I-DOC Project 2004
(Interview, Document, Observe and Clarify)
National Performing Arts Convention
June 8 - 13, 2004
The I-DOC Project was a collaborative initiative to capture key issues and ideas discussed at the National Performing Arts Convention and its affiliated conferences in June 2004. Designed by a cross-disciplinary leadership group, and supported by a team of graduate students in arts administration and cultural policy, the I-DOC project was on-site and in action in Pittsburgh, interviewing, documenting, observing, and clarifying throughout the historic event.
What was the National Performing Arts Convention (NPAC)?
From June 8 to June 13, 2004, the first ever National Performing Arts Convention brought together in Pittsburgh, for mutual purposes, many of the country's major performing arts service organizations. Four of those organizations provided the leadership for this convention and held their annual meetings in conjunction with it. They were OPERA America, the American Symphony Orchestra League, Chorus America, and Dance/USA. These four were prime motivators of the Convention, and its major coordinators, but the agenda and activities for the whole enterprise included eight additional participating organizations as well as other groups and individuals working in the performing arts. From across the arts spectrum, the Convention included several thousand arts managers, practitioners, cultural professionals, and—additionally—artists, media professionals, foundation officers, government and private sector leaders.
What were the goals of the I-DOC project?
The Pittsburgh meeting was historic, offering the performing arts their first shared opportunity to explore, discuss, and advance essential common issues and to promote those issues on a national stage. To take full advantage of that opportunity, a cross-disciplinary team of scholars and graduate students in arts administration and arts policy worked in advance and on-site at the event, in an effort to interview participants and document, observe, and clarify (I-DOC) the key issues that arose in its many sessions and conversations.
To focus this effort, and connect it to real-world issues facing participants, the project interviewed in advance of the event more than 150 arts leaders and conference participants. These interviews helped determine what public issues were on their 'agendas;' and how they were addressing these issues through their own organizations and through broader initiatives. The I-DOC team also examined how the convention itself shaped the learning and practice of the participants. Overall, the project hoped to capture and interpret "what issues participants brought to this meeting," "what happened when they came together" and "what the likely consequences will be."
Through nightly meetings of the team on-site at the convention, and through a unique communications and documentation system on the Internet, the I-DOC team also strived to reflect back its discoveries of emerging issues and ideas even as the conference progressed, so that all attendees could learn from and react to the issue-discovery process.
Who served on the I-DOC team?
The I-DOC team was lead by Alberta Arthurs, an independent cultural consultant; Andrew Taylor, director of the Bolz Center for Arts Administration at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business; and Steven Tepper, now Associate Director of the Curb Center for Art, Enterprise, and Public Policy at Vanderbilt University.
In addition, the project enlisted 20 graduate students from arts administration, arts management, and cultural policy programs and centers from across the U.S. to be the "eyes and ears" of the process. By involving these future scholars, policy makers, and practitioners as the principal researchers, interviewers, and documentarians, the I-DOC process also provided an intensive and immersive learning opportunity for a next generation of leaders.
What methods did I-DOC employ?
The I-DOC team interviewed a sample of 150-200 participants—using a structured question format—both before the conference began as well as during the conference itself. After a short training session on site, individual team members also attended a large proportion of the sessions and panels and took careful notes of the relevant ideas that emerged. At the conclusion of each day, the research team gathered together to enter their notes into an on-line data management system, and discuss the key issues emerging across the various events. Once the notes were recorded in a common format, using agreed upon categories, the I-DOC team was able to track ideas in real time and share these results with the participants during the convention, and with the conference conveners after the event.
What outcomes can we expect?
The I-DOC project will result in the following benefits:
- A public record that provides attendees and others in the field with a sense of the ideas that emerged in Pittsburgh and how those ideas might make their way into practice and policy.
- An assessment of the convention format itself and the value of bringing together leaders from across the different performing arts disciplines.
- A new model for tracking issues and providing useful feedback to participants in real time during a gathering of this kind.
- An opportunity for graduate students, who will likely be future leaders in the field of arts and culture, to witness and participate in the debates, discussions, and decision-making within the field, outside their classrooms and beyond their libraries. The project also provided an opportunity for these students to identify future mentors and expand their professional networks.
