Michael J. Bobbitt on Turning Creative Power into Political Power

Monica Holt: Welcome back to CI to Eye. I’m Monica Holt. Today I’m joined by Michael J. Bobbitt. He’s the executive director of Mass Cultural Council, which means he’s the highest ranking public official focused on arts and culture in Massachusetts state government. Michael’s journey from performer to artistic director to state cultural leader has given him a unique perspective on what our sector needs to thrive. His leadership has always been inspiring, but I was particularly moved by why he believes the arts community has more power than we realize. We just need to start using it differently. We explore his insights on building unexpected partnerships, why we shouldn’t wait for an invitation to show up in rooms that have an impact on artists, and how we can shift from admiring our problems together to creating active, transformational solutions. This is a dialogue about possibility—about what happens when we stop hoping someone else will fix our challenges for us, and instead start leveraging our own creative strengths to build the future we want. If you’re ready to think differently about advocacy, collaboration, and the untapped potential of the arts sector, you’re going to love this conversation. Let’s dive in.

Michael J. Bobbitt, welcome to CI to Eye. Thank you so much for being here and joining us today.

Michael J. Bobbitt: Thank you so much for having me. This is really exciting.

Monica Holt: I have long admired your work. Our paths have crossed lightly before, but I’m so excited to really be sitting down together and hearing more about your story and your perspective, particularly on this moment in time, which is a very interesting one for all of us to be navigating. But before we get there, you’ve had a pretty remarkable journey from performance artist, you have been an artistic director, now you are leading a statewide cultural agency. Talk to us a little bit about your very first memories of the arts and what role the arts played in your childhood to form this very whole complete interesting person before me today.

Michael J. Bobbitt: It’s so very interesting because that very first memory is very visceral for me. I remember in the first grade, I was Hansel in the third act of Hansel and Gretel. Yes, there were three Hansels.

Monica Holt: Oh, the third act!

Michael J. Bobbitt: There was a moment in act three where I was locked in the cage and I had this line and I said the line, and the room erupted in laughter, and something in me kind of snapped in that moment. It felt like a power. There was a joy in making a whole room feel joy, and what flashed through my head was, I remember the drunken fights that were happening at my home the night before. I remember the conversations that people had about my father and uncles that were incarcerated. I remember watching every single adult in my life dealing with addictions and joblessness and mental health issues. They all just sort of faded away for a brief moment and something in me just felt better, and I just wanted that experience again and again and again for my own self preservation, but also being in that play and making other people feel better just stuck with me. I never imagined it would be a career. I just kept doing it because it was a way to stay away from the dysfunctional home and find joy and experience the world in a different way because I was learning music from other cultures and pretending to be characters in plays, and so I just became obsessed with it.

Monica Holt: Were there teachers or mentors throughout your time in your education who were nurturing and fostering this, or were you having to seek it out wherever you could find it?

Michael J. Bobbitt: For the most part, every art teacher I had, I felt a kinship with, but there were two in particular. Theresa Gilmore at Parkview Elementary School in Lower Northwest DC public schools, and then Chris Flannery, when I went to Gonzaga High School, was my band teacher and our relationship was really very paternal. The two of them really sort of saw something special in me and supported me in my love of art. And actually my first real experience at the Kennedy Center was with the National Symphony Orchestra’s Youth Fellowship program, for which I got to go to the Kennedy Center every week and rehearse with the orchestra and watch rehearsals and participate in masterclasses, and it just was a great thing.

Monica Holt: Yeah, that program is incredibly special and the fact that you’re an alum, I mean, there’s such a wonderful group of artists who found a home at the center through those early programs and it’s special to hear about how you came through there too. So you were a trumpet player in high school into college. I also think of you as a playwright and a director and a choreographer, and we talk a lot on the podcast about the multi hyphenate artist and what that really means today, how that’s maybe different than how artists were viewed even 20, 30, 40 years ago. What do you think about as you present yourself in the world with such a rich history of many different inputs?

Michael J. Bobbitt: In my own journey, I sort of took advantage of the opportunities as they showed up. Some of it has to do with how my interests lied with those art forms. Some of them might’ve been out of fear that I wasn’t good enough to really be a master at a specific art form. But I think ultimately being a multi hyphenated artist has expanded my mind creatively. I don’t necessarily feel like I can’t solve a problem creatively and collaboratively. I don’t need to solve the problem by myself. I know how to pull a room together and work with all the minds in the rooms to come up with the most creative collaboration. That ego goes away from me. So I think being a multi hyphenated artist is a great thing. And to your point about institutions, I think institutions have a lot of work to do. I’m frustrated by the fact that you can get a degree in art and never take a business class and never take a government class. The two things that are crucial to your success as an artist, and I think institutions just need to look at everything all over again to meet the need of today.

Monica Holt: Yeah, well, that’s certainly true and I agree with what you’re saying, and as we look at how we can be helpful to education institutions and rethinking that model, it also requires the kind of next step and where those students go after to also be modeling it, which you would think we would have a little more flexibility in. Higher education is incredibly complex and there’s as much bureaucracy there as anywhere, but there is some freedom in nonprofit art spaces to make changes more quickly. But as you say, it’s just not something that’s been activated on.

Michael J. Bobbitt: And also, this is maybe a weird thing to say, but I think we might be progressive in our art, but very conservative in the way we do business. And I think that needs to change because again, when you have a whole sector that’s struggling, we can’t say that’s from external forces. That’s us. I really strongly believe that the problems that the art sector is facing is the art sector’s fault because we are so conservative, because we are under organized, because we’re under-skilled from a business perspective, because we don’t, when we compare us to other sectors and their advocacy efforts, we really aren’t very strong at that. So we all have to change. The big institutions that are hiring people can get together and start putting pressure on institutions to change their curriculum to meet the needs that we have today.

Monica Holt: So let’s come back to that in a little bit, but just talking through your own journey, you stepped away from the stage at a certain point to pursue a different branch, let’s say, of a very full career. What was that transition like and how did you bring the lessons from the stage and being a director, an artistic director, forward?

Michael J. Bobbitt: I do think it goes back to my curiosity about art making in general, which is why I think the multihyphenate is a part of who I am. The other part I will say is that some of it was logistic. I adopted a baby in 2002 and I was in a show at Arena Stage, Guys and Dolls, and I realized that while I was in the show, I was missing cuddle time. I was dancing while he was having books read and going to sleep, and I was like, this is not fun. I want to be home with my kid. And that was the first moment I decided that I didn’t need to be a performer. I also loved the process of making art. I love watching the brains of the director and the choreographer and the music director and the producers and all the people involved putting it together.

And I realized I liked that side of the table more. And then some people challenged me to think about moving into arts management, and I took the challenge. I was intrigued by it, so I took every single course I could find, fellowship, week-long intensive, free stuff in finance and fundraising and HR and nonprofit management and board and governance. And then it became clear that I liked being outside of the room, making the room available for artists to be artists rather than being in the room. I still did a little bit of choreography and some directing around town that sort of fed my artistic need, but more of the time I loved being outside the room. And the one thing I will say is in the DC area, and particularly in Montgomery County, advocacy became really a core function of your job when you were an arts leader. You really needed to show up and your colleagues held you accountable to that.

Monica Holt: Well, so let’s talk about that. You’re now the highest ranking public official in Massachusetts state government focused on arts and culture. I imagine you are finding yourselves in conversations with artists and policymakers daily and creating a bridge between those conversations. For the listener who might not be as aware, can you just explain what your role is in your own words?

Michael J. Bobbitt: Sure. So all states and even our territories have some form of a state arts council. Our job is to basically support the creative sector of our state. A lot of that happens through grant making and some of it happens through some policymaking and or cross sector partnerships. So that’s my job in Massachusetts. I am meeting up with my arts and humanities and interpretive science folks, finding out what their issues are and trying to translate that and get that in front of legislators or the administration or other agencies across Massachusetts to see how we can build sustainability and find resources for them. And so that’s basically my job. I mean, the fun part is I get to give out about $43 million in grants all across the state.

Monica Holt: So as you are thinking about that $43 million in grants, what is the approach and the vision you take for Massachusetts right now? Or maybe better to think about what was the approach you’ve taken, and how has that changed in this particular moment?

Michael J. Bobbitt: We really have changed the whole business model of the agency. Even that amount of money only supports a small portion of the sector. We have about 2,500 grants a year, and we have many more organizations and many more people in the state. And so when we did our strategic plan, I asked a couple of questions. One was, what is the benefit of the agency to people and organizations that don’t get grants? Those grants are deeply meaningful when you get them.

What is our value if you don’t get them? And the second question is, what are we uniquely positioned to do? We’re not a foundation. We’re not a juried prize. We are part of government. We have access to government. So how do we infuse arts and culture across state government? How are we building relationships with other state agencies? How are we unlocking resources in, say, transportation or housing or healthcare? How are we making sure they are thinking about the sector as a tool to solve their problems and how do we make sure that their programs are available for the arts sector? And so that’s the work we’re doing now. It’s new for us because we’re shifting from grant administration to, in many ways, sales and advancement, trying to convince other agencies to include the arts sector and sometimes to have the conversations with people that wouldn’t normally think of talking to the arts sector. You can see their eyes open. We’re meeting with Department of Corrections and Executive Office of Public Safety later on this week to talk about arts being used as a sentencing tool for their parolees.

Monica Holt: Oh, how interesting.

Michael J. Bobbitt: Right. So it’s really super exciting. The other thing I would say is that the growth of the art sector is not going to come from the sector and the usual suspects. There’s no more money. It’s going to come from sectors we have outcomes in. Education and health and recidivism and all those things that we know we’re good at. So it’s on us, not just the state agency but the sector, to build those relationships and unlock those resources.

Monica Holt: I think that’s extraordinarily well said and something for all of us to really think about. I’m curious, is there an example of a project or partnership that’s currently underway where you feel like that connection bridging a different government sector with the artistic communities has really started to gel or that you’re watching come to life now?

Michael J. Bobbitt: Sure. I mean, the biggest thing I can brag on is that Massachusetts last summer launched the first in the nation’s statewide solution to arts prescribing. So this is a program we beta tested for four years and the healthcare providers would literally prescribe arts engagement to their patients. Mass Cultural Council was reimbursing the arts organizations for filling those prescriptions. And then I came back to the team and they had talked about it before I got there, but I came back to the team and said, we are doing healthcare’s job. Healthcare should be paying us for doing this, for healing them.

Monica Holt: There we go.

Michael J. Bobbitt: And so we paused the reimbursements. Of course my staff was mad and I said, well, we’re going to work with someone to help us scale this and figure out how to engage healthcare so that they’re paying for it. So last summer we launched the first in the nation’s statewide solutions to arts prescribing.

So now in across Massachusetts healthcare providers, which include nurses, faith leaders, addiction specialists, they can prescribe 12 doses of arts and culture to their patients. These doses come with companion tickets, they come with transportation if needed. The patient has agency to pick the kind of arts engagement they want to go to. So there can be a class, it can be a museum visit, and this is all paid for by third party payers including insurance companies and managed care providers. Opioid settlement money is paying for it, housing authority money. We’re talking with gaming commissions. So it’s growing. It’s growing and it’s a revenue stream for those arts organizations. I think at the moment we have nearly 200 arts organizations that have been referred and the results are amazing. Patients are taking their arts medicine. 77% of the patients getting prescriptions are taking their medicine, which is 37% higher than drug prescriptions.

Monica Holt: That’s a remarkable statistic.

Michael J. Bobbitt: The satisfaction rate is great. They’re reporting 40% less return to their doctors and a 340% decrease in emergency room visits. Not to mention that all those sort of scientific scores that we use to measure loneliness and anxiety and depression, were all showing improvement on those. And so we’re saving healthcare money, we’re healing people, we’re generating a revenue stream and new patronage for arts organizations.

Monica Holt: It’s a remarkable program. I imagine folks listening will wonder, well, why isn’t my state doing this or why haven’t we gotten there yet? Do you have any advice or are you reading the tea leaves across the country to see if this is something that could become replicable?

Michael J. Bobbitt: It is totally replicable, and I think of it like school lunches and seat belts, which were an invention that came out of nonprofits and they slowly built up around the country. So it’s going to require the arts sector to do something different, which is hard, which means to get into the room with healthcare providers. This is not an arts program. This is a healthcare provider, and so things are popping up all over the country, both social prescribing and specifically arts prescribing. But if people are interested in doing this in their state, they should talk to their state arts agency. Maybe that can be the lead person to manage this, but their first attempt should be to get healthcare convenings together and pitch the idea. We did a lot of pitching before we got our first insurer and major healthcare system on board. So that’s the kind of innovation that I think we need, and that’s the kind of mining of other people’s money that we need to start trying to figure out how to get on to.

Monica Holt: Yeah, that’s right. What advice would you give to arts leaders who haven’t built these relationships with policymakers or with other sectors yet, but who want to start?

Michael J. Bobbitt: People do business with people they know. So it’s incumbent of leaders of arts organizations to get away from their desks and get out into community and get to know the community members, meet every legislator, both municipal and state and federal that you can, if arts organizations don’t think they should have relationships with those people that make those decisions, they’re losing out on opportunities. I will also say that I don’t think there’s anything more important than advocacy for our sector at this moment. Something that we’re not very good at, in my opinion. And when we do advocate, we only really focus on the funding that government can do, and that funding is only supporting a small portion of the sector. There are other regulatory actions and programmatic actions that our governments municipal, state, and federal government can make. And so we have to build up that muscle.

Listen, there are people that are hired by us to make decisions about the economy and the budget and the law, and the art sector has a minimal relationship with them. Government responds for the most part to the pressure of their constituencies and their voting bodies. And so that is the work we have to do in the next three years. We should never let someone be elected to public office without having an arts platform. That should never happen again. No one should ever decide to cut funding from our budgets because we have put that much pressure on them.

Monica Holt: That’s absolutely right. We are a rare sector from a GDP business standpoint that doesn’t get the same investment from the government that so many other sectors get regardless of where they stand in terms of financial impact for the country. Obviously our organization and advocacy is a part of why that’s true. Do you think there is another reason? Why is it in America that arts and culture are not treated as other industries and sectors are from particularly the federal government’s perspective?

Michael J. Bobbitt: If you are politically weak and under-skilled from a business perspective, the market knows it. The market responds to what we have done to ourselves. And so our job is to become politically strong and get better at business. Most other sectors have someone on staff focused on government affairs. It’s rare for us to do that. It’s not an agenda item for staff meetings. It’s not an agenda item for board meetings. We don’t engage our patrons in what’s happening advocacy wise. Sometimes our boards merge partisan politics with advocacy and they say, we can’t get involved in politics even though every other sector is deeply involved in politics. So there’s a bunch of technical things, but I think there is a mindset shift, and this is where it becomes adaptive. It’s not a surprise that arts organizations are all, for the most part, scrappy and artists are starving.

But I wonder who created that narrative and if we didn’t create it ourselves, who is perpetuating and perfecting that narrative? That is on us. That’s why I say I think that the things that are wrong with the art sector are our fault and we can change it. There’s no Mighty Mouse or Superman from the outside that’s going to come and fix our sector. That is our job to do, but it’s going to require us to change our beliefs and values about political engagement and about the value of business in amplifying our organizations and our work. Most of us, and sometimes we’re even taught this, that if we learn business and we think about capitalization and commercialization, it will erode the quality of the art. But there are no longitudinal studies on that. And in fact, talk to Beyonce. Every album she puts out gets better and better and better.

And so it is a myth that we continue to perfect. When there are things that we are scared of, and I would put things like streaming and AI in there, when there are things we’re afraid of because we don’t have enough information, we tend to vilify it, and that holds us back. And so I implore people, focus on learning your business skills, focus on advocacy, organize, start thinking creatively about the things that you need and start talking to your legislators en masse together, organized in every single community. Can you imagine what this sector would look like in five years, 10 years, if we took our creative skills and married them with really solid business acumen and really strong political power?

Monica Holt: I am getting geared up just thinking about ways that we can all take action. Listen, obviously you are no stranger to the fact that there were these significant cuts at the NEA and NEH, the potential dismantling of those organizations and IMLS, all happening this spring, none of which frankly was shocking because of what we knew about the incoming administration, but all of which organizations were at different levels of preparedness for. Massachusetts responded with a pretty sizable investment in arts and culture — I would say an extension of the work you have been doing, so it made sense, but what do you think is the role of state and regional cultural councils right now as they’re navigating this moment too?

Michael J. Bobbitt: So some of it depends on their business model. I am lucky that Mass Cultural Council is an independent state agency, meaning that I’m not part of the executive branch, and so that gives me the ability to advocate and ask for what I want and need. But I think in general, every service organization in the arts has to refocus its work on advocacy. I know people are thinking, you got to keep the doors open, but if you don’t carve out time to do advocacy work, if you stay on that hamster wheel of insolvency, things will not get better. And so I think everyone needs to focus in so that we can become organized and show this country and our municipalities in our state how big we are and how strong we are, and really start asking for things, really start putting policy recommendations in front of them.

Again, that funding is only supporting a small part of the sector, so it’s not going to grow the sector. It’s not going to stabilize the sector. It’s just going to support the sector. And so this is where I think if we can shift from thinking about government as a funder to thinking about government as people that can do regulatory things, that can build sustainability. There’s hundreds of things that government can do for us there, thinking about all the programmatic workforce development and economic development programs that already exist that we aren’t a part of, so we can think about how we can be included in those and revise laws and amend laws so that we can take advantage of those things. There’s many things that I think we can do but it’s going to require a lot of work. And I think in times of fear, people just double down on what they know. And in times of fear, it’s time to change and do something differently.

Monica Holt: Well said. If there was one law or cultural policy that you could change tomorrow, no debate, no committees, what would that be or what would you implement?

Michael J. Bobbitt: STEM to STEAM.

Monica Holt: Very good.

Michael J. Bobbitt: So the STEM world realized about 20 years ago, maybe 25 years ago, that they were going to have a workforce shortage as those industries were growing. And so they got together, they organized, and they started putting legislatures all over the country to adopt STEM workforce programs so that every kid coming through school had to take science, technology, engineering, and math. When that was happening, the art sector didn’t join the STEM world and push for A to be included in those workforce development programs because we tend to self-segregate. Another thing that contributes to our insolvency. In Massachusetts, in the last 20 years, they’ve invested $3 billion in STEM-related programming and infrastructure and workforce development, and we missed out on that. So to me, that’s the biggest thing that we could do.

Monica Holt: That’s a great answer. I’m curious, as you were responding, you mentioned that sometimes the arts self-select out or segregate themselves from other groupings, clusters, organizations. Can you say a little bit more about what you mean by that?

Michael J. Bobbitt: We do. We don’t get in rooms with healthcare, even though if you ask a thousand artists in a room, how many of you all believe that arts is good for health? Every hand will go up. And then you ask them, how many of you have been to a healthcare convening in the last year? Almost every hand will go down. If you ask, how many of y’all think that arts are good for education? You’ll see every hand go up. And then you’ll say, how many of y’all went to the school board meeting when they were discussing the budget? And every hand will go down. So we self-segregate. And then sometimes you’ll hear people say, but we weren’t invited. And then I’ll say, do you think that the climate community is sitting around saying, ‘Let’s not invite the arts, we don’t want them there’? I’ve gone to housing meetings and we have so many artists that are unhoused or living on people’s couches.

I’ll go to housing meetings and the leadership of housing will say to me, Michael, what are you doing here? And then I’ll say, artists live in houses. And they’ll have a moment of going like, oh, yeah, right? So we self-segregate. And then sometimes we get together in rooms, in convenings, in conferences and stuff, and we spend most of our time admiring the problem as opposed to orienting to solutions. I mean, what would happen if every convening was about solutions? Not about just sitting around complaining about what we don’t have, and then those rooms are gathered to share best practices. But I’m watching broke theater companies share best practices with other broke theater companies. And I go, what are we doing? Why don’t we have economists in the room, MBAs in the room, helping us to solve the problems? So we self-segregate, and a lot of it is that they don’t understand us, they don’t get us. But what if we switch that and said, we need to understand them. We need to get them. We need to pull them into our world.

Monica Holt: Yeah, that’s right. It’s — A lot of the work that I was doing over the past year or so was about this intersection, but particularly with tech — again, an industry that there’s a lot of discomfort, concern, hand wringing, et cetera, about universally, but certainly in the arts, certainly with the kind of acceleration of AI and GenAI, and it’s this approach that really is what started to make the difference for the Center at the time, both in our engagement with artists on the topic and engaging tech companies in a mutually beneficial exploration of what the future might hold. But the only way that happened was frankly by me and some colleagues saying, we’re just going to go start putting ourselves in these spaces. We were the only ones there. Which is a shame, as you say, because how much more powerful would we have been if there was more collective? How much more impactful would it have been that we showed up? But the more we can use our voices in spaces that we think maybe we don’t belong or we’re not the primary constituent for, the more advantageous it’s going to be for the field as a whole. So to your point, you can’t wait around for the invitation. You need to go make the action happen yourself. And sometimes that’s hard, as you say.

Michael J. Bobbitt: Yeah, we’re leaving resources on the table by self-segregating. Again, we do it to ourselves. I also think the art sector in particular overestimates threats and underestimates opportunities.

Monica Holt: Speak more about that.

Michael J. Bobbitt: I mean, I remember when streaming during COVID was a thing and this notion that if we stream art, then people won’t come to our venues to see it. And then I started thinking about, what happened to sports when they started streaming sports into people’s homes? It only increased the love of the sports. And what we tried to do was we tried to recreate the live experience streamed home. But you can’t recreate that. So why do that? Why not use all of our creative muscles to design something new when we’re streaming? And so when you think about sports, when you’re sitting at home watching a game, it’s not the same as it would be at a venue, right? There’s colorful commentation in your ear, there is drawing on the screens. The players may have microphones, so you can hear their grunting. There are data scrolls and bio popups. Instant replays. It’s a different experience.

Monica Holt: Absolutely.

Michael J. Bobbitt: What happens if we explore those opportunities when it comes to the streaming that we do? This thing about AI right now, it’s not going anywhere. There’s no sign that it’s going to be regulated anytime soon. They still haven’t regulated social media enough. So we need to embrace it and use it to our advantage and know that we have creative muscles that can help us take AI to a whole ‘nother place that benefits us.

Monica Holt: I am so filled with delight and excitement to be hearing your leadership in these words in this moment, and I agree completely, and I’m here to help move us forward in that direction. Tell me this, you grew up in DC. You spent a lot of time in DC in this area. What makes Massachusetts and Boston feel like a special place for you to be doing this work right now?

Michael J. Bobbitt: What I love about Massachusetts is that, I mean, we are the state of firsts. We’ve done a lot of things first. First public school, first library, first park, first university. And so there’s a lot of willingness to do things first, which I think is so very cool. I think Massachusetts is a humanity state. Without the humanities and all the history that exists here, Massachusetts wouldn’t exist. When I knock on doors, they open the door. Now, it may take a while for them to follow through and do what I need them to do, but they’re not like, don’t knock on my door. They’re like, yeah, let’s talk about this. Let’s see what this might be. But I’ve also built up lots of relationships. So I think when I knock, people are like, oh, Michael Bobbitt’s coming to meet you. You need to meet with Michael. Because I’ve worked really hard. People do business with people they know. I’ve worked really hard to build those relationships because the goal is, if you’ve not met me, you’ve heard of me in Massachusetts so that I can do for the sector. So I think all those things are the reason why I like it.

Monica Holt: What is one thing that’s giving you hope right now when you look at the future of arts and culture?

Michael J. Bobbitt: I think that we’re still making art — we’re still making art that speaks to what’s happening in the world, and I’m also really excited about the possibilities of arts used as a tool for healing and health. So seeing that spread and pop up around the country just fills me with joy.

Monica Holt: That’s wonderful. So you’ve given us a lot of good nuggets, ideas, action items throughout our conversation. For listeners who are inspired by what we’ve been talking about, what’s one thing they can do today as soon as this podcast ends to help advance for the changes that we’re talking about?

Michael J. Bobbitt: Take the podcast, have it translated in ChatGPT, and have ChatGPT give you a list of action steps.

Monica Holt: Ooh, love that.

Michael J. Bobbitt: Yeah, start somewhere. Start somewhere. Three actions you’re going to take this week, three actions you’re going to take next week. For the benefit of getting better at business and getting more engaged. But if you liked what you heard, don’t leave it on the podcast. Take it and have it transcribed, and then see what action steps your AI can come up with for your staff or yourself. It’s important that we are always moving towards action.

Monica Holt: That’s right. Well, we have come to the end of our conversation, which means a few quickfire culture questions, if you are game. The first is, what’s one piece of culture right now — a song, a book, a performance, a TikTok trend — that you’re currently obsessed with?

Michael J. Bobbitt: K-Pop Demon Hunters. Obsessed.

Monica Holt: Yes, absolutely. It’s everywhere. And I really, Netflix has been doing these live sing-alongs of them, and I’m waiting for the first orchestra to chime in and say, here’s a moment. Here’s a collaboration. Here’s community.

Michael J. Bobbitt: Niece introduced me to it. We were jamming out, and then I sat home and watched a movie. I think I’ve watched it three times now.

Monica Holt: That’s great. It’s great. And the music, it’s so catchy. In my head all the time. If you could go back in time, what is one performance, concert, or event that you would’ve wanted to be present at?

Michael J. Bobbitt: I got to work on an opera with the Washington National Opera and Washington Performing Arts Center about Marian Anderson. And so I would really go back to the I Have a Dream speech in her performance on the March on Washington, just to be in there and see how that art form could be infused into a social justice movement and incite change.

Monica Holt: That would be remarkable. What’s one free resource — can be in any field — that you think everyone should be looking at or checking out?

Michael J. Bobbitt: So to tackle the business acumen issue, we’re going to have a big summit with the colleges to talk about this issue in Massachusetts, the need to infuse more business and government civics into their curriculum. But I have to figure out what to do for the people that have finished school and those that don’t have the resources to take class. I’m working with MIT. They have a platform called MITx. It’s sort of their social responsibility platform where they upload free courses for everyone. So I’m working with them to create a 12 module arts and entrepreneurship course. This is based on the Sloan School of Management’s pedagogy, but the great thing about this is that it will be asynchronous online. There’ll be synchronous components like study groups and an AI bot if you have questions or you’re working on your project, because you’ll be able to do a project through the whole course. But the great thing about it is that throughout the course, you’re going to follow an artist making art. It’s going to launch in January, hopefully, but it’s going to be available to everyone in the world. So I would say MITx, but also look at all those platforms: Udemy, MITx, edX. There’s so many free resources. If you want to learn a little bit more about how government works or you want to learn more skills in business, it’s vitally important.

Monica Holt: And then here we are, our CI to Eye moment. If you could broadcast one message to executive directors, leadership teams, staff, and boards of thousands of arts organizations right now, what would that message be?

Michael J. Bobbitt: There’s nothing more important than advocacy in this moment for this sector. Absolutely nothing.

Monica Holt: Well, let’s get organized. Let’s start really pushing forward and pushing on our previous expectations of what this industry can do. Michael, it has been such a pleasure and an inspiration to talk to you, and I can’t wait to keep following your lead and to keep leading alongside.

Michael J. Bobbitt: Same. It’s an honor to be here, and I’m extremely flattered to have the opportunity. So thank you.

Monica Holt: The honor’s ours. Thank you so much. Thank you for listening to CI to Eye with Monica Holt. If you enjoyed today’s conversation, please take a moment to rate us or leave a review. A nice comment goes a long way in helping other people discover the show and hear from leaders in the arts and beyond. If you haven’t already, please click the subscribe button wherever you get your podcasts. We’ve got some pretty incredible episodes coming your way, and I wouldn’t want you to miss them. This episode was edited and produced by Karen McConarty and co-written by Karen McConarty and myself, Monica Holt. Stephanie Medina and Jess Berube are our incredible designers and video editors. Our music is by whoisuzo. Don’t forget to follow CI on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, YouTube, and TikTok for regular content to help you market smarter. You can also sign up for CI’s newsletter at capacityinteractive.com, and you’ll never miss an update, and you can always reach out to let us know who you’d like to hear next from on CI to Eye.