How are you innovating to stay relevant? How are you making your experiences meaningful?

In his talk that opened the 2019 Tessitura Learning and Community Conference in Chicago, Tessitura Network CEO Jack Rubin asked these questions and more of the conference's nearly 2,000 attendees. 

In 1900, the city of Chicago reversed the flow of the Chicago River. The river, which was flowing naturally into Lake Michigan, was directed instead to flow into the Mississippi River watershed. Disruption is built into the existence of the city.

Jack explains the concept of disruption as described in two books by Clayton Christensen. On one hand, it is a phenomenon that can benefit the disruptor. On the other hand, he cautions. being disrupted can mean being run over. In most cases, we may not know we are being disrupted until something drastic happens.

Entertainment patterns too have been disrupted, and that includes arts and culture. The goal today is to create experiences to fulfill consumer needs based on their functional, social, and emotional criteria. That is where the Tessitura community comes in: when you enable a valued experience for your customer, they will view it as a desired solution rather than simply a product they bought a ticket for. And they will pay a premium price for that live experience.   

“The time to prepare for the future is now.”

Jack incorporates insights from the leaders of several Chicago-area organizations, highlighting important takeaways that fellow organizations can learn from.  

Jack delivered this talk to attendees from over 400 arts and cultural organizations at the 2019 Tessitura Learning and Community Conference in Chicago, Ill. in July 2019.