Satisfaction Guaranteed
The firm of Wolf and Brown released a study in January called "Assessing the intrinsic impacts of a live performance." Two findings that smacked me right in the face:
1. Impact is a proxy for customer satisfaction. For those of us jousting the windmill of "cultural consumerism" this is fresh breeze in a dank cellar. According to the study, the notion of "customer satisfaction" - did the customer feel like his time and money was well spent - is more likely an artifact of the customer's desire to justify the expenditure than a realistic look at the impact of the performance. (See Dan Gilbert's "Stumbling on Happiness" for a book-length discussion of this phenomenon.) Further, impact (as defined by the study) and satisfaction were so highly correlated that the authors recommend further studies eliminate the "satisfaction" measures as both redundant and uninformative.
If we can curate impact, maybe we need not concern ourselves with consumer-grade satisfaction.
2. "Constituency definition is the highest level policy decision that an arts organization can make." This idea is at the heart of many programming vs. audience development dilemmas. Many organizations suffer a chronic low-grade identity crisis that results from trying to pretend that the audience we built is not the audience we are programming for. We often program for the audience we would like to have, and striking a balance where you can lead your audience gently into new realms while reinforcing their cultural identity and making them feel comfortable in their seats is perhaps one of the greatest challenges we face.
1. Impact is a proxy for customer satisfaction. For those of us jousting the windmill of "cultural consumerism" this is fresh breeze in a dank cellar. According to the study, the notion of "customer satisfaction" - did the customer feel like his time and money was well spent - is more likely an artifact of the customer's desire to justify the expenditure than a realistic look at the impact of the performance. (See Dan Gilbert's "Stumbling on Happiness" for a book-length discussion of this phenomenon.) Further, impact (as defined by the study) and satisfaction were so highly correlated that the authors recommend further studies eliminate the "satisfaction" measures as both redundant and uninformative.
If we can curate impact, maybe we need not concern ourselves with consumer-grade satisfaction.
2. "Constituency definition is the highest level policy decision that an arts organization can make." This idea is at the heart of many programming vs. audience development dilemmas. Many organizations suffer a chronic low-grade identity crisis that results from trying to pretend that the audience we built is not the audience we are programming for. We often program for the audience we would like to have, and striking a balance where you can lead your audience gently into new realms while reinforcing their cultural identity and making them feel comfortable in their seats is perhaps one of the greatest challenges we face.
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