« Awaken | Main | Branding Yourself With Smart, Effective Presentations »
Hessenius Group: Coping With Change
The last session of the day at the Americans for the Arts Conference featured a panel about cultural change that was convened by and moderated by Barry Hessenius. Barry has a blog that can be located here.
Hessenius Group Panel
I hadn’t met Barry before – but I’d read his blog. I certainly appreciate his earnest approach and his largely successful attempt to reinvigorate the panel-discussion model, a session type that can be deadly boring at times.
Unlike some panels where speakers present in serial fashion for 15 to 20 minutes, this session was rapid-fire. Frequently speakers uttered only 2 or 3 sentences before being answered, rebutted, or interrupted. The idea was loosely modeled on the McLaughlin Group, though thankfully Barry’s style is a bit more gentile and thoughtful than is Dr. McLaughlin’s.
Nothing is more exhilarating to me than hearing very intelligent, thoughtful people take the lid off for a little while to make a few provocative, thought-provoking statements. That’s what happened on Saturday afternoon at the Milwaukee Convention of Americans for the Arts.
Here are a few examples of particularly memorable statements. I believe that they are accurate, but please understand that they are taken out of context. Many of them were qualified, explained, rebutted, etc. So don’t hold people hostage for any statement you take strong exception to. The whole point was to explore scenarios, think the unthinkable, and say the unsayable. It was refreshing, indeed.
“The audience as we know it is dead.� – Bob Lynch
“Traditional gatekeepers can’t be in charge anymore of everything.� – Cora Mirikitani
“We have the most culturally connected society in history. Their behavior just doesn’t benefit the system we have.� – Andrew Taylor
“Desperation is a real big motivator.� Anthony Radich
“Foundations do tend to move a little bit in a pack.� – Nancy Glaze
“It used to be said that you got 15 minutes of fame. Now you’re famous for 15 people.� – Andrew Taylor
“In the future, maybe we won’t need a marketing director.� – Barry Hessenius
I take my hat off to Barry and to his panelists – Bob Lynch, Cora Mirikitani, Cuong Hoang, Andrew Taylor, Nancy Glaze, and Anthony Radich. Cultural change is a big topic and they waded into the topic neck deep.
Barry summed up the panel’s conversation with a declaration that, as a sector, we just don’t explore the implications of change nearly enough. He’s right. Ignorance isn’t bliss. It’s dangerous. What I appreciated about the session was that the conversation was structured in a way that both the audience and the panel could focus, albeit briefly, on particular dimensions of change that Barry laid out at the top of the session.
You’ll be able to visit Barry Hessenius’ blog site to get a download of the key change points that were discussed. For those organizations contemplating a planning process, these observations will come in very handy for exploring scenarios.
Posted on June 6, 2006 11:46 AM | Permalink
Bookmark with: 
del.icio.us, 
StumbleUpon, 
digg