In the Arts Sector, there is generally a real lack of collaboration.  Now don’t get me wrong, there are a number of artists collaborating and a number of arts organisations collaborating with other arts organisations and artists, but there is a reticence to dig too deep into collaboration.  There seems to be a fear that too much knowledge given to the other party will harm your position or even an idea; what if I point out that I don’t have all the necessary skills to complete a task, then the organisation or I am a failure.  We need to stop the fear associated with our fear of sharing.  Taking one example of audiences and forming collaborations with them, I think it would be a good idea to look at where we get the skills that enable us to engage with and ultimately impact our existing and new audiences.  Talk to almost any artist or arts organisation about brand purpose, brand position, persuasive selling techniques, cash flows, strategic planning etc.  They will turn in the opposite direction or utter those almost immortal get-out words, “ah, the corporate sector!” “That’s not what we do” “this is art” well, it’s about time we sat up and took notice of the corporate sector.

We are privileged to examine which methods work and which we should avoid at all costs.  Corporate nature is changing faster than most in the arts sector realise, and we still look at most corporate entities as large corporate monoliths, bastions of greed and certainly not interested in their people, only for profit.  Well, these twentieth-century ideas are changing.  There is a significant move towards social enterprise, more ethical and more socially aware.

Corporations look to define their purpose, and by this, I do not mean profit but their ethical core values, goals and outcomes as their purpose.  Now, does this start to sound familiar?  Do we in the arts sector not try to promote the same ethical values in what we do?  Are they not in some way entering the same territory that we already occupy?  Should we not be making a stance?  Is this a threat?  Of course, it is.  Imagine if the role society played in the World was decided by a society that was engaged by a corporation looking, despite their ethical approach, dedicated towards profit and to put their slant on the World, they are selling either goods or services at the end of the day but offering a unique and defining experience to the user.  The same applies either in business-to-business or business-to-customer relationships.  However,  as well as trying to regain the ground that we have lost we need to look at the methods of how they got there in the first place.  They have skills we need to learn and how to run a successful business, from operations to engagement.  They have leaders envisioning the way the World should be.

At present, we have the vision, but we lack true leaders and the skills.  By leaders, I mean those who are prepared to put their heads up and engage with the new ‘new’, not those who present themselves as engaging the new ‘new’, whereas they are only engaging the existing.  Look at the champions and influencers we have in positions of power, real power, the ones who can influence society and the influencers, the powerhouses – still trying to think of one?  Yes, me too.  We need to be honest; we have no representation of real influencers and again, if you disagree, look at the coverage art gets when compared to other activities that are after disposable income, like sport and food, both of whom get far more coverage, debate and audiences than the arts generally do.  Take out the 80,000 in Croke Park for U2 or the like, but whom is the day-to-day audience engaging with art?

We need to inform each other, listen to each other, and work with each other collaboratively to give the arts sector the necessary tools to create and engage with existing and new audiences.

We have to collaborate so that we are not all delivering the same service for the same client but that each and every offering is unique in its own right.  We need to put our differences aside, realise that we do not have all the answers and engage with artists, arts professionals, arts organisations and the dreaded corporate sector.  Through joint action, we can benefit from collaborating to have the most significant impact on the economy and society, making Ireland sustainable.

If we realise that in 2010 there were 214 million international migrants, platforms facilitating practical intercultural exchange are urgently necessary.  But only by working together can we even start to address and put into place channels, both online and offline, to access funding and other opportunities, improve business skills and mentoring that enables artists and arts organisations to address the economic and societal benefits of running their artistic practice as a business.

Without collaboration, there can be no continued discussions and planning with the government on the economic impact of job creation in the arts. We, as a sector also need to continue to devise new alternative funding solutions in order to maximise our potential for survival.   The upshot of this is that we need to collaborate and collaborate big time.  We owe it to ourselves and the World because imagine a World without Arts & Culture for one moment.

Letcombe Production is dedicated to the arts, creative and social enterprise sectors. Our website has dedicated reels on running your creative or artistic practice as a business, articles and opportunities for artists. In addition, we can organise digital media, marketing, project management, grant writing, application assessment, and tools to help you run your creative and artistic practice.

Working predominantly in the arts and social enterprise sector, Letcombe Production can assist in all getting projects from idea to distribution. We can look after any size of project, from commercials or promotional productions to film or radio productions.