The beginning of the week saw me in Glasgow speaking on a panel at the Independent Street Arts Network biennial conference. The theme of the conference, Resilience and Brilliance reflected the challenges that the outdoor arts sector (performance work that takes place outside traditional theatre spaces) is facing with Arts Council and Local Authority funding cuts, but also the exciting opportunities for the sector with London 2012 fast approaching and growing interest in the artforms.

I was speaking on a panel about Being Resilient and of course took my starting point, how producers and artists working in outdoor arts can use technology to be both resilient and brilliant, and I wanted to share some of those thoughts on the blog today.

Being Resilient

The arts sector as a whole is going through tough times. The main funders of the sector, Arts Council England and Local Authorities have faced significant cuts from central government which in turn has affected the support extended to the sector. Many outdoor arts festivals around the UK have either been shelved entirely or lost a great percentage of their funding as Councils are under pressure to cut non-essential services. In these tough times, arts organisations need to be as resilient as possible.

Three areas where technology can help arts organisations ‘be resilient’ and save costs are: cloud computing, working environments, and people.

The lack of knowledge about current IT solutions in smaller arts organisations can end up costing the organisation money but also time. Cloud computing is becoming more ubiquitous in the commercial sector with organisations as big as GM moving their systems from local, server based setups to the cloud using Google Apps. Arts organisations should consider moving systems to the cloud using applications such as Gmail, Dropbox and online CRM systems such as Highrise which can result in significant cost savings and nearly no downtime.

Office space, business rates and utility bills can be a substantial part of a smaller arts organisation’s annual budget. However, today’s employees increasingly want to work flexibly, either from home or from shared co-working spaces. Companies in the commercial sector are realising that having dedicated desk spaces for employees, especially in large urban areas, is a false economy as these spaces are only used 45-50% of the time.

The arts have always been ahead of the curve in terms of expanding and contracting project teams, with performers, writers and designers hired as necessary for projects. But the arts has yet to embrace outsourcing of core functions such as producing, administration and finances, still preferring to employ a small core team on a permanent basis. Why not use remote working to outsource all the core work of the organisation? Arts organisations have busy periods and fallow ones and yet staff are employed year round. With many commercial organisations seeing their staff as portfolio workers rather than permanent staff members, the arts in the future will have to embrace this as well. Portfolio working is something arts workers are very good!

Being Brilliant

As well as saving time and money, digital can also help outdoor arts organisations be brilliant and produce brilliant work. Three ways digital can facilitate this is: crowdfunding, mobile and social media.

Crowdfunding is a way of raising finances for a project through individual donations. Kickstarter was the first crowdfunding platform in the US and since its inception, many others have followed. In the UK, popular ones for funding the arts are WeFund, WeDidThis and Sponsume.

The outdoor arts have not yet utilised these platforms but I think they are perfectly poised to take advantage of them. Many of the festivals or artists have large, engaged followings that could be harnessed, one of the key ingredients of a successful crowdfunding campaign. Other key ingredients are not being too ambitious in terms of the amount asked for (many crowdingfunding platforms require that you raise 100% of the funds or return the cash) and having different levels of ‘goodies’ for your donators (The Age of Stupid film offerings ranged from £10 for a credit to £500 for a part in the film). The last essential ingredient is running a social media campaign alongside your crowdfunding pitch – just uploading your crowdingfunding video isn’t going to get you the cash, you need to engage your network and get them to tell their friends about it.

Mobile is an area that has great potential for ‘brilliance’ in outdoor arts both in terms of creativity and engagement. Gaming platforms such as SCVNGR enable you to build attractive experiences for your audience that they can access on their smartphone. Or use WordPress and one of the free or low cost mobile web apps to build project specific mobile websites where you can ‘push’ content to audiences or even use micropayments to raise funds on thr ground.

Lastly, the outdoor arts are not making enough of social media to promote their work, engage audiences and increase their profile. It’s not enough to just slap up a Facebook page and YouTube channel. As a visual medium, these platforms are the place to be, but you have to have a strategy for engaging your audience and pushing your content out. Be consistent. Post regularly and respond to comments. Make social part of your everyday workflow and it will become a habit.

What have I missed? What are you thoughts on how digital can help the arts be more resilient and brilliant?

[image with thanks to ArtsAgenda]

Last weekend, Alex and I travelled to a tiny community called Angsbaka in central Sweden to a conference/festival on living sustainably.

I was there to give a talk on how digital is changing the way we work and also to give a workshop on my programme Mindful at Work (which took place in a round strawbale house - lovely energy!).

The tagline of FuturePerfect was 'an adventure in living well' so I took as my starting point how we can 'work well' especially how digital can facilitate this.

Here in the UK, but increasingly in Sweden as well, the way we are working isn't working. We create lifestyles and behaviours for ourselves that are unsustainable for our planet and that don't make us happy in the long term. The price of maintaining a certain type of lifestyle is having to work long hours or stay in a job you hate but pays well.

“There is more to life than just increasing its speed.”   Mathatma Gandhi

A second issue is that when we are working, many of us are not working very effectively. We create mountains of busywork to keep us from doing our Great Work. Increasing emails, social media and our 24/7 connected culture through our mobile means that we never really switch off from work.

But instead of digital being part of the problem, I see its potential to be part of the solution.

With digital we can increasing choose who we work for and how we create value and meaning in our work. It's never been easier to use the social web to set up your own microbusiness - all the tools are free, you just need a good idea. A digital microbusiness can enable you to work on something you are passionate about rather then having to leave your values at the door when you go to work.

With digital we can choose where and when we work. With faster broadband speeds, cloud computing and communications technologies such as Skype, you can choose to work from any where you like - your front room, your local cafe or another country. You can downshift to the country without having to worry about finding work in rural communities or downshift in the city and work less.

With digital we can choose who to work and collaborate with. We can connect with people on the other side of the world and expand our market globally.

And this is only the beginning. The internet is barely 20 years old and we are only now starting to see some of it's potential.

The overall consensus at FuturePerfect was that by living sustainably we can actually live better and happier lives and I think that our working practices have a huge part to play in this. Everyone has to make a living somehow, but if more people can transition to having a freer and more flexible working life that creates value for others, then we are on the right track.

Digital can be a real enabler of this: an adventure in working well.

This is one of my favourite videos of the year so far.

Chade-Meng Tan, Jolly Good Fellow at Google (that is his actual job title!) talks about how compassion in the workplace is good for people and great for the bottom line.

A compelling business case for more compassion in the workplace. Chade-Meng - I salute you!

This is one of my favourite videos of the year so far.

Chade-Meng Tan, Jolly Good Fellow at Google (that is his actual job title!) talks about how compassion in the workplace is good for people and great for the bottom line.

A compelling business case for more compassion in the workplace. Chade-Meng - I salute you!