach out to them is when we ask them for money.”   His advice was to schedule “heart time.”  – That is meet with your donors and engage with them — share a story that isn’t linked to an ask.  What terrific advice for social media strategies too.

It is all about engagement.  And story, whatever form it takes – is what connects people to each other.

Here are some of my Ninja Notes:

Lead with your heart

My mother, who is 86, is performing in a tango recital on Friday and simply expects me and the rest of her world to be there clicking castenets in adoration, thank you very much.  She loves to talk about her dance class, her friends she dances with, the new steps she is learning.  She beams at people who say, “How wonderful!  I would love to do that.”  Then she will shoot them a pointed look and ask,  ”So, why you aren’t you?”

I never say that to her.  I know better.

It is better to be bold and do something that raises people’s eyebrows than to incur my mother’s wrath with a lame dilettantish excuse.  It is the distinct characteristic of a nonprofit ninja artist spirit to do the bold and the unexpected.  Not only will it give you the pleasure of doing something you have secretly wanted to do for a long time, you will earn admiration and encouragement from those around you.

Make the challenge the solution, not the problem

I love writing but like many things in life, writing doesn’t always love me.  Writer’s block is my daily demon.  The specter of the blank screen is eclipsed only by the blank look in my eyes.  This is not good ninja ness.  I just made that word up, be bold, remember?

How I overcame this was to look at my inner stash of superpowers and find one that I could wield as a saber and boldly go where no nonprofit ninja has gone before:

Voila! My iPad stylus.

I sketch when I am stuck for words.  In addition to blogging at conferences, meetings and other gatherings of brilliant creative people, I always capture drawings that can help me share what I have learned.  Thanks to my Sktechbook Pro app on my iPad, I can easily dash off quick sketches, embed them in my posts and share them with all of you.

Here are a few of my recent ones from a piece about how to live artfully.

Take heart and take your inner nonprofit ninja artist out into the world.   If you run into naysayers, do what my mother does.  Toss your head and say in a withering tone, “I am having the time of my life changing the world.  Are you?”

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

photo by wnick87

When I was in music school, a girl I knew auditioned to be a back up singer for the Rolling Stones world tour.  She was an opera student and dreamed about being on the stage of La Scala.

She came back from the audition and I could tell that she was shocked and upset.

Voice?  She had a set of pipes that were golden.

Presence?  Magnetic.

Talent?  Over the top chops.

So, why didn’t she get the job?

When she could finally speak without astonishment, she said what separated the mezzos from the mediocre was something totally unexpected.  It was something Mick Jagger had said:

“All of you are here because you all got what it takes – talent, voice, looks.  But if you ain’t fun on the bus, you ain’t going.”

I hope she is having better luck at La Scala.

How does that bit of wisdom help you hire better staff?

Let’s look at the metaphor.

You have a prospective candidate who, on paper, has everything you are looking for.  That is what I call the “talent and looks quotient”.

In the interview, you have the chance to talk to the person and get a sense of their personality, their thinking, how they deal with challenge or failure.

You should also ask if they like chocolate.

Or cooking.  Or surfing.  What makes their eyes light up?  This is what I call their “fun on the bus” quotient.

One of Seth’s bosses goes one step further:  he will go out to dinner with the prospective candidate.  If they have a pleasant time, great.  If not, forget it.   This is someone you will be spending a lot of time with.  You have to get along and work well as a team.  If you can assemble a group of talented, hardworking, vision focused people that enjoy being together, why not?  Especially on a tour bus.

A job posting appeared about a year ago for two positions that had just opened at Union Square Ventures.  Here is the blog post with the job descriptions. What I loved about it was that they clearly described what life “on the bus” would be like and that they are know for their work culture.

“Perhaps most importantly, the successful candidates for these positions will be “net native”. They will use web services in their personal and professional lives. They will ideally have an intuitive feel for what works and what doesn’t on the web. We assume that they will have a web presence, whether that is a profile on a social network site, a photo stream, an academic paper on social media, a blog or tumblelog, a lead role in an open source project, a reputation on Stack Exchange, or a spot on the leader board in Mafia Wars.”

Here is a comment:

Judah 1 year ago in reply to albert

Here’s what you do

1. Know who you need

You are a rock star.  Of course you are going to look for top notch talent and for a person who loves what they do.  Is it someone who is good at managing, problem solving, keeping it together, etc?  What is the specific skill set you need for your team?  Remember, you can hone skills.  You cannot teach passion.  Look for that.

2. Know your environment

Are you a small office?  A unit within a larger organization?  A single person operation?  A friend of mine who ran a large theater company used to call the hiring process “staging”.  He said he would rather “stage” the work around the talent, meaning the staff.  How do you see your work environment and who are the best people you can get for your “stage”?

I hire people for a small nonprofit arts council.  Seth hires similar kinds of people for a large nonprofit social service agency.  Two different environments but almost identical hiring filters.  We both know what strengths, or what archetype we are so we can hire people with the strengths we lack.  Successful candidates need to project their particular superpowers so they can find the perfect batcave.  Read more about what Pam Slim says about this here.

3. Know what you value

This is really a question about you and what kind of team you need around you.  Not necessarily to fill in the gaps, but who can creatively contribute to your success – and to your fun quotient.  A good question to ask yourself is, “Do I look forward to seeing these people in the morning?”  If the answer is yes, you are going to have a fabulous day.  If the answer is maybe, go out and pick up a box of good Italian biscotti and a box of Joe for everyone.  Show them you care.  If the answer is no, they are draining the good positive energy you need to be excellent in what you need to do.

OK people, listen up.  Let’s get this party started.  Time to rock your house.

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

Seth

Me

Walking on the beach is the only way to get around Rockaway today.

We are home this week between Christmas and New Years that swing pivots us into a new year.  I am loving this feeling of detachment and disconnection to what normally invades my every waking thought.  Being physically cut off by snow and unploughed streets adds to the experience.

What about you?

I actually got up to run with Andrea at 6:00 am this morning which was great!  Most people, like John, my physical therapist, shake their heads and think I am certifiably insane to get out of a warm bed on a cold winter morning to run five miles into a blasting cold wind on the beach.

What do you think?

These last days of December came quick, don’t you think?  I suppose this is a good a time as any to start thinking about what you hope the new year will be.  Spending a lot of time walking along the water is the best place for me to do this.

And you?

Get more Wow!

If you want style notes and more for people who change the world, please check out:

Getting to Wow! to feel good, do good and look good

Nonprofit Knitwear for all things knit and nonprofit

Style Notes from me, your artspy

Hoong Yee

– Subscribe and get a little Wow! every day

– Forward the link to someone you think would be interested

– Link to a post on Twitter (follow me @hylkrakauer)

– Put a link to the blog in your Facebook status update

Thanks so much! I really appreciate your help.

Word of mouth is the best way to share, don’t you agree?

Seth’s birthday, originally uploaded by hoongyeeleekrakauer.