Category Archives: Arts entrepreneurship

Translation, Part 4: MVP by MVPs

Posted on November 24, 2014 by lindaessig

The Udacity lectures featuring Steve Blank on new venture creation are serving as a kind of textbook for my “flipped” graduate arts entrepreneurship class. Blank’s entrepreneurial process, shared by others in the lean start-up movement, advocates for getting a minimum … Continue reading →

Posted in Arts education, Arts entrepreneurship, Higher education | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Student + Art + Market

Posted on October 30, 2014 by lindaessig

Artists want – need – to make art. One of the hardest concepts to teach the young artists I teach is that when they send that art out into the world to meet its audience, they are doing so in … Continue reading →

Posted in Arts education, Arts entrepreneurship, Higher education | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Translation, Part 3: Empathy

Posted on October 15, 2014 by lindaessig

Our adventure in translating entrepreneurial tools for the arts domain continued today as I introduced my graduate seminar to the concept of  an “empathy map.” Empathy mapping asks the entrepreneur to consider how potential customers think and feel, what they … Continue reading →

Posted in Arts entrepreneurship, Arts management, Higher education | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment

Multiple Threads of Inquiry

Posted on October 12, 2014 by lindaessig

Hurtling through the sky in a metal tube with wings, ninety minutes behind schedule, and missing the second game of the NLCS, I pause from what has been a hectic fall semester (thus far) to reflect on the conference just … Continue reading →

Posted in Arts entrepreneurship, arts infrastructure, Arts policy, Culture and democracy | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | Leave a comment

Translation, Part 2

Posted on September 26, 2014 by lindaessig

As my graduate arts entpreneurship seminar worked through the nine “blocks” of Osterwalder and Pignuer’s canvas for business model generation, a new point of translation emerged.  We realized that in the arts, key partners and customer segments are not on opposite … Continue reading →

Posted in Arts education, Arts entrepreneurship, Higher education | Tagged , , , | Leave a comment

Entrepreneurship in Translation, Part 1

Posted on September 22, 2014 by lindaessig

With some frequency, I am asked to provide a definition of “arts entrepreneurship.” I have a short working definition (the cocktail party version is “Arts entrepreneurship is entrepreneurial action in the service of art”). I’ve written longer descriptions of arts entrepreneurship … Continue reading →

Posted in Arts education, Arts entrepreneurship, Higher education | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 4 Comments

Through the Eyes of my Students

Posted on August 26, 2014 by lindaessig

There have been several blog posts recently that assert that there is no such thing as arts entrepreneurship or that artists are artists not entrepreneurs, as if those two roles are mutually exclusive. It is not surprising to read that I disagree … Continue reading →

Posted in Arts education, Arts entrepreneurship, Higher education | Tagged , , , | 5 Comments

An Art Adventure

Posted on August 14, 2014 by lindaessig

As part of my ongoing research program on arts incubators and their success metrics, I recently traveled to Washington to do some field research at Mighty Tieton, a for-profit creative enterprise incubator in the rural Yakima Valley. I also made … Continue reading →

Posted in Arts entrepreneurship, Arts policy | Tagged , , , , , , | Leave a comment

A Pitch Too Far in San Diego

Posted on August 7, 2014 by lindaessig

The program I direct, the Pave Program in Arts Entrepreneurship, was fortunate last spring to benefit from a new program of the AZ Commission on the Arts, Art Tank. Modeled loosely after the tv show “Shark Tank,” artists and organizations … Continue reading →

Posted in Arts entrepreneurship, Arts funding, arts infrastructure, Arts policy | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

Forest Lessons: Persistence, Resilience, and Cooperation

Posted on July 27, 2014 by lindaessig

I was fortunate to have recently taken a long walk in Redwoods National Park. As I looked carefully at the towering redwoods, lush ferns, and soft mosses, I began to see in the forest ecology a metaphor for an entrepreneurial … Continue reading →

Posted in Arts entrepreneurship, arts infrastructure | Tagged , , , , , | Leave a comment