I am a cultural omnivore, one whose daily commute is made possible. An iPod that contains Wagner and Mozart, pop diva Christina Aguilera, country singer Josh Turner, gangsta rap artist Kirk Franklin, concerti, symphonies and more and more. I'm a voracious reader, a reader who deals with Ian McEwan. I have read the Twilight tetralogy. And one who lives for my home theater, a home theater where I devour, and a lot of television. For me, "Law &amp; Order: SVU," and "Judge Judy" -- "The people are real, the cases are real." Now, I'm convinced a lot of you, especially my passion for "Judge Judy," and you'd fight anybody. But I'm a little less convinced that you a passion for the live performing arts that represent but jazz as well, modern dance, opera, theater, and more and more and more. Frankly, it's a sector that many of us worry is being endangered. While we initially heralded the Internet that was going to solve all our problems, we now realize that the Internet too effective in that regard. Depending on who you read, or an artist, who tries of a potential single ticket buyer, now competes with between three and 5,000. A typical citizen sees every single day. We now know, in fact, that technology is our biggest. Five years ago, Gen Xers spent 20.7 hours online and TV. Gen Yers spent even more -- 23.8 hours, the majority online. And now, a typical university-entering already having spent 20,000 hours online and an additional 10,000 hours, a stark reminder that we operate where video games now outsell. Moreover, we're afraid that technology has altered our very assumptions. Thanks to the Internet, we believe we can get anything delivered to our own doorstep. We can shop at three in the morning ordering jeans tailor-made. Expectations of personalization that the live performing arts -- which have set curtain times, set venues, attendant inconveniences, simply cannot meet. And we're all acutely aware: what's it going to mean in the future when we ask someone for a symphony, opera or ballet ticket, when that cultural consumer 24 hours a day? These are enormous questions. But as particular as they feel to us. All of us are engaged in a seismic, fundamental realignment, a realignment that is shaking the magazine industry. Saddled in the performing arts as we are, that inhibit and often prohibit, locked into large facilities, the ideal relationship most appropriate to the 19th century, and locked into a business model where we charge exorbitant prices. Many of us shudder in the wake and ask ourselves, "Are we next?" Everyone I talk to in performing arts who, in "Dreams of a Common". We are out in a country. Whatever we do together is pure invention. The maps they gave us. And for those of you who love the arts, aren't you glad you invited. Now, rather than saying that we're. I prefer to believe that we are engaged a reformation like the religious. The arts reformation, is spurred in part by technology, with, indeed, the printing press on the religious Reformation. Both reformations were predicated internal self-doubt and massive realignment. And at heart, both reformations, I think, who's entitled to practice? How are they entitled to practice? And indeed, do we need anyone in order to have an experience? Chris Anderson, editor in chief of Wired magazine, really was the first for me. He wrote a long time ago, you know, thanks to the invention of the Internet, the means of artistic production for the first time. In the 1930s, if any of you wanted you had to work for because who could afford a movie set and lighting equipment and scoring, and more? And now who in this room hard at work on her second. Similarly, the means have been democratized. Again, in the '30s, Warner Brothers. Now, go to YouTube, Facebook; you have worldwide distribution without leaving the privacy. This double impact is occasioning a massive redefinition, a time when anyone is a potential author. Frankly, what we're seeing now is a massive time, as we move from a time. But the number of arts participants, people who write poetry, who sing songs, is exploding beyond. This group, others have amateur artists doing work. You see them on YouTube, film festivals and more. They are radically expanding our notions of the potential while they are challenging and undermining the cultural autonomy. Ultimately, we now live in a world but by participation. But I want to be clear, just as the religious Reformation to the formal Church or to the priesthood, I believe that our artistic institutions. They currently are the best opportunities for artists to have lives not opulence, of dignity. And they are the places where artists who deserve and want to work will find a home. But to view them as synonymous is, by far, too shortsighted. And indeed, while we've tended to polarize, the single most exciting development has been the rise the professional artist who works, not primarily in the concert hall but most frequently around or on global warming issues, not out of economic necessity, but out of a deep, organic conviction that the work that she or he cannot be accomplished in the traditional. Today's dance world is not defined solely by the Royal Winnipeg Ballet but by Liz Lerman's Dance Exchange -- a multi-generational, whose dancers range in age from 18 to 82, and who work with genomic scientists and with nuclear physicists at CERN. Today's professional theater community is defined, not only the Shaw, but by the Cornerstone Theater, a collective of artists that after 9/11, brought together 10 different the Baha'i, the Catholic, the Muslim, the Jewish, even the Native American and the gay and lesbian, helping them create and one massive play, where they explored and found commonality as an important first step. Today's performers, like Rhodessa Jones, helping women prisoners while today's playwrights to find alternate channels to violence. And indeed, I think, the performing arts when we will be more important. You know, we've said for a long time, we are critical to the health. And absolutely -- I hope you know that every dollar spent generates five to seven dollars spent in restaurants, at the fabric stores, the piano tuner who tunes. But the arts are going to be more, especially in industries just as they have been central to the iPod which few, if any of us. Business leadership will depend the ability to listen deeply, to have empathy, to articulate change, the very capacities that the arts. Especially now, as we all must confront uninformed by social conscience; we must seize and celebrate to shape our individual and especially characters who all too often are subjected rather than digested experience. Ultimately, especially now in this world, where we live in a context of regressive in reality TV that thrives on humiliation. And in a context of analysis, where the thing we hear most repeatedly, in every train station, every bus station, "Ladies and gentlemen, please report any suspicious behavior to the authorities nearest to you." When all of these ways we are encouraged to view our fellow human being and contempt and suspicion. The arts, whatever they do, invite us to look at our fellow. God knows, if we ever needed we need it now. You know, we're bound together, not, I think, by technology, but by common cause. We work to promote, to ameliorate human suffering, to promote a more thoughtful. I salute all of you and urge you to embrace whatever your purpose may be. I promise you the hand is stretched out in friendship. And I thank you for your kindness in listening to me this afternoon. Thank you, and Godspeed.