ReverbNation.com for Musicians Only

Are you familiar with it? ReverbNation is similiar to MySpace, except this entire website is dedicated to musicians only. ReverbNation offers an incredible number of online marketing/PR tools available to musicians for free.

In particular, their newest tool, the Tune Widget can be placed on virtually any web page, MySpace, home page, or blog.

This tune widget is five widgets in one. You can play more then five featured tracks (MySpace has a four track limit), post information about your group, including performing schedules and videos, as well as have your newest fan join the mailing list instantly. Your fans can also share this widget with others to help you spread your music for you.

The tune widget offers easy cross-promotion for you with other artists — friends, label-mates, touring partners, AND you can also track everything that happens with your music using ReverbNation’s free statistics package.

All of these features that are included in this single tune widget are also available through ReverbNation separately for free. Wow. Can self promotion get any easier?



The Customer

The Customer is a poem by Frank Halliwell, from Jimboomba, Australia. This poem is really funny, or at least it was to me, so sit back and enjoy. Have a great weekend.

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“Good morning! Thanks for calling us!
We’re pleased to hear from you!
Your call’s important to us
So we’ve placed you in a queue.

Please find your account number and
Be sure it is correct..
It’s twenty digits long and if you
Mis-type, I’ll reject.

I’ll lead you through the whole routine
Please use your touch type phone.
Press eight and follow with the hash
After you hear the tone.

If you are a new client here..
Press two, ..if old, press three.
Press four in case we’ve done something
With which you disagree!

You have pressed four, please wait a moment
While I transfer you..
And please enjoy, while we play you
A symphony or two!

Our staff are all too busy now
To talk to such as you
Your call is so important that
We’ve placed you in a queue.”

Time passes and the music lingers
On, and bye and bye..
My cheek and ear go fast asleep,
My wrist gets R.S.I.

But wait! It may be there is hope!
I hear a ringing sound,
At last a human voice is heard
After the runaround!

“Good morning, this is Ladies wear
And may we help somehow?
Complaints?.. Oh! Just hang on a tick
I’ll transfer you right now!…”

***
“Good morning! Thanks for calling us!
We’re pleased to hear from you!
Your call’s important to us
So we’ve placed you in a queue.

The Poetry of Business

Thanks to the world wide web and google, here is an interesting light hearted blog post about the intersection of poetry in business written by Judith Kautz, writer and web developer of a site that offers small business owners help and support through online material and articles. Sound familiar?

So, if you are enjoying reading this blog you might also enjoy reading Small Business Notes. But don’t be gone for too long- be sure to come back and visit again soon.
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Business and Poetry at first glance have little in common. Most people consider business as representative of the rational side of our society. Business is involved with profit and concrete ways of achieving it. Poetry represents the creative, more abstract side of the world. It deals with ideas and emotions, not the bottom line. Yet, on closer inspection, many areas of overlap actually exist.

For starters, there is a fair amount of poetry about business. Poems about business range from the whimsical — one Ogden Nash verse contemplating work begins

I sit in an office at 244 Madison Avenue
And say to myself You have a responsible job havenue?
Why then do you fritter away your time on this doggerel?

Here are some other famous and not so famous verses about business:

Carl Sandburg in his Chicago Collection addresses all aspects of Chicago life, including its business life. Skyscraper discusses what transpires in the daily life of a skyscraper; To Certain Journeymen is about the business of dying; and Working Girls muses on the flow of life.

Samuel Taylor Coleridge in Work Without Hope comments on the constancy of work as part of all nature.

Frank Halliwell in The Customer provides a tongue-in-cheek commentary on being put on hold.

Michael Benedikt writes what he calls “Prose Poems” that describe many aspects of the business of life.

Clearly, poetry about business covers all of history and all types of styles, but the common denominator is that it comments on this experience we call business. Uncovering the few examples I have cited here has been inspiring and fun, so much so that I have started a page that links to any poetry that relates to business. This should be a useful, ever-growing reference page of poetry about business.

Self Promotion is Necessary

Creating a buzz and a following for your work requires that you invest time and effort into doing some self promoting. While I am sure your artistry is first class, who will know if you don’t make it available to as many as possible to see, hear or read? I can’t tell you how many of the clients I have worked with who have literally decades of experience as artists, yet who do not have an online presence. These days anyone interested in you or your business will likely head straight for your web site, so you have to have one. Self Promotion is as important as your artistry.

Not only will your website attract future clients, audience members, buyers, donors or anyone else you seek with instant information and credibility, but it will also provide a critical first step to attracting press, broadcasts, and trade or industry news coverage. Case in point, a client of mine was recently reviewed by Chicago Tribune critic Howard Reich, The review turned out OK, but his name was misspelled and his band name not even mentioned in the article- a band he has had for over twenty years. Why? Well most likely because Howard could not find him on the web because he does not have (yet) a web presence. This particular individual learned quickly first hand, and in spades, the value of the web site he is currently investing in and building.

Essentials you need in your Web Site
Maintain an up-to-date site with a compelling home page. Your opening page should welcome visitors and clearly explain to your audience what business your in, reflect the personality you professionally wish to convey, and showcase whatever you produce.

Create an online media kit that gives customers and journalists alike the chance to learn behind-the-scenes facts and stories about you to supplement what’s on your home page. (The term “kit,” by the way, comes from the print version that traditionally collects all press material into a folder or binder, which is mailed or hand-delivered as a packet.)

An online media kit not only saves you that delivery cost, but also lets users choose exactly which documents to download. You don’t have to guess what a reporter wants or overload the media with materials. Electronic media kits are efficient and cost-effective. They also can expand or shrink to fit your pace of growth, business development, and resources.

Media Kit Essentials
If you’re starting from scratch, keep it simple. You can always upgrade and add more later.

Typically, media kits cover these four basic areas:

* An overview or short biography about your business, if you have one.

* A clear, concise summary of the products and services you offer for sale.

* One or more current press releases. If you need to learn how to write one click here. Make sure these are always up-to-date, so you aren’t still announcing news from 2005 when it’s 2008.

* Professional credits which include your title, bio and photo, and some personal data if you would like. If you have employees, include those bios and photos too.

Tips
*Add a link navigation tag to your web site that says Press or Media to easily find these documents on your site.

*Format your documents using software that works on multiple platforms and is user-friendly. That way, anyone with any computer system and web access will have no trouble downloading the kit. Many marketers also rely on the Portable Document Format (PDF) developed by Adobe Systems. Learn how to quickly convert Microsoft Office documents to PDFs.

*Make sure your media kit has a consistent look and feel that reflects your image and brand.

Website Development
I highly recommend shopping around online for a web site developer that is large enough to offer a full range of services and also cost effective. When I did my own research, to decide who to use to build my sites, I looked at a large range of developers- both high end and dirt cheap- and decided I was better off being the creative force behind the development of my site and saving money doing it. So I opted for a low cost provider, but one who offers every imaginable service and feature I could ever want on my websites. Their name is Heritage Web Solutions and you can get a website built for as little as $199.00 to start. Monthly hosting with them starts around $10.00 a month.

I did all the design work for my sites and they simply executed. It was some work getting them to do what I asked, but the price made it all worth it. ( However, the flash elements I use in my site do cost extra.)

By developing a web presence and offering clear marketing messages about you and the products and services you provide, along with a few interesting stories, testimonials, or articles to illustrate who you are and why you should be remembered, you are setting yourself up to attract both customers and media, not to mention at the lowest cost possible. I remember the days when the only way to reach your audience was through direct mail. I use to mail tens of thousands of postcards out at .20 cents apiece spending thousands to promote my work!

Now the world can become familiar with you and your gifts in life for next to nothing, but only if you do the work to make your presence known…

The Artistic Temperament and Business

Learning to manage your emotions in business is a challenge for everyone, but especially for artists. In life we all strive to balance our decision making process using just the right amount of emotion and just the right amount of logic to come to a decision we feel is justified, worthy and that we feel good about making as a result. But in business, we must learn to do this in front of and with others- namely our customers, patrons, donors, board members and anyone else we engage with regularly who holds a financial key to our success.

As artists, we are taught that a full showing of expression is something to strive for in our art form. As a result, rarely are we taught how to take that expression and use it purposefully in a business context.

However, don’t think that what I am saying is that business is completely devoid of emotions. Even the most controlled business types recognize that emotion certainly plays a role in running a business. Imagine running a company without receiving any of the thrill of closing a big sale, or the high of releasing a new product you have worked hard to develop, or having your work featured or reviewed in an important publication. If running a business means putting in 12 hours a day, along with all your savings, to check your passions at the door, you would never have enough energy to keep them burning through all the ups and downs of your ventures development.

Yet, as an artist myself, I am the first to tell you that it takes a lot of work to understand the nuance of when to show emotion and when to use your logic to produce a productive result. Artists are wonderful at being compelling and convincing. The artistic temperament is one that can persuade and entice even the most reticent into listening to their message, story or sales pitch. Our passions can uplift and change the mood of all we touch, and yet I know myself how I have struggled and worked hard to recognize and learn when and how to use my emotions purposefully in business situations. I tend to lead with my heart and have had to work hard at learning when to emote and when to set my intensity of expression aside, because it will not help the situation I am being presented with.

Unfortunately emotion at the wrong time in a business situation, if insufficiently checked by logical reasoning, can be incredibly destructive. In the beginning of a venture it often leads to the most costly errors. It’s a fact that most start-ups make their most costly and deadly mistakes right at the beginning. Excited by the prospects of starting, our emotions rule (multiply that by 10 if your an artist) and we have the potential to spend way too much money on that fancy brochure, website or a piece of equipment for our venture. Had our more logical head prevailed, it would have helped us instead decide to start with less, save the cash, and diminish the risk of potentially going out of business quickly.

Emotions can also result in offering a customer an unprofitable price in desperation to close a sale when cash is too tight and panic replaces our ability to remain logical and calm. It can also cause us to create tension, distance or misunderstandings in key relationships that advise us, provide customers to us and can help our venture grow because of our own insecurities and fears. Emotions, I hope you are beginning to see, can be the enemy- the tornado- the cyclone- that can mark a path of destruction instead of success.

This applies to pretty much everything in business. But the goal isn’t to get rid of emotion and become a cool calculating machine either. Instead, you need to learn, while navigating unchartered water, to recognize when fear, anger, impatience or desperation might prevent you from making a good decision because your head is clouded with these kinds of negative influences.

Think instead of business as a strategy game. A game of risk with the short-term outcome being a complicated mix of hard work, timing, luck and skill. So if things are not going as smoothly as planned, don’t make a future decision based on your emotional reaction at the time. Sit back and wait a bit until your emotional reaction is no longer as intense so you have the opportunity to skillfully make a good decision. And make sure to communicate to those waiting on your decision or who have been of help to you that you need a few hours, days or weeks to come to the right conclusion. It is as important to communicate your lack of clarity and need to think as it is to compellingly or logically reach an outcome. Trust is built when you communicate to others your uncertainty and need to reflect.

But don’t think that these destructive emotions only surface in artists. It happens all the time with every kind of business owner. We all experience these kinds of emotions in business. It’s simply as artists that we are blessed and cursed with a greater abundance of them.

Controlling our emotions in business takes practice- Practice in elevating your consciousness to recognize when your decisions are about to be made based on irrational emotions so that you have the opportunity to stop and re-evaluate whether your decision will produce a positive outcome or a self-destructive one.

Hatch Your Business on Campus

The college campus, it turns out, is FINALLY beginning to be recognized as an ideal incubator for hatching small businesses these days.

According to the Kauffman Foundation in Kansas City, Mo., more than 2,000 colleges and universities now offer at least a class and often an entire course of study in entrepreneurship. That is up from 253 institutions offering such courses in 1985. More than 200,000 students are enrolled in such courses, compared with 16,000 in 1985.

I know that when I started my first business from my college dorm room at Northwestern University in 1985, entrepreneurship was something but only a few students in the business school talked about, and absolutely something no one talked about in the school of music.

While entrepreneurship in the arts still has a much further way to come, in terms of acceptance among faculty and stewardship at the university level, the movement of teaching entrepreneurship on college campuses is unstoppable and gaining the kind of momentum that will allow it to begin to more easily spread into all areas of study- including the arts.

So it looks like we have come a long way baby!

For more about the development of entrepreneurship classes, read the New York Times Article A Classroom Path to Entrepreneurship that was published just a couple of days ago.

From Clarinet to Coffee- What a Conundrum?

Marianne Breneman is a clarinetist I know through Lisa’s Clarinet Shop. She is also someone who sets a wonderful example of being entrepreneurial. You see entrepreneurship is not necessarily about owning a small business, even though Marianne and her husband, Brian, do together own Koka Coffeehouse in Cincinnati, OH. But instead, I see entrepreneurial artists as those who take responsibility for their destiny and create the opportunities in life they need most to thrive.

How does Marianne do this?

#1 By having a great education to allow her to the flexibility to choose who she teaches and where she teaches.

As a native of the Detroit area, Marianne holds degrees from Michigan State University, Wayne State University, and the University of Cincinnati College-Conservatory of Music (CCM). With a strong educational foundation it is no wonder she has a very full active teaching studio, as well as serving on the faculty at The College of Mount St. Joseph in Cincinnati, OH. With her credentials, Marianne can afford to have a policy of accepting students by audition only.

#2 By creating performing opportunities to fill her need to play and by taking it seriously enough to commit time and resources to its development.

While Marianne is the second clarinetist with the Kentucky Symphony Orchestra, she is also a founding member and the Managing Director of Conundrum, a unique chamber ensemble of Soprano, Flute, Clarinet, and Piano.

Having built a chamber group over a ten year period of time, as one of the founding members, I can tell you that Marianne is a very entrepreneurial musician. Having played with lots of musicians, some who perform in major venues and others who are fine freelance artists, most musicians have not learned how to take a risk and build an organization that will give them the freedom to play where they want and what they want. Most artists will tell you they would love to do this, but the number one reason they don’t is simply because they have not (yet) learned the skills they need to be entrepreneurial, like Marianne.

An excerpt from the Conundrum website:

What is Conundrum?

“…Glad and sad in the same pair of trousers, I left for Reno ,asking the question over and over as the dirt passed; “why do I feel this way?” The answer was in the shape my feet left in the dirt. Not hooves anymore, but size 3 sneakers.

Why am I a tiny pony in sneakers? Why are there no answers, just more questions? Who wants to listen to any sound that comes out of me? And geez, why do I smell like an old rope? Riddles, rhymes and indecent sirens of pain…”

Yes, puzzling but important questions face us every day. Who am I? How is this supposed to work? What part fits where? Are you my mother? A life’s enigma; a heart’s quandary; a spirit’s conundrum.

When searching yields riddles, like children we play.

Soprano, flute, clarinet and piano:
an unconventional combination of voices creating textures of elemental beauty-melody, rhythm, harmony and language. Alternately serene, playful, quirky, or lush.

We play music we like and we do it with conviction. Our audiences seem to be happy and excited after our performances.

Conundrum is:
Mary Elizabeth Southworth-soprano,
Danielle Hundley-flute,
Marianne Breneman-clarinet
Philip Amalong-piano.

#3 By building on personal interests, Marianne and her husband, Brian, are creating life on their own terms.

When you risk with your heart, and use your head to execute those passions, you find that life offers you whatever you need to flourish. Not only do the Breneman’s now have two coffeehouses, the second which opening in June of 2007, but they are using their creativity in life to create financial and creative opportunities that they can enjoy for a long time to come.

An excerpt from the Koka Coffehouse website:

Welcome to Koka Coffeehouse!

You’ve seen us on Eastern Avenue. We’re the warm happy glow on a cold dark morning. The sunny yellow building with cheerful spring flowers.

No recollection?

How about the tacky flashing light-up arrow sign with the witty sayings?

Wit. Great Coffee. Friendly Service. Intelligent Conversation. What else could you ask for?

Koka Coffeehouse. Not Bigger, Just Better!

Changing the Rules

#10 Create a weekly smART-Tank of artists, business folks and anyone else interested in supporting the arts to meet with over coffee or dinner. Discuss, share, and use the group to help each artist in it learn how to create a more fulfilling financially viable artistic life. Run an ad to start it in your local paper or post a flyer at somewhere you like to hang out to get started. Expand your circle beyond your friends and people you know and watch how quickly you get results! Think tanks are wonderful ways to expand your circle, knowledge and resource base and make new friends.

#9 Ask for a coffee date with someone you admire that creatively and artistically is thriving and ask them about how they do it! Bring a pad of paper, pen and a great set of questions. We learn most quickly and are most likely to adopt best practices when we surround ourselves with those who are most like who we want and need to be.

#8 Make a list of the three most important things you need to do to advance your career that will take less then a month to complete and get started. Tape that list to a mirror or near your computer so that you can revisit your progress daily.

#7 Talk to others about what you are trying to accomplish. The more you verbalize your dreams and goals the clearer it will become, not to mention easier to reach.

#6 Don’t know where to start? Start with a list of what you do not want in life. In fact make a big long list of all the things you surely do not want to do or be like. After you are done, sit back and look carefully at the list because whatever you put on it is only 180% away from what you really do want from your life and career.

#5 Build a website and print a business card. You can start with a MySpace page for free or come to wordpress, like me, and build a site and blog for free. Business cards are a must. How can you be remembered if you cannot memorably leave your contact info with those who you wish to know? I cannot tell you how many professional people in their 30’s, 40’s, and up I have met at networking events who do not have a business card with them or a website. Seriously.

#4 Fail, fail, fail, fail… NO- I DON”T want you to fail but it can often feel like we are failing until we succeed. Sales books often preach that it takes seven knocks to open a door, but I believe it takes just as many with anything we truly want to accomplish in life. Knocking seven times on a door without anyone answering can be a little hard on the ego but fear not- keep knocking! Knock, knock, knock- because if you do, I promise you that door will open.

#3 Opportunity comes when its ready not when you are! If you want to change the rules of how to be an artist by being one who thrives, then you have to be ready to take the opportunities that come your way WHEN they do. Opportunity is never one to call at the perfect moment. So be ready to open the door and say yes.

#2 Practice makes perfect. Everything in life- relationships, art, careers, our weaknesses- everything improves with practice. But you have to practice smart. Isolate the source of the problem and tackle it. Don’t practice what you know, focus instead on what you need to learn to make all of the pieces fall into place.

#1 Be the kind of person you want others to be to you. It’s all about karma. Be good to your family, friends, significant others, patrons, clients, donors, board members and anyone else in life you interact with. Givers gain- it’s the butterfly principal. What you spread will blossom and grow and come back to you twenty fold.

Character Matters

Yes, your character does matter but what about the characters you create? Do they matter? Do you know how to create continuous cash flow from your art, illustrations, designs and characters?

In 2006 the licensing business netted more than $180 billion dollars in retail sales. Turning your art, illustrations, designs or characters into a branded image allows you to be able to become recognized as an artist through many different kinds of promotional marketing tools. There are few rules with regards to where your images can appear and you have control over which kinds of items or markets you pursue to have your artwork promoted in or through.

Jeanette Smith, Sr. Vice President of Character Matters, with more than twenty years of experiencing in the licensing industry is someone you need to know. Character Matters has been building character for for a long time with over 100 years of combined experience creating, developing, and licensing recognizable characters, as well as inventing new products and product lines.

Besides, branding and promotional marketing through characters, designs or illustrations provides extraordinary tools for connecting emotionally with your audience. Can you think of a better way to connect with potential buyers of your work while simultaneously creating a continuous flow of cash from your art?

Jeanette Smith is responsible for building the Dilbert brand from its infancy into a global corporate icon. Every idea, image, illustration, design and piece of art starts somewhere. What can you do with yours through licensing?

About Character Matters
Our characters represent a wide range of types and styles - from real people to illustrations to animation.

Character Matters offers:

Character Development
Original concept and creation
Development of your character idea
Renovation of an existing or dormant character
Strategic marketing development services
Retail displays concepts
Product development
Packaging
Intellectual property development
Promotions & events
Editorial & design treatments
Licensing
Animation

I met Jeanette Smith at the SEA ( Self Employment in the Arts) conference back in March. She is not only very passionate about her work but excellent at what she does. You can reach her at www.jnetsmith.com to find out more about her services.

Orchestrating Collaboration at Work

If your passion, like mine, is working at the intersection between art and business then this book is for you!

Orchestrating Collaboration at Work, by Arthur B. VanGundy and Linda Naiman, offers seventy activities for those who want to use the arts to create transformative learning experiences in organizations.

Using painting, poetry, storytelling, music, sculpting and improvisational theater as the basis for the activity,each offers skill development in creativity, communication, teamwork, innovative and collaborative leadership. “You can use them as quick icebreakers or brainjuicers at meetings or training sessions, and as a means of mediating dialogue to stimulate employee engagement. These activities act as catalysts for conversations that really matter and provide an antidote to information overload” says Linda Naiman.

To provide a context and a rationale for using the arts in business, you will also find insights, observations, and advice derived from interviews with leading researchers, educators, change agents, artists and practitioners, including: business author Margaret Wheatley, poet David Whyte, actor Richard Olivier, and John Seely Brown, former chief scientist at Xerox PARC.

About Linda Naiman
Linda Naiman, founder of Creativity at Work, is recognised internationally for pioneering arts-based learning as a catalyst for developing creativity, innovation, and collaborative leadership in organizations. Working at the intersection of business, art and science, she helps organizations generate breakthroughs in business performance, through coaching, training and consulting.

Linda began her career as a design consultant in marketing communications, leading multi-disciplinary teams on projects ranging from annual reports, to marketing the launch of shopping centres; winning numerous industry awards in graphic design and illustration. Her art is marketed by Images.com, New York and Casa Art Gallery, Vancouver. Linda’s background in art and design led her to explore artistic processes and their applications to leadership and transformation.

Linda’s writings on creativity and innovation have appeared in numerous business journals including Perspectives on Business and Global Change, published by the World Business Academy.

Linda’s work has been documented in several books: Artbased Approaches:* A Practical Handbook to Creativity at Work (Chemi 2006), Wake Me Up When the Data Is Over: How Organizations Use Stories to Drive Results (Silverman 2006), and Artful Creation: Learning Tales of Arts-in-Business (Darsø 2004). Her work has also been featured in The Vancouver Sun, The Globe and Mail, and on TU Danmark TV. Interviews by the media include Canadian Business Magazine, CMO, Profitguide.com, CBC Radio, and National Public Radio.

Linda is an associate business coach at the University of British Columbia, and an adjunct faculty member of the Banff Centre Leadership Lab. As a speaker and workshop leader, Linda has presented at business conferences in Canada, the US, Argentina and in Europe.

Arthur B. VanGundy Ph.D., has designed or facilitated brainstorming retreats for over 20 years for clients such as: Air Canada, Hershey Foods, Kraft Foods, Monsanto, Quaker Oats, S.C. Johnson Wax, the Singapore government, and Sunbeam. He is considered a pioneer on idea generation techniques and has written eleven books including: Techniques of Structured Problem Solving, Idea Power, and Brain Boosters for Business Advantage. He wrote the creativity training program for the American Management Association and the creativity chapter for The American Marketing Association’s Marketing Encyclopedia.

About Arthur B. VanGundy
Arthur B. VanGundy is Professor of Communication at the University of Oklahoma and President of VanGundy & Associates, a creativity and innovation consulting firm. He has over 23 years experience in higher education and idea generation training and facilitation. His academic degrees are from Ohio Wesleyan University (B.A.), Miami University—Ohio (M.S.), and The Ohio State University (Ph.D.).

VanGundy has developed three idea generation aids: The Product Improvement CheckList (PICL), the Circles of Creativity (1985), IdeaPro idea generation software (in progress), and wrote the creativity training program for the American Management Association.

His books have been cited over 100 times in such journals as

Management Science,
Decision Sciences,
Academy of Management Journal,
The Journal of Product Innovation Management,
Journal of Advertising Research,
Psychology Today

Transforming Careers through Intellectual Entrepreneurship

“The primary mission of IE ( Intellectual Entrepreneurship) is to educate students to be citizen-scholars—individuals who creatively use their intellectual capital as a lever for social good.”
—Dr. Richard Cherwitz, IE Consortium founder, University of Texas-Austin
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While the following link to this interesting article is a long read, and while at first you might wonder how does this apply to the arts, read it because it completely does. The work of Rick Cherwitz at University of Texas- Austin is ground breaking and applicable regardless of if you are currently in school or have long graduated.
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Exploring All the Options: With help of mentors, students find new paths

Human biology major Justin Jefferson snaps on a pair of bright blue rubber gloves as he prepares to give an informal tour to a recent visitor at a University of Texas at Austin animal behavior research laboratory. The 20-year-old sophomore moves with ease from room to room—one minute inspecting small vials of bloodless brain tissue pulled from a freezer, and the next stroking a large, white rat in his hands—all the while explaining how he helps graduate students and faculty with their research at least 12 hours a week.

“We do many things in our lab, but our main goal is to look at gene expression in rats, and study reproduction and puberty of the rats, mainly at the molecular level,” says Jefferson, who an hour earlier was carefully measuring cellular and molecular changes in brain samples at another lab across campus.

As part of a research study on reproduction in rats, human biology major Justin Jefferson (right) collects cells for graduate student Deena Walker to observe under the microscope at an animal behavior research laboratory on campus. Walker was Jefferson’s mentor last fall when he was enrolled in the IE Pre-Graduate School Internship Program. Photo: Christina Murrey.

Anyone who talks to this confident, young scientist would find it hard to believe that he went to a high school that offered few science classes, or that he felt overwhelmed by his first year at college…

The Journey of Selling a Book

As many of you know, from reading my blog, I have climbed several tall mountains and swam the distance between two continents writing, developing, editing and securing an agent for my book. And yet, I still must do more to demonstrate to six remaining publishers that my book Build a Blue Bike: Ride Your Artistic Blues to Creative and Financial Freedom, is one they MUST decide to BUY and publish.

For those of you who are little unclear about the publishing process, let me remind you: If you wish to publish a book you write, you can seek out small publishers directly to see if they are interested, or of course, you can simply decide to self publish. However, if you wish to land a household name big publishing house to pick up your work, who has the marketing muscle and distribution savvy to get your book into Borders (never mind that they might file for bankruptcy for the moment), then you must be represented by an agent. Only agents can talk to household name publishers, which means you have to be one of the roughly 3% of book proposal submissions they accept to represent.

I have managed to jump through that hoop, and I have a great agent, Susan Schulman. I know she will do a fine job selling my book once our economy perks back up. It might as well require a new president who values the arts, one with democratic stripes, to get it sold. So in the meantime, I have been working hard to add a new leg or arm to my strategy to continue to strengthen my possibilities of getting my work finally published.

My newest strategy has been to take an online marketing course by Peggy McColl and Randy Gilbert. These two individuals are considered to be the gurus of online marketing and are wildly successful at it both with their own books and with helping others. Of course, my purpose in taking this class is to build my knowledge of how to get my book to sell well through various distribution channels I can develop once it is published. However, since it has not been sold yet, and therefore is not yet in print, I have been working hard trying to come up with a strategy to be able to use what I am learning from this class now.

With the blessings of Susan Schulman, my agent, I am in the process of creating an E-Book, which will be called Starving Artist Not!: Changing History One Artist at A Time. This E-Book will be a resource guide of artistic entrepreneurs across the country that offer classes, workshops, mentoring programs or any other artist entrepreneurial service for sale. This resource guide will allow those of you interested in arts entrepreneurship, but not sure who to turn to or where to start, to have a deep resource filled with ideas, contacts and useful information.

I am currently in the process of building it and welcome comments, as well as the names of any artists you know that I should include!

There are days I wake up and wonder if all of this work is worth it.

But that thought rarely lasts more then a moment, because I know my journey is worth the tough climb. I know I am and will continue to make a difference with the vision I have to teach artists to become more entrepreneurial and resourceful.

I am just grateful that pursuing your passions, like falling in love, offers us blindness or a kind of naiveté to problems or difficulties we will surely encounter, and that under any other circumstance we would likely see. This offers each one of us a form of self protection- an insulation from reality that we need to act in the first place.

But when you really love something or someone you will climb every mountain and swim every ocean needed to make it work if your feelings are real– no matter how hard it is or how much work it takes.

So which ocean shall I swim and which mountain next must I climb?

Batteries Included

While there are lots of ways to feel like your batteries are super charged in life, I think the only one that really works is following your heart.

Unlike your camera, computer, watch, or the clock you own that needs batteries to run, you are self-empowered and come with a life long battery included.

You see your heart never needs a new battery to super charge your life. Nor does it need the thrill of riding on a mechanical horse, or zooming around on the wings of a battery powered bug, or the jolt of a pill to get your juices flowing.

If you think you need any of those things to jump start your life, your taking your one ever-lasting battery for granted. Don’t do that. It won’t stay super charged anyway for very long if you do, unless you give it the energy it really needs by fueling your life with passion.

Yeah, I know. We have talked about this a few times before: passionate pursuits are never easy. It sounds great to pursuit what you love, doesn’t it, until you find yourself riddled with moments that don’t seem passionate at all- times when you simply are grateful you do come with a battery included so you can just keep on running.

Sure we all have moments like that on the road to our adventure. But keep your eye on your vision, pursue your passions, sleigh your dragons anyway, beat back the bushes with your home made machete, and be the first to walk where only your dream can see.

After all, this is why you do come with batteries included…

The Role of the Arts in Community Development

Americans for the Arts, the nation’s leading 45 year old nonprofit organization for advancing the arts in America, has an established Institute for Community Development and the Arts. This Institute provides a research-based understanding of how the arts are being used to address social, educational, and economic development issues in communities across the country.

If you are thinking about what kind of business you can create, this kind of research might be very helpful for you to read.

Areas of research and publication have included at-risk youth, artist training, economic development, arts and civic dialogue, public housing, cultural tourism, and program planning and evaluation. You can click on any of the reports below to read them.

SPECIAL REPORT LINKS

Arts Programs for At-Risk Youth: How U.S. Communities are Using the Arts to Rescue Their Youth and Deter Crime

Building Creative Economies: The Arts, Entrepreneurship, and Sustainable Development

Cultural Development in Creative Communities

Cultural Tourism: Bridging America Through Partnerships in Arts, Tourism and Economic Development

The Arts in Times of Trauma

The Arts, Religion, and Common Ground

Just Another Reason to Entrepreneur The Arts

On April 1st, 2008, Americans for the Arts released a report called Creative Industries 2008. This report presents a detailed analysis of arts-related businesses, institutions, and organizations in the country’s 50 most-populated cities. The study reveals that arts-centric businesses represent 4.3 percent of all businesses and 2.2 percent of all jobs in the United States and that the arts are a robust and formidable economic growth sector.

The entire Creative Industries 2008: The 50 City Report, as well as additional reports on states and U.S. Congressional Districts, are available online at: www.AmericansForTheArts.org/CreativeIndustries

What do you see?

While attending the AIE conference last week I went to this great presentation given by John Cimino from an organization called Creative Leaps. John is an opera singer and works to integrate the arts into the classroom and the boardroom.

Here is a little bit from a presentation he gave that I thought was really fascinating. This part of the presentations focused on a few ways to change ones realities using artistry to increase creativity, discovery and learning:

It is not logic which guides discovery and artful creativity, but perception and imaginative insight.

Now, imagine learning as personal discovery. (Vico)

What can you learn about yourself from The Sun Sets Sail by Rob Gonsalves?

“All our knowledge has its origins in our perception.“ Leonardo Da Vinci
How do your perceptions about this image change what you know?

This simple two dimensional picture of a three dimensional object does not always give enough information to distinguish the front from the back faces. Therefore, the eye will pick one side as being the front and transform the image into a “projected” three-dimensional object allowing us to alter our view of this simple image.

One purpose of art is to alter the quality of our attentiveness — to enhance, refresh and sharpen our perceptions.
What details in this next image enhance, refreshen and sharpen your perceptions?

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The reality of this simply line drawing by Alizz is that it is nothing more then a number of straight and curved lines.

And yet, instead, we all see something different based on how we perceive it.

For me I see the back of a woman with flowing hair and a flowing skirt and a pretty bow in her hair. This has a lot more meaning, and evokes my imagination. Because I choose to see it this way, my reality has changed into something that I can discover and learn from instead of seeing it as a bunch of straight and curved lines.

The arts inhabit and thrive at this cusp of perception and meaning-making, flexing both in favor of creativity, discovery and learning.

While it is strikingly simple to understand this, it is truly profound when you begin to consider what you can do with your artistry to enhance others creativity, discovery and learning with any subject matter that interests you.

I really enjoyed meeting John and find his work and ideas exciting.

About Creative Leaps
We are learning specialists, performing artists, scientists and renewal partners working in the corporate and educational arenas. Our clients are leading Fortune 500 companies, centers for leadership and professional development (including the Center for Creative Leadership), research institutions, Federal agencies, colleges and universities, and centers for teacher training and renewal. Major corporations including General Electric, IBM and Fannie Mae as well as top government agencies from the White House to the Social Security Administration have recruited Creative Leaps International for keynote presentations and professional learning initiatives aimed at catalyzing executive thinking, renewal and change.

If you are an artist are you naturally a leader?

Take this little quiz and find out:

Here is a list that Eliot Eisner from Stanford University developed on how the mind processes art:
1.Qualitative relationships in the absence of rules
2.Acting flexibly with purpose to approach a goal
3.Learning to explore possibilities within a medium
4.Using imagination to see multiple perspectives
5.Learning to pay attention to nuance
6.Surrendering to processes rather than leading
7.Learning to use language figuratively
8.Creating emotionally what cannot be expressed literally
9.The qualitative features of the arts and the world

Now here is a list created by The Center for Creative Leadership on the Creative Competencies of Leadership:

1.Noticing – slowing down, taking in more
2.Subtle representation – eye for detail & relationship
3.Fluid perspective - attuned to multiple points of view
4.Using R-mode – non-verbal, intuitive processing
5.Personalizing work – arts interests spill into work
6.Skeptical inquiry – preserving the questions
7.Serious play – learning and exploring without rules
8.Portraying paradoxes, conflicts, unknown – mystery
9.Facility with metaphor – generative thinking
10.Making shared meanings - engaging creative tension

How many, if any, from each list are a mirror image of the other? How many, if any, match?

Ok– Think you have it figured out? Here are the answers:

The Minds Processing of Art
1.Qualitative relationships in the absence of rules
2.Acting flexibly with purpose to approach a goal
matches Creative Competencies
7.Serious play – learning and exploring without rules

The Minds Processing of Art
4.Using imagination to see multiple perspectives
matches Creative Competencies
3.Fluid perspective - attuned to multiple points of view

The Minds Processing of Art
5.Learning to pay attention to nuance
matches Creative Competencies
1.Noticing – slowing down, taking in more

The Minds Processing of Art
7.Learning to use language figuratively
matches Creative Competencies
9.Facility with metaphor – generative thinking

The Minds Processing of Art
8.Creating emotionally what cannot be expressed literally
matches Creative Competencies
4.Using R-mode – non-verbal, intuitive processing

Regardless of how many of these you figured out, we, as artists, need to learn how to develop and use our natural skills to lead. Leaders build their visions, unit people and thrive. It’s time we as natural leaders, and as artists, do too.

Common Ground (AIE) Conference

For the past few days I have been in Albany, New York attending the annual New York State Arts In Education (AIE) conference. This conference brings together over 200 administrators, teachers, teaching artists ( to learn more about teaching artists go to the ATA) and community members. The programing and sessions for this conference contribute to fresh curriculum design, school reform and new models of classroom learning in the arts for the state of New York.

My interest in coming to this conference stems from my interest in the work of teaching artists and the teaching templates that this growing movement of teachers are creating, to be able to focus on integrating the teaching of art (music, creative writing, dance, theater etc.) into all subject matters in the classroom (math, social studies, science etc.).

What was incredibly interesting for me was to witness the evolution of entrepreneurial-like teaching development processes, created by artists, which in many ways is a first in the arts! These teaching artists are learning how to create integrated partnerships with K-12 schools ( sometimes facing resistance from other teachers and administrators and having to learn to overcome them), while focusing on developing individually designed programming to meet the needs of each school, using innovative, integrated cutting-edge teaching of artistry by combining it creatively into the subject matter of math, social studies and the sciences, AND finding a way obtain funding for it. This process is VERY entrepreneurial, and, I think can serve as a step towards integrating the business world’s need to economically advance and innovate by utilizing the benefits that can be taught to help them do this through artistry!

The process itself requires the three legs of the stool I feel need to be taught in all art: the highest level of artistry, the integration of art into all aspects of life and thought, and the understanding of the creation of value– ethical, moral and financial– from everything that is created.

Chicago Arts Partnerships in Education’s (CAPE), Founder Arnold April, is one of the key leaders of the development of this new movement of teaching and the establishment of it being a field of study.

What pleased me greatly about attending this conference was the openness to incorporating business into the conversation. Many I spoke with, including the Director of Arts Education for The New York State Council of Arts, Amy Duggins Pender, were interested in the benefits that teaching artists could bring to business and that in turn, through serving business objectives, would in turn bring to the arts through greater financial support.

As I write this post to you, reflecting on my time at AIE, I am waiting in the Albany airport in hopes that my cancelled flight from this morning will take off this evening. (Ughh. The joys of flying.) But, this horrible delay did allow me to return to the conference just in time to hear the final presentation at the conference given by the new executive director of The New York State Council on the Arts, Heather Hitchens, over lunch; after all NY politics is rather exciting these days and I was sure, as the new executive director of the council, she would have something interesting to say about it all.

It also allowed me to be present for AIE’s raffle drawing which included a grand prize of 2 free nights at The Crowne Plaza Hotel and conference center in Albany. I guess I was meant to be there because I won. In all the raffles I have entered, I never win. AIE’s conference is again in Albany next year, so I guess I am suppose to come back.

If you would like to know more about this conference you might want to check out the following organizations that help orchestrate it. AIE is coordinated by Partners for Arts Education for the state through collaboration with the New York State Council for the Arts and The Association for Teaching Artists, Empire State Partnerships, New York Foundation for the Arts, NYS Alliance for Arts Education and the NYS Education Department.

Achieving The Changes You Want

Maybe you have not made it yet, the changes you want, but you know what it will take to. Hard work. Willpower. Self-discipline. And if you have been working on trying to make the changes of your dreams without success, you may think its because you are not trying hard enough.

In a new self-help book by Alan Deutschman, called Change or Die: The Three Keys to Change at Work and in Life, Deutsmann explains that failure is not a byproduct of laziness or lack of self-control. In this book, Deutschman, was determined to get to the bottom of what makes people and corporations able to change- especially when they have tried and failed. What he found is that people get unstuck not through willpower but through finding a mentor — someone who’s reached that same goal; so that the “if they can do it, so can I” mentality will take over.

By identifying and learning the new skills necessary from your mentor, this will allow you to “reframe” who you are — a thinner you, a successful salesperson, an artistic entrepreneur — instead of the one, in your own mind, who failed over and over. By shadowing the person you identify as a mentor, your chances for true and lasting change dramatically are altered.

Ironically Deutschman’s book title comes from those who literally have to change or die–its reference comes from people like heart-bypass patients, who must change their lifestyle or face surgery after surgery or death. Astonishingly, nine out of ten of these individuals Deutschman, through his research, learned don’t make the changes that would save their lives, though the stakes couldn’t be higher.

After Deutschman came upon this statistic, he heard about a doctor who had turned those numbers upside down. Dean Ornish, M.D. a San Francisco Bay Area professor of medicine, requires patients to make the most radical changes of all, including switching to an extremely low-fat vegetarian diet and doing regular yoga and meditation practice. Yet nearly eight in ten of his patients- many of them steak eating CEO’s- make those major changes and maintain them for years after they’ve left Ornish’s program.

According to Deutschman, the key to the program’s success is the relationships his patients develop by showing up to support groups and classes that are the program’s hallmark. They find others like them going home to chant “om” or munching on kale and realize it can be done.

So think about the parallels to this story in your own life and desire to change. Change is a result of allowing yourself to truly be influenced and surrounded by those who are “walking the walk”, so you too can learn how to.

Maybe this means surrounding yourself with new people that are achieving what you dream. Or maybe this means seeking out several mentors who you will shadow and heed their every word of advice until you have achieved your vision.

If you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you have always gotten….

Turning Dance Steps into Business

Are you looking for a way to transform your art form into a business? The artistic director of the New York Baroque Dance Company not only successfully built a business using hers, but also transformed the employees of one particular business, a restaurant, by doing so.

This article appeared in The New York Observer and was written by Bryan Miller.
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“As you walk around the room, I want you to have the feeling that you are connecting the earth with the heavens,” exhorted Catherine Turocy, a dance instructor and choreographer who specializes in 18th-century minuets.

Two dozen students, equally men and women, most in their late 20’s, formed a single-file line and strode around a large conference room-chins up, arms loose at their sides, and giggling sporadically as they marched out of step like a slipshod army platoon.

“A low face conveys a sense of loss!” Ms Turocy continued. “If you walk around with a low face, that shows everyone that you are submitting to a greater power.”

The group was summoned to a halt and separated into two long rows, square-dance style, as the teacher picked up a batch of long red feathers and passed them out to the line on her left.

“In a classic minuet,” explained Ms. Turocy, a small, spiritual woman with tied-back chestnut hair, wearing a long blouse and loose black pants, “the gentleman offers the feather to the lady, the lady accepts with a forward bow, and the dance begins. I want you to feel your head floating on top of your spine.” She clicked on a small boombox that played Handel’s Water Music . The pas de deux began.

This was not a night class at the Y for ex-collegiate hoofers, nor an East Side theater club’s musical rendition of Barry Lyndon. Flitting around this room were an assortment of busboys and “runners,” the latter a term referring to restaurant employees who shuttle food back and forth from kitchen to table.

But not just any kitchen. This is Per Se, the extravagant sibling of the much much-revered French Laundry in California’s Napa Valley, which is slated to open Feb. 16 in the new Time Warner Center at Columbus Circle.

Chef/owner Thomas Keller, 45, has temporarily shuttered his rustic original establishment and drafted some of his key lieutenants in the hopes of transplanting a bit of fuzzy wine-country hospitality to the glass-wrapped, echoey shopping center, which includes a four-story galleria of retail shops, restaurants and bars.

Per Se, which was designed by globe-trotting Adam Tihany-as, it seems, is every third new restaurant in the city-is said to have cost more than $12 million, which certainly merits a line or two in the Guinness Book of Gustatory Records. Prix-fixe dinners will go for $125, $135 and $150.

The French Laundry is renowned as much for its food as its assiduous service, which is widely hailed as the best in the country. I was a beneficiary of it three times over the years: precise not fussy, smart not smarmy, and everywhere and nowhere according to your needs. And they didn’t know how to minuet.

Service at the New York venture, presumably, will be up to the same standard, and I was curious to learn how they do it.

I asked the folks at Per Se if I could be a fly on the wall for a week to see how they train the staff. They foolishly agreed.

“I think the dance is very good for them; they need to know how to move with grace,” observed Laura Cunningham, the general manager of the French Laundry, who is serving here as a consultant to Per Se, as she peeked in on the hour-long session.

Ms. Turocy, who is the artistic director of the New York Baroque Dance Company, has held these movement workshops for musicians and dancers over the years; this is her first restaurant gig.

As silly as this bowing and scraping appeared at first, the half-dozen or so students I spoke with afterward said they got a kick out of it and maybe learned something about movement as well.

“I liked it,” Rudy Mikula, a bartender, told me. “But as far as I’m concerned, it was as much about bonding among the staff as it was the movement thing.”

Higher-ups in the dining room-managers, captains and waiters-would flap their feathers later that morning.

To read the rest of the article click here.