Enabling Creative Chaos: The Organization Behind the Burning Man Event

by Katherine K. Chen

Overview

In the summer of 2008, nearly fifty thousand people traveled to Nevada’s Black Rock Desert to participate in the countercultural arts event Burning Man. Founded on a commitment to expression and community, the annual weeklong festival presents unique challenges to its organizers. Over four years Katherine K. Chen regularly participated in organizing efforts to safely and successfully create a temporary community in the middle of the desert under the hot August sun.

Enabling Creative Chaos tracks how a small, underfunded group of organizers transformed into an unconventional corporation with a ten-million-dollar budget and two thousand volunteers. Over the years, Burning Man’s organizers have experimented with different management models; learned how to recruit, motivate, and retain volunteers; and developed strategies to handle regulatory agencies and respond to media coverage. This remarkable evolution, Chen reveals, offers important lessons for managers in any organization, particularly in uncertain times.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780226102382
Publisher:	University of Chicago Press
Publication date:	09/01/2009
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	272
Sales rank:	1,062,974
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.60(d)

About the Author

Katherine K. Chen is assistant professor of sociology at The City College of New York and the Graduate Center, City University of New York.

Table of Contents

List of Illustrations        

            Preface

            Acknowledgments       

1          Introduction: The Perils of Under- and Overorganizing  

2          Context: The Development of the Burning Man Event and Organization 

3          “Do-ocracy”: Acting on Suggestions and Criticisms      

4          “Radical Inclusion”: Attracting and Placing Members    

5          “No Spectators”: Motivating Members to Contribute    

6          “Immerse Yourself”: Managing Relations in the Pursuit of Legitimacy     

7          Conclusion: Sustaining Creative Chaos 

            Appendix 1. Ethnography and Qualitative Research      

            Appendix 2. Interview Protocols          

            Notes  

            Reference List 

            Index

Editorial Reviews

Katherine Chen immersed herself in the world of Burning Man, the fascinating community that gathers annually for a week-long arts celebration in the Nevada desert. Her marvelous portrait of this unusual collective provides a rich template for considering how organizations of all varieties strike a balance between flexibility and fairness and creativity and security. This is one of the best organizational ethnographies I've seen in many years.”

Walter W. Powell

Enabling Creative Chaos describes an organizational mutant which is part community, part business. It is the ultimate hybrid form, and Katherine Chen lays bare all of its qualities and contradictions. This is a rich qualitative case study of a phenomenon that many know, some have experienced, but few understand.”—Joseph Galaskiewicz, University of Arizona

Joseph Galaskiewicz

From open source software to the 2008 election, organizational research has not yet come to terms with the conceptual and theoretical underpinnings of these new organizational forms. Katherine Chen has succeeded in writing an engaging ethnography of Burning Man and skillfully developed its implications for organizational theory and managerial practice. Bravo.

Rakesh Khurana