Our drive to improve ourselves moves into high gear as we look toward a new year. And one of our first places of improvement starts at work, where we should always seek to better ourselves.

According to Kitty Boitnott, PhD, NBCT, a certified life strategies and stress management coach, there are immediate ways we can be better employees. She lists them in “5 Bad Work Habits to Break in 2015” on the website Careerealism.com. Here are three of her suggestions.

1. Be on Time
“It is much better to be known as the guy (or gal) who is always 10 minutes early for everything as opposed to being known for always being 10 minutes late for everything,” Boitnott wrote. “Being late is disrespectful of the people who are waiting for you.”

2. Avoid Office Gossip
“People may enjoy your stories for a while, but eventually they will start to wonder what you are telling other people about them given your penchant for not being able to keep a secret or hold a confidence.”

3. Stop Saying “It’s Not My Job”
“While it may be true that a particular job that you are asked to perform is outside the actual letter of your contract, by doing it anyway you demonstrate that you are a team player.”

Check out the article for the other two suggestions, and please let us know how you plan to improve your career next year in the comments section.

(photo credit: Whiskeygonebad via photopin cc)

The Bleacher Report released what’s sure to be a much debated article: “The 25 Best Cities to be a Sports Fan.”

“We broke each city down into eight categories: the number of teams there, the success of those teams in the past five years, how nice the stadiums are, fan passion, how good the media is, [star power], tradition, and general fan experience,” reporter Matt King wrote.

Here are the top nine cities to get you started.

1. Boston
2. Los Angeles/Anaheim
3. Philadelphia
4. Dallas
5. St. Louis
6. New York
7. Seattle
8. Pittsburgh
9. Chicago

Please visit the Bleacher Report for the rest of the list and to see if your city made the cut.

(photo credit: andrewmalone via photopin cc)

The 5th Annual Lights All Night Festival just packed 40,000 citizens of EDM nation into the Kay Bailey Hutchison Convention Center in Dallas, Texas. Al Rojas, assistant director at the convention center, invited IAVM’s magazine team to attend the 2013 festival where we saw first-hand the attention placed on the safety and security of everyone involved in the event. Last year, Rojas commented that knowing a festival’s history is key to being a prepared host:

“The event staff looks at previous show reports and interviews with venue staff. The 2012 event was held at Dallas Fair Park and Daniel Huerta (IAVM member) and his staff were very helpful in the planning process. They also interview the event’s promoters to determine estimated attendance, arrival pattern of attendees, and the flow of attendees in the event. In addition, meetings with Dallas Police, Dallas Fire & Rescue, and event security were conducted.” (From the IAVM blog on 12/23/2013)

Knowing the unique dynamics of an event like an EDM festival is essential and results in a few customized procedures. Ingress at Lights All Night seeks to ensure that every attendee is screened consistently, and includes a few unique items that cannot be brought inside the venue. The Dallas Morning News recently shared the following list of banned items from the 2014 event:

• Pacifiers
• Vapor rub
• Large chains
• Massagers
• Spiked jewelry
• Kandi masks
• Dust masks
• Totems “of any kind”
• Stickers
• Stuffed animals
• E-cigarettes
• Open packs of cigarettes
• Open packs of gum
• Unsealed cosmetics, chapstick, and eye drops
• Over the counter meds
• Perfume
• Marker pens
• Spray paint

Read more about the 2014 Lights All Night festival.

(Photo: Lights All Night 2014 / Highland Concerts)

It’s the last week of January (sorry, we mean December; we got way ahead of ourselves), and we, too, have the listicle bug. It’s that virus that infects all blogs and websites and forces them to post their top 10 stories of the year. So, instead of fighting it, we’re giving in and posting the blog posts that mattered to you. And by mattered, we mean the ones that received the most page views from Jan. 1 to Dec. 29, 2014.

1. International Stage Management Day is October 10
The day celebrates all the work that stage managers do.

2. 13 Traits of a Good Employee for Managers to Consider
Every Chipotle employee must have these characteristics before being hired. Does your venue have a similar list?

3. E-cigs, Venues, and Vaping Policies
The e-cig debate has created some great conversations about managing their use in venues.

4. Project Tango Plans to Make Your Venues More Awesome
Google’s new research project will help venues show off their potentials much more easily to clients.

5. Meet the World’s First LED Basketball Court
Nike built the court in a facility called the House of Mamba in Shanghai to help Kobe Bryant teach young basketball players his moves.

6. Ebola and the Venue Industry
IAVM is actively monitoring the impact of recent Ebola incidents.

7. Watch: Coca-Cola Excels at Improving the Guest Experience
Rival fans at San Siro Stadium in Milan were greeted with a unique vending experience that required them to send a bottle of Coca-Cola to an opposing fan.

8. Mystery Shopping at AT&T Stadium
Our mystery shopping mission was to roam the stadium and secretly observe the AT&T Stadium staff.

9. Are “Haters” Your Best Employees?
According to a new study published in Social Psychology, “haters” may be better employees because they spend time on fewer activities.

10. OK, Google Glass
The staff at the AT&T Performing Arts Center is incredibly excited to dive into the unknown world of wearable technology.

Thank you for reading, contributing to, and supporting the blog.

Jason Roberts is the founder of the Oak Cliff Transit Authority, originator of the Better Block project, co-founder of the Art Conspiracy and Bike Friendly Oak Cliff, and a former candidate for U.S. Congress. The Better Block project takes blighted blocks with vacant properties and converts them into temporary walkable districts with pop-up businesses, bike lanes, cafe seating, and landscaping. The project has now become an international movement, occurring everywhere from Melbourne, Australia, to Tehran, Iran, and has been featured in the New York Times, Dwell magazine, TED Talks, and National Public Radio. Robert’s consulting firm, Team Better Block, was showcased in the U.S. Pavilion at the 2012 Venice Biennale, and he will be one of the keynote speakers at the 2015 Performing Arts Managers Conference in San Francisco, February 15-17.

IAVM: Our members sometimes have to deal with city officials who do not share a love for the arts as much as our members do. How do you convince them to your side (i.e., how to you show them value that they will accept)?

Jason Roberts: This is a pretty common problem that we’re faced with when beginning projects. The problem I ran into early on was doing too much discussion and planning in order to get people to understand the concepts that I was trying to have implemented on a block project. In the end, we found it was best to have people experience our work, then make the judgement call on its value after it was put on the ground. Prior to that, people make assumptions or even come up with worst-case scenario on why something will or will not work. And in some instances, they may be right, but at the end of the day, people respond best to feelings and emotions, and with the arts, you have the opportunity to create things that people have to engage with and decide for themselves. We’ve had a lot of people that initially opposed ideas we came up with, but quickly changed their minds and even became strong allies once they experienced the work and saw for themselves how it brought communities together and created an environment that people loved to be around.

IAVM: What is the responsibility of city officials when it comes to projects that the public supports but that maybe they don’t?

JR: Good question. I’d say the responsibility for the staff or elected officials is ultimately to do the work that the community desires. The problem I’ve seen in my own community is city officials that have personal objections to projects and purposely work to slow or stop initiatives. Or worse, even help get them created but make them as weak as possible in order to prove a point. This is where you have to organize your community, demonstrate, and even rally a bit in order to fire up people to take part, put pressure on their elected officials, and keep pressure constantly in order to make sure your work comes to life. It can be exhausting, but I’ve found that I have to continue to come up with new and interesting ways to keep bringing people to the table, have them understand the value of our projects, and to keep being a squeaky wheel.

IAVM: How have you changed since starting Better Block as it relates to working to bring opposing groups together?

JR: Initially, we tried ways to build mass consensus in projects but quickly realized that many factors existed that created opposition to initiatives that were just human nature issues (e.g., personal objections, historic rivalries, strong egos). At some point, we had to find the common causes that everyone agreed were important (safety, well-being for children, job opportunities). From that standpoint, we could then begin crafting designs for public and private spaces based on ideas we found working around the world. With our projects, much of what gets built is new and potentially counter-intuitive to communities (taking away parking, thinning streets, etc.). Opposition is very normal when you’re introducing radical changes to a landscape. What we had to understand was, how we could communicate better that the work was temporary and that we really wanted to build things with the community to test and see if changing landscapes created improved social and economic conditions. Those early projects, we were far more direct with what we felt worked. With time, we evolved and were able to understand greater issues within communities and have the residents help craft changes that we helped guide with our work.

IAVM: What are two takeaways that attendees of your talk can immediately use as leaders in their venues?

JR: First of all, you don’t have to be the expert when you’re getting started. I knew things were broken and didn’t necessarily know what needed to be fixed or how to repair them, but I knew we just need to begin working. From those early stakes in the ground, I was able to see how our projects effected change and study that work and improve my own understanding of how communities thrive. Second is to realize that most “leaders” don’t feel like they are truly leaders. What I found is that if you’re passionate about something, you really have all that’s necessary to become a leader. That passion is picked up by communities, and they will help you bring your ideas to life.

Registration is open for the 2015 Performing Arts Managers Conference. See you San Francisco!