This transformative moment of caterpillar goo as I figure out how to make my business be what I want it to be in my life, it's a time to work inwardly, to give new ideas a rich ground for germination. I'm striving quietly, with sunshine soaking into me rather than heat burning me up.

If I’m working toward change, whether that’s for individuals or organizations, that change can and should happen without me there to see it. I still struggle with what the roles of ambition and public recognition are in this mix.

The word I’m centering for 2024 is RIPPLING.

Ripples make change gently and from small beginnings. They can’t happen alone. Rippling is a collective enterprise, and it touches more than it starts with. More than its source can ever know.

I’m here for the folks who came to the field out of passion and now know that’s not a healthy basis for a working life and want better for themselves and their colleagues.

I’m for the changemakers more than the places where they make change.

The doors to the field seemed to be open in both directions this year, not just offering a one-way path out … MCN2019 felt like self-care for the maintainers of cultural sector transformation.

It was a conference where I was alternately drained by, gaining from, and giving back to a community I love. And that’s what things we love do for us. We love them when they’re messy and maddening, and they’re always there when we need them.