Discovery
To begin the Discovery phase, the team engaged in a icebreaker activity, where they came to know each other, and areas of commonality. They discovered that they had a mutual interest community involvement and artist autonomy. That subject became a focal point for further exploration.
Context Mapping
Context mapping is designed to help the team form a shared contextual understanding of the central question and bring out areas of expertise and passion to determine the team’s unique personal take on the central question.
During the Context Mapping activity, the team took a very thorough look at the trends playing into the central question. Economically, the recession exacerbates already existing issues around “high brow” art, lagging ticket sales, and intellectual property questions. Politically speaking, nonprofits, schools and arts organizations are attempting to wrangle the government for funding, philanthropic dollars and even high-speed internet. High-speed internet only begins to open the door around technology factors like social media, the metaverse, digital literacy and basic infrastructure. Stakeholders are vast and wide-ranging — including kids, tangential industries, fans, the government, and underserved communities. Across the spectrum, it’s possible to find connections between trends like the need for personal connection and barriers to access, along with democratization and artist protection, and even hybrid models and DEI access.
Below is Team 1’s Context Map: (click to zoom in)
Sense Making
During the Sense Making stage, the team captures insights from the Context Map and identifies patterns. During this 15 minute time, the facilitator captured and identified these patterns using the Context Map. Sometimes ideas move from a laughable idea (“Ha Ha”) to a discovery (“Ah Ha!”) to a resolution (“Ahh”).
