Arts and Aging / Arts and Healing Blogathon Coming Next Week

Good morning.
"And the beat goes on……………."

The arts field has seen tremendous growth in several areas in the past few years - among them Placemaking and Engagement.  And now an explosion in the intersections between arts and aging and arts and healing are quickly moving towards a tipping point.  And this area promises to be of major importance and bounty to our sector and to society.

Everywhere today there are articles and media accounts of how the arts play a role in creative aging for seniors, and how that role is helping people growing older to live more interesting, productive, satisfying and fulfilling lives, and how that - plus a range of other intersections between the arts and medical care - is helping elders (and younger people too) maintain better health, recover quicker from health problems, and from surgery and chronic illnesses, and in addressing mental issues from Alzheimer's and dementia to depression and anxiety.

A growing body of preliminary research is confirming what many in the arts sector long intuitively believed - that the engagement with the arts on multiple levels is simply good for the body, mind and soul - in very tangible, practical ways.

This dramatic increase in exploring the arts aging / healing intersections is of enormous value to the arts sector for several key reasons:

1.  The already measurable increase in research into the verifiable impact of the arts on mental and physical health is likely to dramatically increase as more researchers (including from government agencies, hospitals, medical associations, universities, pharmaceutical and insurance companies, and others) seek to understand exactly how the arts can and do play a role in health and in life satisfaction in later years.  As the boomer generation moves towards massive retirement and older age, the sheer costs of health care (to government, insurers, companies, and society in general) is going to astronomically skyrocket.  Anything that will be seen, then confirmed, as helping to keep those costs down is going to be of keen interest to a host of service providers - government and private sector.  And if, as we suspect, that research largely confirms the value of the arts to health and the aging process, then the wider interest in supporting the arts is also going to grow.

2.  The uptick in research activity into the area is going to open more doors for the arts to collaborate, partner and intersect with funders (corporate, government - at all levels: local, state and federal (and even international) - particularly if the research confirms the value of the arts to health and people's attitude.  There is going to be substantial money available to pursue arts aging / arts health initiatives in the future, and a lot of that money will be available to support certain kinds of basic arts organization programs and pursuits.  As general arts funding becomes ever more problematic, this is an area where the arts might actually see money more freely flowing into our coffers - and not just for the costs of newer, specific programs that target and reach older adults, but for basic operations that will support the arts offerings that would be the underpinning of any programs directed towards the aging / healing intersections.

3.  If these intersections turn out to be a mainstay of future health care and of the provision of services to seniors, that fact will increase positive media coverage, public awareness and involvement in the sector and make it axiomatically easier to make progress in the other bookend of the arts - namely in arts education.  We ought to be able to make a very strong case for starting exposure and involvement in the arts at an early stage.  And more progress on that front, will allow us to then move to making the case for the value of the arts to health throughout one's life an easier proposition to establish.  The intersections with aging and health will make these arguments and progress that much easier.  The arts value to health has the potential to rival the value of a healthy diet and an exercise regimen as the third leg of the healthy living stool.

4.  Proven programs involving older people and the arts may help to address some of the declining audience challenges we face.

Our interest in this area isn't new.  As far back as 2001, the NEA was at the forefront of recognizing the potential for the arts to add value to aging and health care issues in a study on Creativity and Aging.  And most recently, the Endowment has continued their leadership position in its partnership with the Walter Reed National Military Center exploring how arts therapy and engagement programs improve health and well-being in military healthcare settings.

All over the country, dating back a decade and longer, arts organizations have been launching and refining programs that bring the value of the arts to healthcare and general aging issues - programs that work.  The aggregate of all that energy and hard work is now reaching the elusive tipping point.

Currently, one of the organizations leading the charge is Aroha Philanthropies lead by Ellen Michelson and consultant Teresa Bonner.  Working with the National Center for Creative Aging they spearheaded an effective (and growing) program to involve state arts agencies in launching creative aging programs.  And their recent convening of thought leaders working in the arena, held at the Hewlett Foundation offices in Palo Alto, (and which will be repeated in Minneapolis in early October) was, by all accounts, an impressive presentation of the status of the burgeoning field of arts aging / healing.

I've been following developments in this area for at least a couple of years, and Ellen, Teresa and I began last year to put together a Blogathon Forum to tap into the thinking of some of the practitioners in the field.  We invited the following leaders to join a panel to answer five questions, and beginning next Monday, I will post the answers to one question per day over the course of the week.

Here are our invitees:

1.  Gay Hanna - Executive Director The National Center for Creative Aging
2.  Kyle Carpenter - CEO - The MacPhail Center for Music
3.  Robert Booker - Executive Director, Arizona Commission on the Arts
4.  Maura O'Malley / Ed Friedman -  CEO / Co-Founder  & Executive Director respectively of Lifetime Arts.
5.  Tony Noice - Adjunct Professor of Theater - Elmhurst College
6.  Connie Martinez - CEO -  Silicon Valley Creates
7.  Teresa Bonner - Aroha Philanthropies

This is but a fraction of the people who have been working in various aspects of this arena, and who have knowledge to share.

Here are the questions we put to this panel:

1.  As the Boomer generation is set to retire, the floodgates of older Americans is poised to become a tidal wave. In the past few years, there has been considerable interest in, and activity around, the intersections of art and aging, and arts and healing.  Indeed, the arts have been integrated into a wide variety of health care and community settings.   Many of these intersections started out as dialogues and discussions, and have grown to become projects and programs involving the arts and any number of partners - ranging from those in the scientific, military, research and medical / health system / caregiver communities, and those in the field whose primary mission is to work with elders to improve the general quality of their lives.

From your perspective, what do you think is the current state of these intersections, what is going on that is working and excites you (both that which you are involved with and what others are doing) and what needs to be done to scale up the "on the ground" efforts to a wider and deeper level?  In terms of practical application, where do we go from here?


2.  What do you think the role of individual arts organizations across the country is, and might be, in the relationships of art and aging / healing?  How can arts organizations who want to be involved in these areas move forward?  What are the steps involved, and what are the opportunities and the barriers and obstacles to mounting successful projects and partnerships that will address the aging / healing arenas?  Where can existing intersections be expanded, and how?  Working artists are crucial to these efforts.  What skills do artists need to work in the aging and healing areas?


3.  What kinds of research needs to be launched now so as to make the case for the value of the arts in aging and healing programs, and how can we involve the public in understanding and appreciating how the arts are making important contributions to both quality aging and healing?  What do funders (public or private) need to know to be more receptive to supporting these efforts?


4.  Who else (what other disciplines and interest areas) need to be at the table as we solidify partnerships between the arts and organizations that are concerned with the issues of aging and those concerned with the issues of how the arts contribute to healing?  What other stakeholders (e.g., groups like AARP, local health jurisdictions, hospitals and the medical community, academia, pharmaceutical companies etc.) are out there that need to be part of this growing effort?  How to we recruit them?


5.  In the long run, are efforts in the area of arts and aging / arts and healing best managed by the private sector, by government or by some combination of the two?  How will we best coordinate and manage all of the individual efforts that are likely to mushroom as this area begins to really take off?  Do we need central clearinghouses, or regional coordinating efforts or are we best off with individual projects initiated on a local basis?  Why?  What, if any, kinds of national policies ought we develop to guide the coming efforts?  How do we develop a standard nomenclature that allows us to speak with one voice?

There is no shortage of resources on this growing area to tap into.  Aroha provided an excellent compendium of some of those resources at their Hewlett Presentation and here is a link:  And here is a link to:  The National Guild for Community Arts Education which has an Arts and Aging Toolkit on their site.  

I think every arts organization in the country ought to consider having a strategy for involvement in the arts aging / arts healing arena, and I suspect every national service provider organization will (if they haven't already) develop materials and resources to help their members to do just that.   It is to everyone's benefit.

I hope you will be able to tap into next week's Blogathon Forum on this site.

Have a great week.

Don't Quit
Barry

What IF

Good morning.
"And the beat goes on……………"

The 'What If' question has long been a staple of any number of approaches to things - from Hollywood reconfiguring a movie 'pitch' to make it closer to what their audience research says, to Pentagon War Games Scenario Planners.  It's an intriguing way to ponder what certain sets of circumstances might lead to, and as a device to try to get out-of-the-box in coming up with responses.  Asking What If questions is premised on the unexpected happening; that which you didn't see coming.  Sure, it seems like a waste of time asking about the aftermath of something that is highly unlikely to happen -- except that things that are highly unlikely to happen seem to be happening with increasing frequency in an ever changing dynamic.  It's hardly new. Isn't, for example, the whole premise of insurance to have a back up for things that are unlikely to happen?

We play this game sometimes in our own strategic planning, often without even knowing it.  We ask ourselves questions about our goals and objectives and whether or not our actions might get us to where we want to be.  It might be interesting, and telling, if not necessarily immediately helpful, to ask the question directly about a host of our assumptions - as individual organizations and as a sector.  What If something completely unexpected were to happen, or What If we were to do something really left field?  What would be the impact, the outcome, the results?  How would we have to change if something happened that was completely illogical?  What changes would we make, and are we capable of those kinds of fundamental changes on short notice.  WHAT IF we did things differently?

Here are just a few What If Questions that -- were the scenarios to become reality -- might change what we do and how we do it on profound levels.

Big SECTOR Questions:

1.  What If  the demand for certain of our art forms is finite, and unlikely to ever -- no matter what we do in terms of marketing, engagement, programming, changes to delivery systems, or attempts to make it more convenient, less expensive, and culturally friendly -- grow beyond what it is today?

2.  What If public funding for the arts were to grow by two hundred percent across the board in the next three years?

3.  What If ALL the baby boomer Executive Directors in the arts sector were to retire by 2017?

4.  What If virtually none of our research is accurate?

5.  What If the top ten companies in Silicon Valley publicly insisted on STEAM?

6.  What If foundations abandoned territorial funding restrictions?

7.  What If cities without world class cultural organizations starting putting together packages of incentives and sought to steal the best organizations from other cities?

8.  What If taking a selfie photograph doesn't really qualify as participating in cultural activities?

9.  What If everybody in the field gave ten dollars a year for arts lobbying?

10.  What If yet another generation is a have / have not arts education cohort - with half the kids having had a rich mixture of arts education course offerings, and half having had nothing at all?

INDIVIDUAL Arts Organization Questions:

1.  What If we closed our four wall performing facility and had to find other places to perform next year?

2.  What If we put all our advertising dollars into social media outreach?

3.  What If our three biggest donors didn't give us a dime next year?

4.  What If the economy collapses again.

5.  What If half the board left, and were replaced by people in their 20's?

6.  What If the artists associated with our performances demanded twice the pay before they would perform again?

7.  What If the media in our city started covering the arts in a really big way on a daily basis?

8.  What If we drastically changed the length of our performances?

9.  What If we tripled our $500 donors?

10.  What If we focused ALL our efforts exclusively on Arts Education?

It may well be that this is no more than an interesting game to play at the bar during a convention. But while it may have little practical application, it may be that the What If questions you might formulate to ask, and the answers you might come up with when asked a What If  question by someone else, change the way you think about things and move you to points you haven't yet been, nor which you thought you would ever embrace.  It may be that some What If questions are simply too ridiculous to even consider. But there may be any number of What If questions that actually hit home and aren't so far off the truth of things.  And consideration of those questions by you and your organization may not be a game at all, but a smart exercise in preparedness and innovation.

What If your job disappeared tomorrow, what would you do?  What If the two or three things that were holding your organization back were - for whatever reasons - no longer a problem.  How would the organization proceed without those handicaps?

What If you could come up with way better questions?

What If you wrote a blog and no one read it?

What If……………………..

Have a great week.

Don't Quit
Barry

Sixth Graders Have No Time for Silly Stuff

Good morning.
"And the beat goes on……………………"

Welcome back from  the Memorial Day weekend.  Summer is a month away but the season starts now. While other times of the year are sometimes more stressful, stress and anxiety in work knows no holiday.  Things seem to get more complex and with that the pressures and stresses seem to grow too.  Some stress may arguably be good; but it can easily lead to anxiety and become the enemy of sound business practices, affecting decision making, productivity, your ability to recognize the key variables in challenges that need to be met and in fashioning smart responses to those challenges, as well as your capacity for leadership, and the morale and vision of the organization itself.

Stress.  Hard to avoid.  On a daily basis, in the struggle to shepherd our organizations, we face innumerable challenges and obstacles.  In the task of navigating  treacherous pathways to keeping things running smoothly, there are often simply not enough hours in the day to get done all that needs to be done. And this takes a toll on us all.  This is, after all, our lives we're dealing with.  And what we deal with is of crucial, critical importance.

Think back to when you were in the third grade.  Not too many memories from that long ago, but you may have some general impressions of life at that age.  Even then, there were daily issues and challenges that you faced that may have caused you anxiety and worry:  Someone may have accused you of having "cooties", or some other offhand remark may have set you to fearing what it might mean.    You fretted and worried about things  back then too.  The point is that there were issues for you that to you seemed earth shattering; issues of the greatest impact and importance; stressful issues.

Now think back to when you were in the sixth grade.  If someone had asked you then if all those third grade matters of great importance still seemed important, your answer would invariably have been: "No, of course not, the things that seemed so critical back then were silly.  I was a baby."  And why would that have been true?   Because you were then occupied with truly grave matters - the really important things only a Sixth Grader could appreciate.  Third grade stuff was nonsense.

And so it goes as you grow older.  All the issues, the problems, the challenges that seem so important, so critical go by the wayside and recede into the background because you are constantly faced with ever new problems to solve and issues to face.  The crises of your teens become not so earth shattering when you are well into your twenties; and the concerns of your twenties take a back seat once you move into your mid thirties.  The past always seems not so frightening as it did when you were in its midst.  Oh and when you get into your fifties or sixties, if you could only share with your children this secret that time has a way of dealing with things. and that most of what causes us anxiety and stress at any given point in time, turns out -- not too much later -- to not have been so threatening or important after all.  In hindsight, things are always more easily managed and successfully handled.  Hindsight makes it easier to see the answers and solutions and the right path. But everybody has to learn this lesson for themselves and its all but impossible to make people understand until they have experienced it for themselves.

And there is the lesson.  All the stuff that makes you crazy and messes with your mojo isn't as critical as you think it is at the time.  Easy to say, much more difficult to internalize as a lesson and a tool to use to face the present.  For the present always seems far more intimidating and difficult.  And important.  But if you can embrace the lesson that only hindsight will verify for you - that the issues you have to face aren't as heavy or large as you think they are -- life becomes much easier, and your ability to successfully deal with life in the moment becomes much, much better.  

I've told this story before, but it fits here:

One of my closest friends has gone to the opening day baseball game of the Giants for years.  It's a kind of tradition.

When his two boys were very young, on one of these opening day occasions, there was a problem with the day care for that particular day.  Unable to find a substitute, my friend decided he would take his youngest son (who was then only about four years old) to the game with him.  He knew Ezra wouldn't likely last the whole game, but he thought he would have fun for a few innings.

So he announced this plan to Ezra the night before at dinner.  Well, Ezra was NOT thrilled with the idea; rather he was adamantly opposed: "I don't wanna go.  I'm not going.  I don't wanna."  He made quite a fuss, much to the confusion of his parents.  But in this contest of wills, a four year old has limited leverage, so Ezra lost, and to the game the next day they went.

When they got home, Ezra's mom was in the kitchen fixing dinner. She asked Ezra how he liked the game, and he told her it was alright; and quickly added that he had ice cream, and a hot dog, and some peanuts too.  Then he looked up at her and said:  "You know what mom?  They're not so big"  And then he scampered out of the kitchen.

His mom was a little confused, but then it dawned on her.  The GIANTS.  Ezra didn't want to go  because he thought they really were giants.

He learned a valuable lesson that day.  What scares us may turn out to be nothing at all.  In fact, often times we suffer anxiety and fear based on false impressions.  The same is true in our business lives.

So when things seem very dire to you.  When anxiety and stress creep up on you (and that happens to us all from time to time), try to put it all in perspective and remember that very shortly in the future you will look back on it all and wonder what possibly made you think any of it was worrisome at all.  Even the big issues in life when you are in the Sixth Grade seem kind of puny and foolish once you are in high school. And so it goes………...

All those issues and challenges and earth shattering, draconian things that can go wrong?  They're not so big after all.

When you need it, take a deep breath.

Have a great week.

Don't Quit
Barry