Signing off @ LACO

Today is my last day; actually this is my last hour of my first assignment with the Los Angeles Chamber Orchestra. It has been great working with what is considered in the field as a small budget orchestra for these past few months.

I just want to send out a special thank you to my LACO family. To Ruth, the executive director and my direct mentor at LACO; Andrea, general manager; Nicolette, marketing director; Michelle; development manager; Danielle, associate director of major gifts; Tom, finance director; to the other members of “cubicleville” and the “room with a view” Addie, Ed, Nina, Katy and Cindy; to Christina, marketing associate; to Jacquie in the box office; to our fabulous telemarketing staff Esther and Merle (led by Don); to our great volunteers Pieter and Bill; to our publicists Betty Jo and Helen, to our webmaster Cooney; to our honorary staff member Mike; to all of the great musicians whom I was fortunate enough to get to know; to the great board members who took me under their wings; to EVERYONE and anyone I may have missed…thank you for inviting me into your personal family if for just a little while. You will all be missed dearly.

Tomorrow, I pack up my car once again for the long haul back home to Chicago. I’ll be stopping by Aspen along the way to visit some great friends I made there over the summer (and hopefully to ski). I will try to blog from the road and over the holiday. Until then everyone, MERRY CHRISTMAS AND HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

The Best Western Mayfair: two star living at its best!

Home Sweet Los Angeles Home

So there’s this running gag that pops up in the office from time to time. Whenever one of my fellow staffers at LACO starts talking about how the dinner they cooked last night wasn’t quite perfect or how their bed frame got scratched by the movers, I cut in by saying…I LIVE IN A HOTEL…and I do.

Living the nomadic life as an American Symphony Orchestra League Orchestra Management Fellow definitely has its challenges. Case in point: finding affordable housing for 2 (New York), 7 (Memphis), 14 (Pittsburgh) and 16 (LA) weeks at a time. If you are lucky, someone with your host orchestra such as a board member with an extra guest room (or house) will put you up for weeks or months at a time. Or, if you are REALLY lucky (**cough Gloria cough**), you have the fortune of landing exceptional housing situations throughout the whole year without paying a dime. At the very least, your coworkers are usually happy to suggest nice neighborhoods or even visit potential housing leads prior to your arrival.

Using services such as online classifieds, craigslist and westsiderentals prior to my arrival in LA, I drew up an extensive list of prospective apartments, with the intent of looking in person after my road trip from Aspen. It didn’t take long before I found my temporary home. Above all, due to the horror stories I heard about LA commuting and public transportation (or lack thereof); I ideally wanted a single apartment within walking distance of the LACO office downtown. Running off of a lead in LA’s downtown newspaper, I quickly found the Best Western Mayfair. Sure, it may be smaller than my college dorm room; it may lack a kitchen or even a kitchenette; I may have to log off and on the internet every 30 minutes (yeah dial-up and time limits); heck, it may even lack cold water from time to time but nevertheless it is home and come next weekend, when I’m driving back to Chicago for Christmas, I might even miss it, if just a little (single tear).

There you have it, for those of you itching to know how I found housing in LA, this is my story (albeit not a perfect one). Thankfully, I have been able to land a nice place, rent free, for my two weeks in New York just after the New Year. Plans are also in the works for my housing in Memphis (a big thanks to Pat). As for Pittsburgh, no rush! I’ll cross that bridge when it the time is right.

Goodnight all!

How do you target yourself?

About two months ago, a fellow colleague at LACO (Addie) and I traveled about an hour and a half north of LA to the charming city of Ventura for a workshop on arts participation. The daylong workshop, hosted in Ventura’s City Hall, was led by a man named Jerry Yoshitomi. Jerry is an arts and culture consultant with a long history in researching and speaking about cultural participation, leadership and the public value of arts. He also served for a number of years as Executive Director of the Japanese American Cultural and Community Center (JACCC) in LA.

The highlight of the workshop for Addie and me took place when each organization was asked to (1) name a constituency group and (2) explain how your organization would like to improve its relationship with the group. Each of these components was written down and workshop participants were then asked to vote for their top choices on which topics to brainstorm as a collective entity.

Addie and I, after a long conversation on this exact topic during our drive to Ventura, decided to pick the young professionals demographic (working individuals who are out of school without kids…basically us). We wanted to see more of these people at our concerts and involved with LACO in general.

Well, as fortune would have it, our topic ended up number one on the overall list. A very productive brainstorming session followed as Addie and I began to realize the vast potential in taking this project from vision to reality. As the workshop wrapped up and everyone said their goodbyes, Jerry shocked us both by expressing such enthusiasm in our ideas that he offered us a weekend retreat at his beachside condo for LACO staffers to plan the project at absolutely no cost. On top of that, he also openly dedicated time to speak with and advise us during the retreat!

Needless to say, Addie and I jumped at the opportunity and the Young Professionals Initiative LACO retreat was born. Since that day, this project has evolved into a great learning experience for me as a management Fellow at LACO. It has given me another chance to think strategically about advancing audience development in a demographic I am presumably quite familiar with.

The retreat is set to take place this weekend. A total of seven staff members, all under the age of thirty, will be present as we dissect the thoughts and motivations of our own demographic and attempt to increase its representation in this art form.

Sound interesting? Check back later and I'll let you know what we come up with.