Skip to main content

Cultural Entrepreneurship and the Culture of Bright Ideas

Image
By

Imagine spending a day thinking and talking about cultural entrepreneurship and what makes a cultural entrepreneur. I got to do that yesterday as part of a grant-funded project to design a new professional development opportunity for mid-career museum professionals. The discussion was wide-ranging and energetic as veteran cultural entrepreneurs questioned, debated and explained their own and each other's approaches to teaching and living entrepreneurship.

One fundamental characteristic that all agreed upon was that entrepreneurs -- whether in the cultural, social or business sector -- are always looking for opportunities to capitalize on and to solve problems in ways that will meet and extend mission. As one participant said, "It's about opening doors and windows in the box that is our organization. It's our job to open a window, then open another window, then another."

This conversation touched upon some interesting "opening windows" resources that I wanted to share with you. The first is the Creative Problem Solving Institute (CPSI), organized by the Creative Education Foundation , a non-profit membership organization of leaders in the field of creativity theory and practice. Here's what CEF says about itself:
Every day principles fostered by CEF programs are helping someone, somewhere in the world develop new products, make business operations run more profitably, restructure organization and agencies to become more effective and less encumbered, reinvigorate economies, make improvements in our schools, revitalize communities and replace ineffective methods and systems with new, more workable ones.
It offers a 2-day Next Idea Creativity Conference in the Berkshires each fall "where you can "Design the Next Phase of Your Life", get your "Next Big Idea", "Renew Your Creative Spirit", "Discover Your Passion", make "New Connections", and learn tools to help you "Self - Actualize"." I'd like to go.

Among the many resources the group shared were two book titles: William Duggan's Strategic Intuition: The Creative Spark in Human Achievement (Columbia Business School) and Roger von Oech's A Whack on the Side of the Head: How You Can Be More Creative ("the best book...gets you to turn things around to look at them in different ways," said one).

There's more to come and I'll keep you posted.

Photo: Bright Ideas by jnconradie


Labels:

Comments

Tom said…
Hi...check out the new Sage Publications book, "Culture and Globalization: The Cultural Economy". It has a chapter on cultural entrepreneurship and cultural enterprise. Also, check out the Global Center for Cultural Entrepreneurship

Tom
June 17, 2009 at 2:29 PM
Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Three Most Important Nonprofit Executive Director Soft Skills

By
If you were asked to narrow down the list of executive director qualifications to the three most important, which ones would you identify? Would the list consist of soft skills, hard skills, or some combination? Would your list be based on the great ED you are or one you've worked for, or would it be your wish list for the ED you haven't been fortunate yet to work for?  This was an assignment in my recent online class in leadership and administration for the American Association for State and Local History . I asked the class to review three-five advertisements for museum directors and analyze what these listings intimated about the organization’s past experience, current focus and goals, and future aspirations. Then, I asked the class to identify what they consider to be the three most important qualifications they would look for in a director. (Okay, so there's more than three if you dissect my three big groups.)  Soft skills outnumbered hard skills, although
26 comments
Read more

Back in the Saddle

By
MY LAST POST WAS NOVEMBER 2012, A LIGHT YEAR AWAY it seems, that marked the beginning of a long push toward completing a manuscript on history museum leadership with my co-author, Joan Baldwin.  We finally submitted 350+ pages to our editor at Rowman & Littlefield this week.  If all goes well, we expect the book to be available in early 2014.  It's taken us two years to get to this point, so six more months or so of revision and production don't seem too long to wait until we can hold the final product in our hands (and you can, too!). The project put a lot of things on hold, including this blog.  I'm glad to be back writing about intentional leadership -- leading by design -- for nonprofit boards and staffs.  Certainly, my thoughts are now informed by the forthcoming book, in which Joan and I posit that nonprofits need to focus resources on leadership, not just management.  Most cultural nonprofits are at a crossroad, as is the sector in general, where nothing is qu
14 comments
Read more

What Would Make You Turn Down an Invitation to Join a Board?

By
THERE'S SO MUCH WRITTEN ABOUT RECRUITING BOARD TALENT, I thought I'd spend a little time thinking about it from the prospect's point of view. Clearly, there are boards where the line is long to get on them. But what would make you turn down an invitation? Here's a short list to get the conversation started: 1. You've had no prior exposure to the organization. Your immediate reaction is "did you pull my name out of a hat?" (Is that lady in the picture the head of the Nominating Committee?) Seems as though there must be a hidden agenda at work (like you're rich and once you become a board member you'll pour all your resources into the organization) or the organization is simply looking for any warm body to fill a seat. 2. The organization doesn't have a good reputation. There's something to be said for street cred. An organization that's floundering may be strengthened by your participation or you may find yourself sucked into
15 comments
Read more