Managing Success

I was joking with my Managing Director a couple of days ago that managing success is just as time consuming as managing a flop. On the other end of a conference call, Adrian Bryan-Brown, whose press firm Boneau/Bryan-Brown represents Arena Stage, replied “yeah, but it’s a lot more fun.” Truer words have never been spoken.

At Arena Stage, we are fortunate enough to be in a situation where we have two record-breaking productions playing concurrently: Molly Smith’s production of Oklahoma! and Marcus Gardley’s world premiere of every tongue confess directed by Kenny Leon starring Phylicia Rashad. In the past two months, I have learned a lot about what it means to manage success. Below are a couple of things to keep in mind when a mega hit hits:

1. To ensure success in the future, you need to think about retention today. Having a smash hit is exciting—orders are flooding your box office, reviews are kind and generous, and you don’t have to stress about making your sales goals. But there will be a tomorrow, and inevitably you will hit a patch that isn’t as pleasant. So take the time today to maximize your chances of retaining all the new patrons that are coming through your doors. Help prepare them for the experience by sending them a pre-attendance e-mail that discusses the show, provides dramaturgical insight, offers tips on parking and transportation, and suggests possible dinner options. Think about greeting them with a welcome kit, or maybe a complimentary drink at concessions. Go the extra distance to ensure their first experience with you is memorable for all the right reasons, and then follow it up within 48 hours with an irresistible offer to come back for another production. Studies show that if you can get new patrons to come back to just one additional production during your season, you will significantly decrease churn.

2. Have a plan for what do if inventory suddenly becomes available. Even during high demand situations, inventory becomes available as you get closer to a performance date. Sometimes group leaders can’t fill their quotas, or maybe you get lucky and you have found a way to add a few more seats. In most cases, companies just blindly throw that inventory on the market and are satisfied when it sells. These tickets have a value beyond their price as in most cases there is significantly more demand than there is inventory. Perhaps you can maximize the value of these tickets by offering them to your highest donors first as a benefit of donating. Or you could choose to sell the tickets at a significant discount to the winner of an online raffle, thereby collecting hundreds of contacts that you can use to promote to in the future. Or a little more controversial, some companies, particularly TicketMaster clients, are setting up their own e-bay style auctions to maximize revenue.

3. Monitor discounts and comp tickets aggressively. I recommend incentivizing early purchasing behaviors by providing patrons the best possible discount when you put tickets on sale. Even in high demand situations, I would encourage people to protect a significant allotment of tickets to be sold at a substantial discount weeks in advance of performances. Once you are into performances, and demand is at its highest point, discounts need to be managed aggressively. I believe that most arts organizations have an obligation to make sure that all productions are accessible to audiences that might not be able to pay full price, but that doesn’t mean you have to offer discounts on demand. If patrons want to wait for a rave review before purchasing tickets, then they can purchase them at full price. The other option is to purchase well in advance. I would also recommend budgeting your comp tickets. If each department has a maximum amount of comp tickets they can use, then you won’t have to serve as the arbitrator when people request comp tickets. It will also help you project future sales as you can factor those seats out of your projections. Keep in mind though that just like full price tickets, demands for comp tickets increase when you have a hit on your hands. However, you need to ask yourself with each comp ticket request if honoring the request is worth the full price of the ticket, because I assure you, you will be able to sell that seat.

4. Save money on advertising, and build a reserve. Normally I would suggest spending more money on advertising a hit show as you are more likely to see a higher return on investment, however if you are in a situation where you feel relatively sure that great press coverage and word of mouth is enough to drive the needed sales to move all your inventory, then pull back on advertising expenses. Many companies enter into yearlong advertising contracts with vendors, so cutting advertising completely might not be an option. But you can build a reserve of the advertising expenses you saved on your hit production to help you later in the year when you have a production that isn’t selling as well.

5. As a follow up to bullet #4, encourage word of mouth. There is nothing more powerful than word of mouth. I know I have a hit on my hands when daily sales double the second week of performances, because I know that patrons who saw a show in the first week are talking. Think about all the ways in which you can help them spread the word. Maybe a post-attendance e-mail from the star asking them to tell all of their friends. Perhaps you should give patrons a complimentary souvenir to walk away with so they can show their friends. At Arena Stage, we are giving out complimentary hand fans to Oklahoma! attendees that have a replica of the 1907 Washington Post article announcing Oklahoma’s statehood on one side, and the lyrics to a song on the other (not to mention, The Washington Post is sponsoring them so there is no cost to us for 40,000 fans). Create a viral video featuring behind-the-scenes work, record a podcast with a leading star or even do a robocall message from a celebrity. The goal—getting them talking!

If you find yourself in the fortunate position of having a record-breaking hit on your hands, make sure you do everything in your power to have that show pay dividends well into the future. I liken it to winning the lottery—you can spend all the money today, or you can put it into a savings account and have it work for you in the future.

The Problems of Traditional Pricing and How Dynamic Pricing Can Increase Accessibility

Over the span of the last several months, there have been numerous emotional debates over pricing in the blogosphere, particularly among a small handful of very respected colleagues in the theater industry. I have remained, for the most part, on the sidelines as much as possible, because parts of the debate centered around practices that I have publicly endorsed at major conferences. As such, I didn't want to interfere in what was an open and honest dialog. However at this point, I feel the need to address some of the misinformation that has been posted on a few reputable blogs, and shed some light on what to me seems to be a misunderstanding of dynamic pricing by Isaac Butler (founder of Parabasis) and Adam Thurman (author of Mission Paradox).

Some things to think about:

1. Dynamic pricing in itself doesn't determine accessibility.

Dynamic pricing is simply a tool, or maybe it is better described as a philosophy. Like most things in life, the devil is in the details. How it is applied is much more important than the concept itself. Basic traditional pricing establishes a maximum price point usually determined by seating section and date of performance. Once tickets are placed on sale, they are usually released at the maximum price point. In contrast, with most applications of dynamic pricing, tickets are initially released at the minimum price point, and only increase to the maximum price point if demand warrants. This ensures that a certain amount of tickets are guaranteed to be sold at the minimum price point, whereas traditional pricing can allow an entire house to be sold at the maximum price point from the initial release date.

In addition, dynamic pricing doesn't dictate how an institution deals with allotments set aside for specific audience demographics. In the case of Arena Stage, we have six distinct savings programs that target specific audiences that are extremely important to us as an organization. Aside from the pricing of the general ticket allotment, most organizations that practice dynamic pricing protect ticket allotments for their savings programs, even for productions that are in very high demand.

From my vantage point, dynamic pricing is the Robin Hood approach to yield management. The very few people who wait until the last minute are charged the maximum price point to provide for those who are charged a much more accessible price by purchasing well in advance.

2. When debating pricing, the maximum price point is much less important than the average ticket price.

When determining how accessible major institutions are to the general public, it is much more important to examine an institution's average ticket price than to critique its maximum price point. To reach the maximum price point, at most institutions practicing dynamic pricing, demand has to be so high that 90% or more of available inventory is sold, meaning that only 10% of inventory is ever sold at the highest price. In looking at it from another perspective, 90% of all inventory is sold at some sort of discount. The only litmus test an institution has to determine how accessible they are to the general public is their average ticket price. To determine average ticket price, one needs to divide total ticket revenue (subscriptions + single tickets) by the total number of tickets sold. By looking at an average ticket price, one gets a complete analysis of all sales across the entire spectrum of their ticket allotments, including those sold through savings programs. The argument shouldn't be that non-profits shouldn't sell beyond a certain maximum ticket price. Instead, it should be that non-profits should maintain an accessible average ticket price. If you are focused on the maximum price point, you can't see the forest for the trees.

3. Dynamic pricing rewards behavior that is much more in line which subscription purchasing.

I have heard my colleagues bemoan the death of subscriptions for the past decade. I too am inclined to believe that generational differences in purchasing behavior will lead to the eventual demise of the subscription. However, traditional pricing practices have escalated the downturn of subscriptions.

In most institutions, subscribers are a group of patrons who purchase multiple productions and do so early in a show's purchasing cycle. For this, they are rewarded with a slight discount. The trouble with traditional pricing occurs when single tickets are placed on sale at the maximum price point directly out of the gate, only to be drastically discounted usually a week or two before the performance when management realizes there isn't the demand to warrant the initial price point. Subscribers then realize that in a significant percentage of cases, they can wait until the last minute to purchase, and will be rewarded with the same, if not better, discount than they would have received if they purchased months in advance. Pavlov proved that if you reward a certain behavior, it will increase. If you want to kill subscriptions, then continue with a pricing model that provides the best discount at the last possible minute.

Until someone much smarter than I figures out the solution to the subscription dilemma, I will always support a single ticket pricing model that encourages behavior more associated with subscription purchasing patterns. If an organization wants to increase its subscriber base, reward early purchasing decisions with the best possible prices, and make sure that those who purchase late, do so at the highest possible prices. I am convinced that this approach to pricing is why Arena Stage has significantly increased its subscriber base over the last three fiscal years in the midst of the global economic crisis.

Final Thought
When debating and analyzing pricing strategies for an organization, remember that "a little knowledge is a dangerous thing." Get all the facts. Study sales patterns. Talk to stakeholders. Hold focus groups. Look at peer organizations. Do your due diligence, and be prudent. Before moving forward, make sure you have a complete understanding of the various options and how your decision will impact organizational values. Prior to implementing a dynamic pricing strategy at Arena Stage, we thoroughly studied the model for more than a year, and had very thoughtful discourse among staff, leadership and the board.

Groupon and Mass Discounting Strategies

Spurred in part by an excellent article written by Chris Jones of the Chicago Tribune, in the past month, there has been a lot of talk about cultural organizations using Groupon (an online, mass discount website). Just like any mass discounting method, using Groupon should be a well thought out strategy. Used correctly, and it can work very well. Used incorrectly, and it can be very costly.

Things to remember about Groupon:

• It is out there for the world to see and it was designed to be used by social media, so that it is picked up and passed along at a very rapid pace. From some of my previous posts on this blog, you probably know that I am a fan of what I call "ninja discounting." Very rarely do I use mass communication to advertise and promote discounts, preferring instead to use one-to-one direct marketing techniques aimed at very strategic recipients. If I need to discount, then I want to make sure that I can control who gets the discount so that it flies under the radar of full price buyers.


• Groupon generally rewards a pattern of behavior that isn't desired--namely, last minute ticket purchasing. Before turning to a mass discounting strategy like Groupon, performing arts organizations will wait to see how their standard campaign is doing. If they are on goal, most won't discount. If they are off, time to throw out the offers. But this usually happens pretty late into a campaign. Let's use the Joffrey Ballet that Chris cites as an example. Their programming begins in October, as does Arena Stage's, so I would guess they launched their subscription campaign last spring. How do you think a subscriber who purchased early and at full price will feel when he sees that if he waited several months he could get a subscription at 50% off? and what do you think his purchasing behavior will look like next year? and trust me, he will get the offer because as my first point illustrates, it goes to everyone.


• Groupon is a for-profit company, and operates like one. They take a significant cut of each sale made. Using the example from the Joffrey Ballet, subscriptions were offered at 61% off regular prices. However, the cut that the Joffrey gets is significantly less than that, so they most likely sold those subscriptions at 75-80% off. Larger organizations can negotiate better splits with Groupon than their smaller counterparts, but I haven't heard of anyone keeping more than 60% of the full sales price.


• We must always remember that discount buyers behave differently and you must budget for that. Full season subscribers at most organizations renew at a rate between 85% to 90%. However, I have found that full season subscribers that purchase their subscriptions at a drastic discount renew at a much lower rate (around 60%). Additionally, because they spent significantly less amount of money per ticket, the no show rates are also substantially higher, sometimes leaving large empty holes in your house.

Instead of putting subscriptions on Groupon in order to attract thousands of new subscribers, I would do the following:

1. Using your database, compile a list of the tough holdouts that you have hit up seven to eight times already during your subscription campaign (usually includes single ticket buyers and non-renewed subscribers from the past 3-4 years).


2. Next, trade lists will all the other arts organizations in town.


3. Then possibly consider purchasing lists from a list broker.


4. Combine all the names into one master document, and suppress your current subscribers, donors and full price ticket buyers.


5. Using the exact same deep discount offer you were going to give to Groupon, develop a cheap, but effective mailer and send to your list. Make sure it is an offer that is impossible to pass up, and that the offer leads in design and has a deadline. (note: if you don't have a large box office staff, then make sure the offer is online only, or you will be swamped). The key is to keep production and mailing costs low--send using non-profit postage and use a discount printer/mail house.

By doing this, you get to keep the entire purchase price of the discounted subscription, and you minimize the possibility that your dedicated and loyal patrons will see that you are heavily discounting late into your campaign after thousands have already purchased.

I find that Groupon is most useful when trying to fill large sections of an empty house on dates that are less desirable. Full price ticket buyers don't seem to mind because they didn't want those dates anyway, and most companies budget low percent paid capacities on those dates so it is additional revenue that wasn't anticipated.

Remember to Test even the "Sacred Cows"

I think I have always been attracted to arts marketing because it allows me to use both creative as well as scientific talents. To this day, I might be the only person to graduate from Missouri State University with a major in speech and theatre education and a minor in mathematics. So it should come as no surprise that I take a very scientific approach to marketing.

In every campaign I lead, I constantly manipulate variables and note outcomes in an attempt to continually improve upon previous results. The easiest variables that marketers turn to are design and pricing. How many times have you tested a carrier package? an offer? pricing strategy? Probably quite a few times. Now think about how many times you have tested different timing schemes for putting products on sale.

This was the first year in my tenure at Arena Stage where we experimented with using timing as a variable. For almost as long as we have had mini-subscriptions, we have put them on sale at the exact same time as our full season subscriptions, fearing that instead of waiting or upgrading, our potential mini-subscribers would opt to go elsewhere for their entertainment. The fear of losing potential mini-subscribers was so strong that for many years timing wasn't even considered a possible variable to test.

As a leader, you have to always remember that the fear of a potential loss will always be significantly more powerful than the possibility of a probable gain. By nature, we are risk averse, and if given a choice to pursue status quo or trail blaze, we will choose status quo each and every time unless there are overwhelming odds. But you have to be mindful of "sacred cows," and be willing to test even the most concrete of assumptions. In my career, the testing of "proven strategies" has led to some pretty remarkable results.

For our inaugural season in the new Mead Center for American Theater, we experimented with exclusively putting full season subscriptions on sale for the first four months of our subscription campaign. In addition, we developed a pricing strategy that encouraged full package purchases, and new exclusive benefits for full season subscribers, such as the ability to purchase parking in our onsite, underground parking lot. It was a test of timing as a variable--would potential mini-subscribers upgrade to the full season, wait until mini-subscriptions were available or leave Arena Stage entirely.

As we are eight months into our subscription campaign, we have some pretty interesting results:

• we exceeded our projections for full season subscribers both in number of subscribers as well as revenue by almost 60%
• we had three times as many subscribers upgrade their packages when compared to those that downgraded
• full season subscriptions weren't just for renewals and upgrades--we more than tripled our projections for brand new subscribers to Arena Stage at the full season level. At this moment, 11% of our entire subscription base are patrons who have never subscribed to Arena Stage and did so in their first year at the full season level.

As our full season subscribers renew at a much higher rate than our mini-subscribers do, I anticipate that the growth that we have seen in our number of full season subscribers will benefit us for many years to come.

Some thoughts on Dynamic Pricing

A couple of months ago, a good dialogue about dynamic pricing began when Trisha Mead (PR and Publications Manager, Portland Center Stage) wrote a blog post on the benefits of dynamic pricing on the 2am theatre blog, and then Adam Thurman (Director of Marketing, Court Theatre) wrote a response entitled "the perils of dynamic pricing." It reminded me how often marketers disagree with each other when it comes to so called best practices.

If your organization is considering dynamic pricing, a couple of things to think about from someone who has some experience with it:

1. Tailor all marketing strategies to your organization. How can one pricing strategy be perfect for one organization, and completely wrong for another? The simple answer is every organization is unique, with a unique set of circumstances to consider. For example, if an organization's funding mix is 70% earned and 30% contributed, chances are, they might be much more likely to consider a dynamic pricing model, as ticket sales play a more prominent role in the organization's fiscal health. On the flip side, if your organization is known for more riskier programming, and relies upon contributed revenue more to subsidize less popular work, then dynamic pricing might seem like an alien concept.

2. Be mindful of your organizational culture and brand. Some companies are pioneering and entrepreneurial in nature, always looking for new opportunities to increase revenue streams. Other organizations have a more egalitarian approach to arts consumption. If your organization is known for having low prices available to everyone, then a dynamic pricing model might cause quite a disruption. However, those that argue that non-profits have nothing to learn from for-profit models are naive. There is now a long history of non-profits and for-profits working together. Even the most egalitarian of organizations, a "people's theater" like the Public Theater, routinely relies upon revenue from the for-profit theater world to fund its non-profit mission. Where would the Public Theater be today without A Chorus Line or New York Theatre Workshop without Rent? Sometimes for-profit strategies and approaches can be very beneficial to non-profit missions.

3. The funding conundrum. In his post, Adam asks a question which is meant to imply that the implementation of dynamic pricing could jeopardize an organization's "case for support." I have heard this argument before, and found it intriguing. Over the span of the past few months, I have sat on a couple of major funding panels with representatives from the top national arts foundations. I took the opportunity to ask them about the impact dynamic pricing might have in their opinion on an organization's "case for support." Without exception, each funder recognized that contributed support, especially from foundations and corporations, has taken a significant hit as a result of the global economic crisis, forcing non-profits to devise methods to increase other revenue streams. They understand these strategies in some cases are necessary for survival, and consequently said that they would not have any impact on a funding decision.

4. Dynamic pricing doesn't necessarily mean eliminating accessibility. Most non-profit art organizations would agree that accessibility to art is important. Dynamic pricing in itself doesn't preclude patrons from experiencing a performance if they can't pay top dollar. What it does do is force price sensitive consumers into an early buying pattern. Remember that in most cases, dynamic pricing doesn't affect ticket prices until a venue is at 60-70% paid capacity. If you purchase early, dynamic pricing shouldn't come into play. One of the reasons that I like dynamic pricing is that it rewards a buying behavior that is essential to converting a single ticket patron to a subscriber. Subscribers buy early and in bulk partially to get the best pricing available. If you can train more single ticket buyers that the later they purchase, the higher the price, it teaches the price sensitive single ticket patrons purchasing behaviors more aligned with the purchasing behaviors of subscribers.

Adam and Trisha are both right--dynamic pricing is both beneficial and perilous. Depending upon the needs of your organization, what's good for one, might not be good for all. Makes me start to wonder if there are any such things as general best practices.

Marketing to our Emotions

Long ago, I read Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends & Influence People, a book that I think should be required reading for all managers and marketers. The one lesson from the book that remained with me for all of these years, was a reminder that although we like to think of ourselves as rational decision-makers, we are first and foremost emotional beings.

In finishing my reading of Jonah Lehrer's How We Decide, which will be a new required book for my graduate students, I was reminded of a couple of important ways in which emotions override logic in decision-making:

Loss Aversion. The fear of loss is more powerful than the appeal of a gain, so powerful that often times it makes us make irrational decisions. To prove this principle, Lehrer discusses several studies and experiments involving investments. It has been proven over the past seven decades that stocks outperform bonds almost 12 to 1, leading one to question why bonds are so popular. In the early 1950s, an economist named Harry Markowitz won the Nobel Prize for developing an equation for the best investment ratio to ensure optimum performance. However, when it came time to implement his own theory, which supported heavier investments in stocks, he decided it was too risky and invested in stocks and bonds equally. In applying this principle to the performing arts, one could infer that the most powerful marketing message would be a message that demonstrated how one could avoid a loss (instead of acquiring a gain). For example: "Tickets selling out fast! Select dates still available. Don't be left out in the cold--call today!"

Expectation of Price. Arts marketing lore has it that price can affect one's perceived value of a brand. The thought is that selling tickets at a lower price will devalue the experience. According to Lehrer, there is some wisdom to this theory. In his book, he discusses a wine tasting experiment at Stanford. In front of a panel, scientists placed five bottles of wine ranging from $5 to $90, and the panelists were told that each bottle contained a different wine. However, there were only three types of wine, so two types were repeated (actually the $5 wine was placed in the $5 bottle and the $45 bottle). Even though the $5 and $45 bottle contained the exact same wine, the $45 bottle was considered far superior. The scientists followed up with another experiment, this time not listing any of the prices. When the taste test was executed completely blind, the cheapest wine got the highest rating of the group. Using the expectation of price to our advantage, wouldn't it be more beneficial to set the prices of our products a little higher (thereby establishing a higher perceived worth), and then discount if need be, allowing the customer to think that they are getting a bargain? Which is a great segue to...

The Anchoring Effect. Lehrer contends that a meaningless anchor--in many cases a contrived number--can have a strong impact on one's decision-making habits. To bolster his case, he describes a process that most of us are all too familiar with. When purchasing a car, we might first be drawn to the sticker price, even though most of us know that almost no one pays the actual price listed. That's because the sticker price is an anchor which allows the car dealership to sell a car at the actual price and make it look like a deal to the consumer. We leave the dealer thinking we just got a $20,000 car for a few thousand dollars less, when in actuality, we paid what the dealer was hoping for or else we would have never driven the car off the lot. So in our lives, if we need the average ticket price to be $50.00, why not set the price a little higher and discount so that our product's perceived quality is higher and the consumer walks away thinking they got a deal?

The Power of the Personalized One. Good fundraisers use this emotional quirk of our brains all the time. Lehrer examines a couple of experiments by Paul Slovic, a psychologist at the University of Oregon. In his experiment, Slovic shows a group of people a photo of a specific starving child while telling that child's story. Afterward, he asks for a donation to a charity designed to address starvation. For a different group, he provides statistics about starvation throughout Africa--numbers that illustrate the staggering size of the problem, and then he asks for a donation. The funds raised by the second group were 50% less than the first. The lesson -- causes need to be personified and at a scale where a person believes he or she can have an impact. In our daily lives, having a specific child tell how your organization's programming affected them could be more impactful than even the most compelling statistics.

Although not written for marketers or the arts, I would encourage everyone to read Jonah Lehrer's How We Decide. On average I tend to read a book about once a week, and I have found How We Decide to be one of the most challenging and intriguing reads I have had in a very long time.

Are you an expert? You must be a failure

Recently I was introduced to Jonah Lehrer at the Theatre Communications Group annual conference in Chicago where Mr. Lehrer was a keynote speaker. His speech inspired an earlier blog post, and convinced me that I should probably read his book How We Decide. I am just about a quarter of the way through it, and I must admit that I am finding it a bit dense, although completely fascinating. Instead of reading right before going to sleep, I am waking up a little early to read because my brain needs to be fresh to process some of his ideas.

In the second chapter of the book, entitled "Predictions of Dopamine," Lehrer examines two subjects--TD Gammon (a computer specifically designed to play backgammon competitively) and Bill Robertie (a man who is a world-class expert in chess, poker and backgammon). In his examination of these two subjects, I learned two amazing lessons:

1. If you want to be an expert, you need to fail a lot! Lehrer quotes physicist Niels Bohr who defined an expert as "a person who has made all the mistakes that can be made in a very narrow field." Demonstrating this principle was TD Gammon. TD Gammon was leaps and bounds better than earlier computers at playing backgammon primarily because it was programmed to learn from its mistakes. When TD Gammon was ready to compete, its inventors wanted it to go up against a world class champion so that it could learn, so they recruited Bill Robertie. In describing his first matches with TD Gammon, Bill said "The first time I competed against TD Gammon, I was incredibly impressed. It represented a big improvement over any other computer program I'd ever encountered. But I knew I was still a better player." The next year, when Bill returned to play TD Gammon after a year's worth of almost a million errors in played matches, it was a different story. TD Gammon had become an expert by studying its own mistakes.

2. It isn't good enough to make errors, you must systematically study them. In determining how Bill Robertie could become a world-class expert in three games, it became clear that his success was linked to his systematic study of his failures. Lehrer quotes Robertie who states "It's not the quantity of practice, it's the quality. The most effective way to get better is to focus on your mistakes." In Lehrer's study of Robertie, he noticed that after Robertie plays a game, he painstakingly reviews what happened, and every decision is critiqued and analyzed. Even when he wins, he insists on searching for errors. In my professional life, I have been accused of being a perfectionist more than once, and direct reports have questioned whether I am ever happy with a result as I constantly analyze decisions, even on the cusp of a great victory. From a management perspective, I can see how that could be construed as having an insatiable appetite for perfection, but I guess I view learning in much the same way as Robertie does. Celebrating success is important, but in situations where you need to learn, and learn quickly, you need to focus on the mistakes even in victories.

Lehrer concludes that "mistakes aren't things to be discouraged. On the contrary, they should be cultivated and carefully investigated." I believe as managers we are responsible for creating environments where admitting mistakes is encouraged, so that as a team, we can all learn from them. In an age where people only want to talk about "best practices," we should also be discussing "worst practices." As it seems to me that you can only get to the "best" by surviving and learning from the "worst."

Recently I was sitting on a funding panel with a representative from a large influential funder, whose organization was supporting projects that could either be great successes or massive failures. It was considered by the funder a "success" to have either outcome, as long as a detailed analysis of each project was made available to the public to learn from. I thought this demonstrated very forward thinking on the funder's behalf, but the funder admitted to me that the public analysis requirement was a significant deterrent to applicants, as they were afraid that public failure would make them less desirable for funding from other sources.

As a field, failure should be celebrated, as long as we are relentless in our analysis of each failure and learn from each incident. Shame should be reserved for those organizations who are complacent in situations that demand change.