My favorite season is fast approaching. I love the competition. The high stakes. The last-minute decision-making. I’m talking, of course, about budget season. (What season were you thinking?!)
The debate beginning in August over Indianapolis’ next municipal budget will be intriguing. No doubt, public safety will be priority one, as it should be. But funding for arts programs should not be far behind.
With cities across America facing major fiscal challenges, how can arts funding even be a consideration, let alone a priority? Simple economics.
In a world where smart, talented individuals are placing a higher priority on location rather than job, we need to continue to build Indy’s reputation as a hub for arts and culture. As policy-makers focus on leveraging Central Indiana’s strong cluster of health care and life sciences assets to position our region as a global player, we must keep in mind that the arts could be a deciding factor for that young med school grad looking for a culturally rich community where he or she can settle in and make a difference.
This argument is more than anecdotal. Numbers back up the fact that the arts are becoming a major economic driver (check out this economic impact study that, among other things, shows the arts bring a half-billion dollars into the local economy).
So, fellow bloggers, do you think our elected officials should make arts funding a priority?
At a party recently, I got to talking books with a client from Cook Critical Care. I recommended Daniel Pink’s A Whole New Mind. He recommended Juan Enriquez’s As the Future Catches You. Follow-up guys that we are, we sent our recommendations to each other.
Last week, I read Enriquez. It’s about the economic and political impact of science and technology—genomics, nanotechnology, etc. Nations that invest in the brainpower necessary to advance this stuff soar. Those that don’t languish or die.
Pink sings from a similar hymnal. If work can be done by a machine or by following a set of rules, it will get done cheaper elsewhere. So to prosper, we must invest in the brainpower necessary to lead conceptually.
And how go our investments in things scientific? Consider medicine:
As I finished Enriquez, Congress had to override a presidential veto to avert drastic cuts in Medicare reimbursements to America’s physicians. And graduates of the Indiana University School of Medicine were carrying an average debt load of $120,000. And U.S. spending for medical research via the National Institutes of Health had declined for five straight years.
And people wonder why our economy lags, why our kids aren’t keeping pace in the global classroom, and why we risk losing our scientific, medical and technological edge?
It ain’t rocket science.
I’ve tried texting and instant messaging. They’re awkward and time-consuming, and I still haven’t mastered the lingo. My son’s friends always know when it’s me responding to their messages. I actually use full sentences and proper grammar. A dead giveaway.
A lot is lost in translation through high-tech devices. We no longer pay attention to every word we write. We’re much more concerned about getting to our next message than we are to crafting our current one. And there the cycle starts again—more e-mails, more texts, all trying to decipher and explain the original, intended message.
As for the argument that technology expedites communication? I wonder how much time it really saves. How often have you e-mailed a colleague and realized it would have been much faster to resolve your issue if you walked over to his or her desk and said what was on your mind?
I’m for old-fashioned communication. Thinking before you put something in writing. Good old face-to-face discourse. That’s where ideas are born, are nurtured, grow and mature.
Can technology do that?
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