So, you have been invited to a cultural conversation and are not sure what to expect? But you want to make the most of it?
Should you prepare? How?
Well, when you arrive you will probably find yourself in a room with a large number of kindred spirits, with different backgrounds, experiences talents and skills. You may be offered the chance to mingle a little before the main event starts and it helps if you have something interesting to say about who you are and what you do – but perhaps the best use of this time is to find out who else is there and what they do and know. So, as well as BEING INTERESTING, BE INTERESTED!
There is a chance that you will be offered 15 seconds or so to introduce yourself to the whole group. Give them your name and something about what you do, what you are working on, or what you are looking for. Don’t ramble on.
You are going to spend a couple of hours with these folk with the opportunity to:
- find people with skills and experience that you need
- build relationships
- test and develop some of your ideas
- help others to refine and develop their understanding
- develop (or destroy) your reputation amongst kindred spirits
So, first it helps if you have an idea about what you want to achieve! If you are hoping to meet collectors, patrons and sponsors then please make sure the organiser has invited some along! In fact the more you can tell us about who you would like to meet at the cultural conversation the more we can try to get them there. We will do all we can to get the right people in the room!
You will be offered the chance to invite the group to come and have a conversation about whatever you want you talk about. So you might say ‘I would like to have a conversation about how to find more patrons, sponsors and collectors’. And you will probably find you are joined by others with the same interest and you can start to swap ideas. Or you might say ‘I have an idea for a new project that I would like to develop some ideas around. It involves gingerbread and singing’. When describing what it is that you want to have a conversation about it helps to be clear, succinct and interesting. You will be offered a timeslot and a space for your conversation. When the time comes you might want to wait a few minutes to see who arrives at your conversation. In the unlikely event that no-one comes you might want to reflect a little on the appeal of your conversation to others and what it is that they would rather talk about. But you don’t have to call your own conversation. You can spend the session joining other peoples conversations and learning from them yourself while helping them to develop their thinking.
But probably people will come. You might like to make a note of who joins you and perhaps collect contact details. Just circulate a piece of paper and ask people to leave their name and email, twitter ID or something. You might also want to remind people what it is that you want to explore and provide them with clear instructions on what you are looking for. ‘Thanks for coming to talk about how we find more patrons, collectors and funders for what we do. I would like to spend some time just finding out our experiences with this so far. Perhaps you can tell us what you have tried, what has worked and what hasn’t?’ Before you know it you are chairing a conversation! Your job is to try to keep it focussed and run it on time. You might want to try to capture some key points. You certainly want to work out who seems to know their onions. You might also want to steer the conversation towards ‘things that we could do to find more sponsors, collectors and patrons’ and see what ideas come up, and more importantly if anyone in the group has enough fire in the belly to take the ideas forward. Not every conversation leads to a set of actions – but some will. But every conversation should lead to new or stronger relationships, and some learning. If you really want to make an impression you might choose to jot down a few key points from the conversation and pop them in an email or, much better still a blog post. The conversation can then carry on online and more people can join in.
When you are not leading a conversation you get to choose about which other conversations you take part in. It helps if you get the balance right between listening to others and sharing your thoughts. It also helps if you can try to keep things focussed and relevant. If a conversation is not floating your boat then you can just quietly leave it and join another one. No-one will be offended!
And, if no-one is having the conversation that you want to have then you can just add it to the conversational roster.
You see, it all starts with a conversation. You just need to have an idea about what ‘IT’ might be….
For Sheffield to become a “drabber” place, it would already have to be drab. Sheffield is not drab.
Maybe, it is because Sheffield doesn’t have the tourists coming in in the numbers Leeds and York does. Yet surely this creates a viscous circle which will become difficult to recover from?
Sheffield is playing a huge part this year in Olympic preparation with its fantastic sporting venues, how about a bit of “culture” for these visitors? Or should we send them on a train to York and Leeds for this?
Sheffield has a wonderful heritage and this has been largely supported by Museums Sheffield. A bit of support for them would have been appreciated.
The independent arts scene in Sheffield is alive and kicking, this was well pointed out in this article, but for a lot of people the bigger exhibitions are more easily accessible.
Come on everyone get behind Sheffield and the museums in a bid to get the voice heard!