Let's say your organization has a mission to increase X (art, healthy kids, clean water, community cohesiveness, etc.). Is it more effective to produce X yourself or empower others to produce X in their own contexts? The more my organization has become focused on community engagement, the more we've balanced being experience producers with being experience co-creators/facilitators. We still produce exhibitions, events, and educational programs for an audience, but that audience is just one of our major constituencies. The partners we work with--to catalyze projects within and beyond our walls--are just as important as our visitors to fulfilling our mission . Relative to other museums, I think we spend less time producing an "onstage" experience and more time collaborating with community organizations behind the scenes to empower them to produce. I feel great about this approach. It enables us to authentically and meaningfully involve diverse people in the m

Yesterday, the local paper in Santa Cruz published a great article about my new book, The Art of Relevance . I loved the piece... but I wished it could have included more of the conversation reporter Wallace Baine and I had about my father Screamin Scott Simon's experience as a rock musician in the band ShaNaNa. I've learned so much from my dad about making art, putting on a great show, inviting audience participation , and navigating celebrity. When writing The Art of Relevance , I knew I wanted to share a bit of his story and the ways artists negotiate the relevance of their own work. Here's that chapter. RELEVANCE IS A MOVING TARGET FOR CONTENT Most of us aren’t steering whole institutions and mission statements. We’re working on a smaller scale, with specific content or programs. But the changing tides of relevance that affect institutions affect content too—sometimes even more acutely. While an institution can pivot, presenting different content for different times, t