How to Grow an Artists' Collective -- Top Twenty Five
posted by Scott Hsu-Storaker at 12:00 AM
1. Never go into debt... ever.
2. Avoid the majority rules mentality and strive for consensus. Imagine for a moment if 4 out of 9 of your team members left the team.
3. Five dedicated active contributors with the same ideals is far more effective than a group of 20 hangers-on.
4. Do not kid yourself into thinking you are in charge. Be a guide, a mentor, a facilitator, a communicator, an evangelist and the keeper of the idealist flame, but do not yearn for power.
5. If there is a clear choice between doing what is right and doing what is popular, choose to do the right thing. Often the choice is not clear, but work towards understanding the difference.
6. There are three kinds of people... leaders, followers and those who actively ignore leaders and followers. Discourage the first kind, accept but do not waste time on the second kind, pursue the third.
7. A group with no leader will organically end up with a leader you may not want. That person may, in fact, be you. Plan the structure of your group from the outset to avoid traditional leaders.
8. Guide by example. Do not try to rule by force of will, peer pressure, charisma, bullying, or out of a need to be loved.
9. Do not promise more than you or your present group can do.
10. Do not make plans that rely on a swift expansion in the number of member-contributors in order to successfully complete a project.
11. Build time into your schedule to actually DO art. A group built around a person who is buried in the multitude of tasks needed to run the machine is a soulless entity that will not grow.
12. Just because you do most of the unglamorous work does not mean you make all the decisions.
13. Collective members who are barred from ownership of the group's decisions will unconciously (if not concsiously) sabotage those decisions.
14. Followers want to be led. Remove opportunity for these people to interact passively with the group -- encourage active participation at all turns.
15. Convert members to contributors. Convert contributors to evangelists.
16. Plan for the continuation of the collective after you leave. You will leave one day. If you cannot picture the group functioning without your presence, you need to change the structure.
17. Do not compete with other similar groups. Preemptively invite them to join with you in a larger goal for the common good.
18. Making money is OK. But do not commercialize or commodify your group's art. Try to make the running of the collective and its projects self-sustaining financially, but do not try to turn a profit.
19. Avoid benefactors. You will owe them a debt whether it is said out loud or not.
20. Have fun. Work hard. Hard work can actually be fun as long as it perpetuates the successful goals of a thriving community.
21. Make the decision to stay small or retrench if being big requires more resources than you currently have.
22. People leaving the collective can be positive as long as the structure supports it.
23. Plan for and accept periods of diminished production and communication, because they are cyclical and inevitable. Think of a garden lying fallow for the winter.
24. Do not threaten to remove people who lack activity. They have, in fact, already removed themselves and if you force them to do work under duress it will be subpar and they will leave eventually anyways.
25. Do not go into debt... ever. Did I already say that?
Stay free.
Scott
I have been involved in many volunteer group projects. I have even helped in founding a couple of long-lived collectives with lofty goals. My hard-earned experience has dealt me a lot of pain, but has also given me a wealth of wisdom over the years. So, I give to you some of things that I say to myself over and over again as I conduct myself in this coop that help guide my actions. Some of this is just me exaggerating and being facetious, but everything in here has at least a kernel of truth. Of course, there is still a lot that I will learn during my involvement with this project, but I do have this to say... Ignore my advice at your own peril.
1. Never go into debt... ever.
2. Avoid the majority rules mentality and strive for consensus. Imagine for a moment if 4 out of 9 of your team members left the team.
3. Five dedicated active contributors with the same ideals is far more effective than a group of 20 hangers-on.
4. Do not kid yourself into thinking you are in charge. Be a guide, a mentor, a facilitator, a communicator, an evangelist and the keeper of the idealist flame, but do not yearn for power.
5. If there is a clear choice between doing what is right and doing what is popular, choose to do the right thing. Often the choice is not clear, but work towards understanding the difference.
6. There are three kinds of people... leaders, followers and those who actively ignore leaders and followers. Discourage the first kind, accept but do not waste time on the second kind, pursue the third.
7. A group with no leader will organically end up with a leader you may not want. That person may, in fact, be you. Plan the structure of your group from the outset to avoid traditional leaders.
8. Guide by example. Do not try to rule by force of will, peer pressure, charisma, bullying, or out of a need to be loved.
9. Do not promise more than you or your present group can do.
10. Do not make plans that rely on a swift expansion in the number of member-contributors in order to successfully complete a project.
11. Build time into your schedule to actually DO art. A group built around a person who is buried in the multitude of tasks needed to run the machine is a soulless entity that will not grow.
12. Just because you do most of the unglamorous work does not mean you make all the decisions.
13. Collective members who are barred from ownership of the group's decisions will unconciously (if not concsiously) sabotage those decisions.
14. Followers want to be led. Remove opportunity for these people to interact passively with the group -- encourage active participation at all turns.
15. Convert members to contributors. Convert contributors to evangelists.
16. Plan for the continuation of the collective after you leave. You will leave one day. If you cannot picture the group functioning without your presence, you need to change the structure.
17. Do not compete with other similar groups. Preemptively invite them to join with you in a larger goal for the common good.
18. Making money is OK. But do not commercialize or commodify your group's art. Try to make the running of the collective and its projects self-sustaining financially, but do not try to turn a profit.
19. Avoid benefactors. You will owe them a debt whether it is said out loud or not.
20. Have fun. Work hard. Hard work can actually be fun as long as it perpetuates the successful goals of a thriving community.
21. Make the decision to stay small or retrench if being big requires more resources than you currently have.
22. People leaving the collective can be positive as long as the structure supports it.
23. Plan for and accept periods of diminished production and communication, because they are cyclical and inevitable. Think of a garden lying fallow for the winter.
24. Do not threaten to remove people who lack activity. They have, in fact, already removed themselves and if you force them to do work under duress it will be subpar and they will leave eventually anyways.
25. Do not go into debt... ever. Did I already say that?
Stay free.
Scott
posted by Scott Hsu-Storaker at 12:00 AM
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