I’ve had the good fortune of working with Slover Linett Audience Research as both a client of theirs and later as a consulting colleague, and have always found their team to be elevated thought partners on strategy well beyond the immediate research scope at hand. Case in point: while recently working on a project with Cory Garfin from their team, we connected on our shared perspective that the arts and culture fields could use more social work knowledge and perspective—I from my vantage point as both an arts consultant and MSW, and he from his perspective in market research having previously worked extensively with social workers.

The conversation we had, which was released in three parts, was a direct outgrowth of this exchange, where we had the opportunity to contemplate a wealth of meaty topics. While the conversation was originally inspired by my piece, Engaging Arts Audiences in a Time of Trauma, we covered a lot more ground than that, and I am grateful to Cory for the opportunity to expand my own thinking, as well as recommit to sharing even more where it can help our field, our audiences, and our collective future.

Part 1 – Topics included: what social work entails and includes, applications of Trauma Informed Care, and a brief case for systems thinkers as arts leaders.

Part 2 – Topics included: belonging and a sense of connection within the arts experience, accessibility and its broad applications, and accountability around responses to racial injustice.

Part 3 – Topics included: community-centric arts organizations, preventing burnout with audience-facing staff and considering their emotional wellbeing in the times ahead, reactions to the original piece on trauma and arts audiences, and looking to the future.

Read the full interview here.

Tom O’Connor is the President of Tom O’Connor Consulting Group. TOCG is a New York City-based arts consultancy offering strategy, assessment, executive search, and leadership coaching services to organizations across the US—all with a focus on audiences and revenue outcomes. Tom has spent over 15 years working in the cultural sector, is on the faculty of the graduate Theater Management program at the Yale School of Drama, and received his MSW in Clinical Social Work from Fordham University.