The Smothers Brothers!

So last night was a pretty monumental moment of my life. I drove 3 1/2 hours with my parents to Wabash Indiana (kind of near Fort Wayne) to see the Smothers Brothers. A little background...

My parents are a little on the old side and their parents were even more so. Instead of taking his kids to Disney World, my grandfather took them to Yellowstone. My dad thought it was a great idea and did the same thing. He also inflicted his interests in music on us. While some of it is pretty bad, one thing we all liked were the 1960s folk groups he listened to. So we listened to the smothers, and they became a family tradition. Not only can I sing along with the CDs we have, but I can time the jokes just right and love to walk around saying things like "What do you need an exterminator for!!!!!"

So we went to Wabash to see them and it was like being at a meeting of the Hoosier AARP group, but I had a great time. We hung around afterwards and noticed that a group of the venue's VIPs were getting led into the Green Room for a meet and greet. I learned over the years that it never hurts to hang around and see what you can do. So after most of the people had exited out a stage door, i went in that door and asked the cop if there was any chance he could let me in. I said that even though I wasn't a VIP, I was probably the youngest person in the entire place that actually wanted to be there and wasn't dragged there by my family.

After waiting outside in the lobby for a while the last of the VIPs and employees left. A man in a dark suit waved me backstage and there I was with Tom and Dick. The Suit told me they just had time for a quick picture, and I didn't want to push my luck so I didn't stay to chat. But they took a couple pictures with me and were very nice. They tried to do different poses and the Suit took an action shot that looks like Tommy's trying to grope me. So it was a pretty awesome night. But why am I writing about it in this blog you might ask? Well very few of my friends may know who these guys are, but they were pretty huge back in the day, look them up.

And the reason I believe they were so huge? Because they were funny. I think that the most successful people in the world are people who know how to make others laugh because you rarely will find someone who DOESN'T like to laugh.

It's personality and character that draw people to the Smothers and while their act is based specifically on that, the idea can work for any performer. If you have a small chamber ensemble, there's no reason that your audience has believe that they are all extremely serious musicians that don't have any fun. If you can find a way to let the personality come through either in a performance or some sort of talk-back, then people will feel a stronger connection with your group and a stronger desire to be a part of your organization.

While any arts group that is surviving obviously is full of talent, the best ones are those that merge talent with character and provide a well-rounded entertainment experience.

Second Post: Conducting Interviews!!!! (you're doing it wrong!)

First of all, someone mentioned that only Blogger members were allowed to comment, so I fixed that.

Okay so if you work at a non-profit of any sort, you're going to have to conduct an interview because at the very least you need free labor from interns, and maybe even some not-so-free labor from real employees.

Well here's the deal. Major corporations have HR people who's ONLY JOB is to recruit and do interviews. It's pretty safe to say that these people can tell based on a 5 minute phone or 10 minute in-person interview who's perfect for the position and who is not. Heck I bet some of them are good enough to be able to tell if you'll fit for the job just by hearing your voice. (although that would suck for me since I sound like a 12 year old on the phone).

So you're not an HR interviewing whiz.....so why do you call a potential intern up and ask them these 5 questions that tell you NOTHING about whether they can do the job or not.

1. Tell me why you want to work for my company? (ie. tell us why we're awesome)
2. Tell me your life goals (such a dangerous question...)
3. What can you bring to our organization (waaayyyy too broad)
4. Tell me 3 positive and 3 negative things about yourself
5. What do you hope to gain from this internship (this is almost the same as question #1!!)

I can't count how many interviews I've had just like this...and of course not gotten any of the jobs because they didn't learn anything about me!

Before I continue, I'm not saying that all arts orgs are like this. Some have given me great interviews and others have redeemed themselves after crummy phone interviews with great in-person interviews. The main point here is that most marketing directors or devo directors looking for a summer intern have never had to do an interview before and have no time to really figure out how to get the most out of one.

When you are the interviewee, nothing is more frustrating than knowing what facts you want to share, and never getting a question that gives you an opening, or a break to bring that info up.

If you are conducting an interview HAVE THE RESUME IN FRONT OF YOU AND ASK SPECIFIC QUESTIONS ABOUT IT! Did the person work for a PR firm last summer? GREAT! ask them about it! Even if you don't know which specific questions are best, give the person a chance to tell you stories about their experiences.

Give your interview-ee some infor about the position. Tell them a little about some of the projects and ask what they think or what they've done that's similar. Don't ask them to tell you about a time they were a leader, look at the resume and ask what leadership skills they used in their position as store manager at Dairy Queen.

This post is getting long, but just do some research. While I recognize the importance of asking the "Tell me how you stay organized" or "describe your attention to detail" questions, you really aren't going to get a good picture from the answer they give. A certain theatre that DID hire me as their intern asked me a better question. "Tell me how to make a peanut butter and jelly sandwhich." Yes, it sounds crazy, but I answered as only my mostly Type A self could, and they got a much better clue than if I'd said "I'm VERY organized"

Plus, if your applicant is way too "normal" or "cool" to be working in the arts, this question should help you figure that out.

Ahh the inaugural post

After that hefty introduction under the title, I don't know where to start. I guess I can do a little free PR for the places that have molded me into the wannabe arts administrator I am today.

I graduated last May from DePauw University in Greencastle Indiana. I majored in Music Business because I play the flute, but did not want to be an unemployed performance major (the joke's on me on that one) and I didn't want to teach. DePauw is a great school and I'm glad I went there, but the music business program is one of the oldest in the country...and hasn't done much to update itself.

My best internship/marketing experience has been the time I spent with the Chicago Chamber Musicians. In the 2 1/2 years since I was their intern they have been doing SO much with marketing and audience development and I'm very excited for them. I've done internships with the Harris Theater and learned a lot there and am currently Special Events intern at the Chicago Children's Theatre.

I did my Senior Thesis in college on Audience Development in Chicago Arts Organizations. I did some book research, but the majority of my research involved calling people up, reading marketing plans they sent me, and sometimes going in for interviews. I learned a lot of neat things from this expeience, and more importantly I learned that a lot of these marketing people had NO CLUE what all the other marketing people were doing. I'll save the ideas I got out of that for another post.

So basically all these experiences I've had, and the struggle I've been going through trying to get a job (I keep getting rejected for older people with "more experience") have led me to this blog. I need to vent my frustration a little bit, and show the world (and remind myself) that I do know what I'm talking about. I might not have 15 years as Marketing Director at FancyPantsTheatreCompany under my belt, but I have new ideas and am not so burned out I'm going to give up on them.