As I wait for the 10 oclock showing of the new Narnia movie (how cool am I on a Friday night?), I figured I'd offer my takes on some recent musical purchases:
Byan Scary and the Shredding Tears-Flight of the Knife- This work of musical Literature is what Alexandre Dumas would write were he writing music. I think I've described Scary's live show as Genesis and Meatloaf having a piano orgy in space, and they don't disappoint on recording either. Scary takes us on an epic journey of fantasy, introducing us to characters like Susie High ("a walking imitation of the sky") and Airship Valentine ("the station master's son"). You get so caught up in the journey that you forget to question the incredible quirkiness of both the story and the music.
Atmosphere-When life gives you lemons, you paint that shit gold- This is a tough one for me. Ant's beats are so much fresher and more innovative than any previous album, yet Slug's rhymes, well, just don't have the edge they once did. I do admire him for departing from his usual tales of his own hardship and trying to tell other stories, but the truth is he's more passionate and knowledgeable about his own life, and it really shines through. What makes me keep coming back to it, though, is that every time you start to get down on Slug, he rips in with a sick line, just to remind you he's still the same rapper.
The Matches-A Band In Hope- Another tough one for me. I want to like this album so much, but it really is leaning towards mediocre. Every song has countless flashes of brilliance, but the only truly complete and solid song on the cd is "Wake the Sun" (which, by the way, is an AWESOME song). I maintain that The Matches will forever be on the forefront of punk--I've thought that since I saw them when they were 14 year olds opening for Wakefield, Zebrahead, and Reel Big Fish. And you can't deny them a place near the top of the live show ranks. But they missed just a little with this one. They'll be back.
Panic at the Disco-Pretty. Odd.- Oh, Panic, what emotions you stir in me. I want to love you and hate you at the same time, I want to stop listening to your music, but can't. It's just so. damn. catchy. The hottest thing out of Vegas since The Killers, Panic settled down from their debut on this CD to find their pop rock roots in the likes of The Beatles and Beach Boys. They said they went for a "timeless sound." Well, they got it. That's for certain. But that doesn't equal greatness. Timeless + innovative = greatness. When you define timeless, as The Beatles did, that's when you've created something great. Pretty. Odd., on the other hand, will be a good listen for a month or two--you know, til the next really catchy cd comes out.
Phantom Planet-Raise the Dead- "Holy what? You mean those guys who used to have Jason Schwartzman as a drummer and used to have the theme song to the most popular teenage tv show (The OC) are still making music?" Yep. And while they may not regain their fame from 2003-2004, they've learned to make some legitimately good music. Anyone who can get me screaming "GERONIMO!" out loud every time the chorus kicks in has done a helluva job in my mind. I can't say this is the absolute best album ever because ironically they've lost their gift with the slower songs, but it's absolutely worth your $10.
Death Cab For Cutie-Narrow Stairs- What happens when a talented set of musicians force a major label debut then take a ton of drugs to try to get back to their indie roots? The answer lies in Narrow Stairs. Of course they have their moments of brilliance--they're a very talented set of musicians--but on a whole this whole ordeal seems forced to me once again. Ben seems further separated from his lyrics, and all the rest of the band can do is layer the sounds to try to create a deeper narrative. Sorry guys, not my cup of tea.
Anti-Flag-The Bright Lights of America- Anti-flag's best effort of the past few, this still won't appeal to more than the punk fans. That being said, it is a very energetic album, and they keep that energy going for at least 3:30 in each song--which I think must be a record on punk albums. The only real reason this couldn't be huge is that singer Justin Sane's voice is an acquired taste.
Friday, May 16, 2008
Mobile Social Interaction
Three of the hottest topics these days in the tech world are Twitter, mobile social networking, and the iPhone. For those who don't know a thing about these, let me take you on a quick overview.
Twitter is a microblogging network that allows you to blog in spurts of 140 characters or less, which allows you to blog via text message on your cell phone. You can also follow your friends and "tweet" at them, thereby holding conversations via blog. The big controversy right now is whether it will make the jump from the early adopters (tech people use it so incessantly that one of the hottest areas is building applications around Twitter and Facebook feeds) to the mainstream. The issue is that to get value from it, you need a lot of your friends to use it as well. But once you're all on it, it's horrendously addictive, to a point where the tech world has a crisis every time the servers go down (which is too often).
Mobile social networking is the movement to add physical location relevance to the functionality of social networks (Facebook, MySpace, etc--though most talk on the social network scene is separate from the big guns in traditional social networks).
The iPhone has two big things coming soon: a developers platform (allowing anyone to create their own applications for the iPhone) was recently released, and those programs will be released soon; and there are loads of rumors about a 3G version (meaning faster data transfer for internet, plus potentially really good GPS) of the iPhone being released within a month, potentially with a price drop to $199.
Up til now, though, these conversations have been largely separate from one another. There are exceptions--TechCrunch wishes there were an iPhone-only social network, Twitter essentially acts as a stripped down mobile social network--but essentially these topics are discussed in their own realms. I take issue with that.
If I went into all the possible tie-ins and reasons, I'd be writing pages upon pages. Instead, let me posit my idea of a "killer app."
Picture an iPhone/mobile application that keeps track of where you are and adjusts accordingly. You can see where friends are and message them directly, or you can "tweet" (to borrow the Twitter term) from/about where you are. When you tweet, your message gets geotagged. All the public messages from that immediate area (adjustable on preference) would be accessible to anyone in that immediate area or to anyone searching for that area (thinking they might go there). Think of it as dynamic geospecific message boards.
If that doesn't immediately make sense, consider how Twitter first became popular: South By Southwest. People twittered about where the hot parties and shows were, other people picked up on those tweets and showed up to join the fun. Now translate that to everywhere.
You've got a few minutes away from a conference in another city and aren't quite sure what to do. Whip out your iPhone, launch the program, see what others in the area are up to, see if any friends (or friends of friends) are around, get geotagged Yelp reviews, etc. In the most active areas, you could even post a sort of "help me" question and anyone within your range could see any help out. You could also find a way to reward folks who were willing to receive and respond to TXT messages when those "help me" messages popped up near them.
There are, of course, also tie ins to media, being able to tweet photos and videos from anywhere (I would think someone will be making an app that lets you Twitter and automatically upload any attached video or photos to YouTube/Flickr). Fuzz just came out with a Twitter-like mashup with Seeqpod and Skreemr called "Blip" that lets you attach streaming audio to your tweets (follow me here: http://www.fuzz.com/blip/user/tygergolf), and I can only imagine that more will follow.
Personally, I struggle with Twitter simply because so few people I know are on it (if you are, hit me up at http://twitter.com/tygergolf). I think the way to bridge that gap is to build utility around it that makes it useful both to those who don't use it, and to those who are interested in using it, but don't have friends on it. The geotagging ability of the iPhone makes that possible, and can essentially turn it into a social network. I'm not the only one who sees this, but I think there are a number of ways to go about all this integration, and there will be a long tail with this sort of application if they are open enough.
Twitter is a microblogging network that allows you to blog in spurts of 140 characters or less, which allows you to blog via text message on your cell phone. You can also follow your friends and "tweet" at them, thereby holding conversations via blog. The big controversy right now is whether it will make the jump from the early adopters (tech people use it so incessantly that one of the hottest areas is building applications around Twitter and Facebook feeds) to the mainstream. The issue is that to get value from it, you need a lot of your friends to use it as well. But once you're all on it, it's horrendously addictive, to a point where the tech world has a crisis every time the servers go down (which is too often).
Mobile social networking is the movement to add physical location relevance to the functionality of social networks (Facebook, MySpace, etc--though most talk on the social network scene is separate from the big guns in traditional social networks).
The iPhone has two big things coming soon: a developers platform (allowing anyone to create their own applications for the iPhone) was recently released, and those programs will be released soon; and there are loads of rumors about a 3G version (meaning faster data transfer for internet, plus potentially really good GPS) of the iPhone being released within a month, potentially with a price drop to $199.
Up til now, though, these conversations have been largely separate from one another. There are exceptions--TechCrunch wishes there were an iPhone-only social network, Twitter essentially acts as a stripped down mobile social network--but essentially these topics are discussed in their own realms. I take issue with that.
If I went into all the possible tie-ins and reasons, I'd be writing pages upon pages. Instead, let me posit my idea of a "killer app."
Picture an iPhone/mobile application that keeps track of where you are and adjusts accordingly. You can see where friends are and message them directly, or you can "tweet" (to borrow the Twitter term) from/about where you are. When you tweet, your message gets geotagged. All the public messages from that immediate area (adjustable on preference) would be accessible to anyone in that immediate area or to anyone searching for that area (thinking they might go there). Think of it as dynamic geospecific message boards.
If that doesn't immediately make sense, consider how Twitter first became popular: South By Southwest. People twittered about where the hot parties and shows were, other people picked up on those tweets and showed up to join the fun. Now translate that to everywhere.
You've got a few minutes away from a conference in another city and aren't quite sure what to do. Whip out your iPhone, launch the program, see what others in the area are up to, see if any friends (or friends of friends) are around, get geotagged Yelp reviews, etc. In the most active areas, you could even post a sort of "help me" question and anyone within your range could see any help out. You could also find a way to reward folks who were willing to receive and respond to TXT messages when those "help me" messages popped up near them.
There are, of course, also tie ins to media, being able to tweet photos and videos from anywhere (I would think someone will be making an app that lets you Twitter and automatically upload any attached video or photos to YouTube/Flickr). Fuzz just came out with a Twitter-like mashup with Seeqpod and Skreemr called "Blip" that lets you attach streaming audio to your tweets (follow me here: http://www.fuzz.com/blip/user/tygergolf), and I can only imagine that more will follow.
Personally, I struggle with Twitter simply because so few people I know are on it (if you are, hit me up at http://twitter.com/tygergolf). I think the way to bridge that gap is to build utility around it that makes it useful both to those who don't use it, and to those who are interested in using it, but don't have friends on it. The geotagging ability of the iPhone makes that possible, and can essentially turn it into a social network. I'm not the only one who sees this, but I think there are a number of ways to go about all this integration, and there will be a long tail with this sort of application if they are open enough.
Monday, May 12, 2008
Bands vs Fans--Who's responsible for spreading the word?
The following was an e-mail I sent to my friend Adam a week or two back, so excuse any typos:
I was thinking yesterday, the niche of folks who are active in pushing music to others is pretty small, but they're pretty much the only ones who are truly engaged with the music. The average music listener might buy a cd, or might get something from a friend, and will just throw it on the iPod and be done with it. They don't check MySpace, iLike, etc, they don't generally buy merch, they go to concerts when their friends go or when it's one of their top 5 favorite artists. Is there any way to engage those folks more? Or are they a lost cause as they are just not predisposed to get more involved with the music they listen to?
If we count them as a lost cause, how do bands best use their fan support to grow? There used to be a whole market of folks to help manage street teams and such. Now everyone just uses MySpace (one such person came up to my friends in scenes from a movie at warped tour this year, as soon as he left they threw his card in the trash saying "unless your name is MySpace, you're worthless to us"). But let's face it--as much as bands are businesses, and as well as bands generally know their audience, precious few are truly marketing geniuses themselves. That opens up a new market of providing marketing tools to the bands (I know you know all this, I’m just thinking out loud). They have tens, hundreds, thousands of folks who would happily perform easy tasks for them, particularly if those tasks are fun. In the traditional method, fans get rewarded with tickets or t-shirts for passing out flyers, emailing the most people, etc. those kinds of rewards are great and appreciated, but they aren't a constant. Bands need their fans to CONSTANTLY be pushing the marketing for them. Thus, the fans can't always be physically rewarded. Instead they either need to have fun in the process or feel good at the end--or better yet, have it be so mindless that they don't even have to think about it.
Putting a band in your favorites on Facebook or MySpace rarely does any real good. The very very very few people who notice it generally already know the band. There really needs to be a PUSH of information (or whatever it is) for any promotion to have an effect.
Speaking from my own experience, my pushing happens a few ways. First off, I RARELY push music to people who I’m not at least 70% sure will take the time to listen and will enjoy it. When I do push music, it generally happens in one of three forms: cd, imeem, blog. For cds, I send out mixes to about 10 people every month or so (it started with my college roommates and has grown a bit as others have asked to join). I plan the cds as though I were making a mix tape for a girl in middle school (while I feel I can push my friends a little musically, I know what they like and tend to play to that), and even design cover art for them. Imeem I use for only a couple friends (I think I only have one or two on there). If I hear a song I like on my iTunes or on some band's MySpace page, I go to imeem, do a search, click the song, and send it along. That is the only thing I use imeem for. Since the usability design is so bad (almost has to be as they need to serve a whole lot of ads to make money), I don't find value in any other site functionality at this point. Finally, if I see a particularly good concert, I’ll blog about it. Each story on my blog averages about 20-25 reads, and only a few people click the links to listen to tracks (they more readily watch embedded videos, but even then it's maybe 20% of readers).
all this results in my pushing of music more than once a year to maybe 20 unique people, and probably 200 unique tracks end up in peoples' iTunes as a result. knowing my friends, I probably influence about 2 cd purchases a year--they already have the songs they like and don't often feel the need to explore a band further ("if they're really that good, Ty will send me another cd with another track or two from them"). Case-in-point: I got my college roommates obsessed with Kaddisfly. Not an easy task, considering one's favorite music is jazz, one's is rap, and the third is top 40 through and through. But they now LOVE Kaddisfly. Yet I’m the only one who owns a cd or t-shirt or has been to a concert. How do I make their love translate to revenue for Kaddisfly?
And there's the big key: sharing is all well and good, but how much sharing has to happen before the band can actually make money off of it? the process needs to be refined on both ends--fans need easier, more fun ways to spread their favorite music (and perhaps a better sense of who might be open to listening to it?), and the people they spread it to need a fun, easy, relatively inexpensive (at best, free--work on that) way to generate revenue for the bands.
Part of what I think might help this is if bands truly take it upon themselves to build their brand beyond the music. I used to blog a bunch about the need to think of a band as a small startup business, and I truly believe that. Of course, in both Seth Godin's (marketing guru) concept of a "Purple Cow" is incredibly relevant--if you have a product that is truly "remarkable" (his term), it's infinitely easier to market. remarkable doesn't just mean unique or fascinating, because different is not always good or pleasing to the masses; instead, it means something that is innovative and interesting, but is generally relatable to things we already are familiar with (why Panic(!) at the Disco's first cd got so huge--it was new instrumentation of very traditional pop punk music, so people thought it was new and different but were still universally comfortable with its conventions).
Regardless of how "remarkable" a band is, though, they can always do more to build their brand. Merch is one extension, and touring is one outlet/marketing tool, but there has to be more. Videos, blogs, hotlines, etc help, but can also be overdone--fans want to feel a like a part of the music and the band, but there also has to be some allure left. It’s like if a company was so into creating a "team" environment that they completely do away with hierarchy and put the management in the same cubicle as the entry level folks--teams are good, but they also need leaders who garner the respect of their peers partially by having closed-doors meetings and such. It’s a fine line between encouraging fan involvement and pandering to them. Ultimately, the best thing to have happen is to have the fans work with each other in a sort of community setting that you can oversee and occasionally communicate with to give some direction and encouragement. That being said, you have to make sure the conversation in the community is constant. If you think of it as an internet message board, if people run out of things to talk about related to your band, they'll stop coming to the site, and it happens as a snowball effect. If they stop coming to the site, reengaging each of them is infinitely difficult, and the longer you wait, the more folks you'll have to try to reclaim. Lil Wayne is a decent example of keeping fans engaged--he keeps releasing songs on MySpace rather than waiting every 2 years to do a cd. He doesn't have to do much in the way of talking to fans or anything really besides constantly providing the content for them to enjoy and buzz about.
The traditional thinking is that the music is the product. Now, it's sort of a product (people still buy it, but iTunes overtaking Wal-mart as top music reseller is evidence that people are more comfortable with digital music, and digital music has a marginal cost of zero, thus market forces will push price towards zero). In the future, it may only be a tool. Google started as a search engine. Now their search engine is a tool for selling ads, and they have a plethora of other free services that would traditionally have been considered products but are really just tools for building a brand and generating revenue through other areas. Can a band mirror that? I think so. They just need the tools to do so.
I was thinking yesterday, the niche of folks who are active in pushing music to others is pretty small, but they're pretty much the only ones who are truly engaged with the music. The average music listener might buy a cd, or might get something from a friend, and will just throw it on the iPod and be done with it. They don't check MySpace, iLike, etc, they don't generally buy merch, they go to concerts when their friends go or when it's one of their top 5 favorite artists. Is there any way to engage those folks more? Or are they a lost cause as they are just not predisposed to get more involved with the music they listen to?
If we count them as a lost cause, how do bands best use their fan support to grow? There used to be a whole market of folks to help manage street teams and such. Now everyone just uses MySpace (one such person came up to my friends in scenes from a movie at warped tour this year, as soon as he left they threw his card in the trash saying "unless your name is MySpace, you're worthless to us"). But let's face it--as much as bands are businesses, and as well as bands generally know their audience, precious few are truly marketing geniuses themselves. That opens up a new market of providing marketing tools to the bands (I know you know all this, I’m just thinking out loud). They have tens, hundreds, thousands of folks who would happily perform easy tasks for them, particularly if those tasks are fun. In the traditional method, fans get rewarded with tickets or t-shirts for passing out flyers, emailing the most people, etc. those kinds of rewards are great and appreciated, but they aren't a constant. Bands need their fans to CONSTANTLY be pushing the marketing for them. Thus, the fans can't always be physically rewarded. Instead they either need to have fun in the process or feel good at the end--or better yet, have it be so mindless that they don't even have to think about it.
Putting a band in your favorites on Facebook or MySpace rarely does any real good. The very very very few people who notice it generally already know the band. There really needs to be a PUSH of information (or whatever it is) for any promotion to have an effect.
Speaking from my own experience, my pushing happens a few ways. First off, I RARELY push music to people who I’m not at least 70% sure will take the time to listen and will enjoy it. When I do push music, it generally happens in one of three forms: cd, imeem, blog. For cds, I send out mixes to about 10 people every month or so (it started with my college roommates and has grown a bit as others have asked to join). I plan the cds as though I were making a mix tape for a girl in middle school (while I feel I can push my friends a little musically, I know what they like and tend to play to that), and even design cover art for them. Imeem I use for only a couple friends (I think I only have one or two on there). If I hear a song I like on my iTunes or on some band's MySpace page, I go to imeem, do a search, click the song, and send it along. That is the only thing I use imeem for. Since the usability design is so bad (almost has to be as they need to serve a whole lot of ads to make money), I don't find value in any other site functionality at this point. Finally, if I see a particularly good concert, I’ll blog about it. Each story on my blog averages about 20-25 reads, and only a few people click the links to listen to tracks (they more readily watch embedded videos, but even then it's maybe 20% of readers).
all this results in my pushing of music more than once a year to maybe 20 unique people, and probably 200 unique tracks end up in peoples' iTunes as a result. knowing my friends, I probably influence about 2 cd purchases a year--they already have the songs they like and don't often feel the need to explore a band further ("if they're really that good, Ty will send me another cd with another track or two from them"). Case-in-point: I got my college roommates obsessed with Kaddisfly. Not an easy task, considering one's favorite music is jazz, one's is rap, and the third is top 40 through and through. But they now LOVE Kaddisfly. Yet I’m the only one who owns a cd or t-shirt or has been to a concert. How do I make their love translate to revenue for Kaddisfly?
And there's the big key: sharing is all well and good, but how much sharing has to happen before the band can actually make money off of it? the process needs to be refined on both ends--fans need easier, more fun ways to spread their favorite music (and perhaps a better sense of who might be open to listening to it?), and the people they spread it to need a fun, easy, relatively inexpensive (at best, free--work on that) way to generate revenue for the bands.
Part of what I think might help this is if bands truly take it upon themselves to build their brand beyond the music. I used to blog a bunch about the need to think of a band as a small startup business, and I truly believe that. Of course, in both Seth Godin's (marketing guru) concept of a "Purple Cow" is incredibly relevant--if you have a product that is truly "remarkable" (his term), it's infinitely easier to market. remarkable doesn't just mean unique or fascinating, because different is not always good or pleasing to the masses; instead, it means something that is innovative and interesting, but is generally relatable to things we already are familiar with (why Panic(!) at the Disco's first cd got so huge--it was new instrumentation of very traditional pop punk music, so people thought it was new and different but were still universally comfortable with its conventions).
Regardless of how "remarkable" a band is, though, they can always do more to build their brand. Merch is one extension, and touring is one outlet/marketing tool, but there has to be more. Videos, blogs, hotlines, etc help, but can also be overdone--fans want to feel a like a part of the music and the band, but there also has to be some allure left. It’s like if a company was so into creating a "team" environment that they completely do away with hierarchy and put the management in the same cubicle as the entry level folks--teams are good, but they also need leaders who garner the respect of their peers partially by having closed-doors meetings and such. It’s a fine line between encouraging fan involvement and pandering to them. Ultimately, the best thing to have happen is to have the fans work with each other in a sort of community setting that you can oversee and occasionally communicate with to give some direction and encouragement. That being said, you have to make sure the conversation in the community is constant. If you think of it as an internet message board, if people run out of things to talk about related to your band, they'll stop coming to the site, and it happens as a snowball effect. If they stop coming to the site, reengaging each of them is infinitely difficult, and the longer you wait, the more folks you'll have to try to reclaim. Lil Wayne is a decent example of keeping fans engaged--he keeps releasing songs on MySpace rather than waiting every 2 years to do a cd. He doesn't have to do much in the way of talking to fans or anything really besides constantly providing the content for them to enjoy and buzz about.
The traditional thinking is that the music is the product. Now, it's sort of a product (people still buy it, but iTunes overtaking Wal-mart as top music reseller is evidence that people are more comfortable with digital music, and digital music has a marginal cost of zero, thus market forces will push price towards zero). In the future, it may only be a tool. Google started as a search engine. Now their search engine is a tool for selling ads, and they have a plethora of other free services that would traditionally have been considered products but are really just tools for building a brand and generating revenue through other areas. Can a band mirror that? I think so. They just need the tools to do so.
Friday, April 11, 2008
Can Mr. Smith Get To Washington Anymore? If the kids have anything to say about it, yes.
Last night I went to an event put on by Democracy Matters, a student group dedicated to clean elections, at SMU. The event consisted of a documentary showing and some talkback with the subject of the documentary. Figuring I could use an education, and a meal, I went for the free JimmyJohns at 7 and stayed for the conversation til after midnight.
The subject of the movie, Can Mr. Smith Get To Washington Anymore?, is a guy by the name of Jeff Smith, who ran for the seat of retiring Missouri US Representative Dick Gephardt. Jeff was 29 at the time, and teaching political science classes as an adjunct professor at a couple universities in St. Louis. Seeing the opportunity to make a lasting impact and maintain the everyman image of the soon-to-be-vacated seat, Jeff decided to give the race everything he had.
He gathered a team of loyal, passionate, but extremely young and inexperienced folks to help him run his campaign. Together they beat down doors all over St. Louis and placed hundreds of thousands of phone calls in the hopes of gaining support. Nobody gave him a chance. The top candidate in the race had a last name synonymous with politics in St. Louis. In an early name recognition poll, 99% of voters had heard of his opponent, 3% claimed to have heard of him (though his campaign manager says 2 of those percentage points were people who thought they knew a Jeff Smith from somewhere).
In the end, Jeff raised more money than his rival (even with his opponent's mother being a US Senator with an impressive Rolodex), had far more volunteers working on his campaign, and darn near won--in fact, he won most of the key districts, but his opponent won the overall vote count.
Saddened, but not discouraged, Jeff ran a very successful (and even bigger) campaign to become a state Senator in Missouri based on the same principles his youthful team had run his previous campaign. He spoke to the difficulties of running a campaign in which you want to be beating down doors and meeting people in your district, but need to spend 6-7 hours a day calling people for campaign donations and support (less personal, but far more efficient). His favorite part of the campaigns were the coffees they had supporters put on--invite 15 of your friends over and Jeff will come talk issues with you for an hour or two. That or playing one-on-one basketball with inner city kids, saying if they won he'd give them $5 and if he won they had to pass out a few fliers in their neighborhood (though he found the word spread faster through their friends who shouted from every street corner than a short white guy had just beaten their friend).
A true grassroots campaigner, I gained a lot of respect for Jeff. Speaking with him for many hours after the event, I gained much more respect for him. He is very well read, has a great perspective on life, and genuinely enjoys people. He was horribly tired after filibustering for 5 hours that day and dealing with American Airlines flight issues, but he still really drove the conversation with the group of us who took him to Cafe Brazil.
I think the most impressive thing about Jeff and his campaign, though, was his willingness to take on unqualified, but very passionate youth to drive his campaign. While by the end his volunteer corps spanned all generations, few of the core group had even graduated college yet. The field manager even lied to the people he was managing, telling them he was 23 so that he would be perceived as older than the volunteers he was managing (he was actually 20 and admitted it on election day).
For their part, the kids proved him right--the learn-by-doing method triumphed once again, as the lack of "knowledge" freed them to be innovative and idealistic (they insisted on running a campaign free of slander). Additionally, because of their youth, they had the time and mind share to dedicate themselves entirely to the campaign--sleep seemed a rarity, and few had time for anything other than the campaign, yet they all stayed positive throughout. Many of them were even high schoolers who couldn't vote, but dedicated their summer and weekends to helping Jeff win.
Certainly cases can be made that the youth of today are impatient, self-interested, demanding, and don't have the encyclopedic knowledge of some of their predecessors, but I think Jeff Smith's campaign staff proved that we may just be a new kind of smart. We can retrieve information instantaneously and process new skills and ideas on the fly, rather than needing to have deep roots and work with the concepts for long periods of time. It's the same philosophy that my favorite billionaire Richard Branson employs with each new Virgin brand--a fresh look at stagnant industries can be best if taken by an outsider. If you are intelligent and dedicate yourself to a new challenge, the fact that you have little no experience in that specific field is irrelevant, or may even be a boon.
It may take a long time for the jobs of today to transform to suit these new kinds of brains, as it continues to take a while to incorporate the technology these brains rely on, but I encourage employers to allow for the possibility that previous skills might not necessarily be the biggest key indicator in what kind of a job someone will do for you. A few fresh brains who really understand people, like Jeff, have already discovered how to adapt. Will you?
Monday, March 17, 2008
South By Southwest
After a rough go of it at South By So What (where the most popular band involved a teenager in a pink wig and drag singing lude lyrics over electronic beats) in Plano on Friday, I made the trek to Austin Saturday for my first go at South By Southwest.
I decided to wear a shirt asking people to come talk to me about what they wish the internet would do for their musical experience. I couldn't find iron-on letters at Target, so I figured the next best thing would be to get some nametags and write my message on those. I wound up drawing a lot of attention, but unfortunately no one actually talked to me about my message--they were all just interested in the design of the labels themselves. I must've had at least 25 strangers wanting to take pictures of me. Weird.
I got into the Habana backyard (where Kaddisfly was playing) a little after 7 and hung with the guys from Kaddisfly for a while before heading to Esther's Follies for Bryan Scary and the Shredding Tears. The venue appeared to be a cheap dinner-and-a-show joint frequented by local magicians and the like. Thirty to forty people watched (half seated, half standing) as Scary and his band rolled through a series of operatic rock voyages through space (replete with props) that scream of Meatloaf and Genesis influences. A mangy Scary alternated between beating on his keyboard and falling all over the stage, acting and reacting to his own lyrics. It was certainly more of a show than any magician I've ever seen.
From there I sprinted back to see Kaddisfly. Excited to play a 45 minute set after their 20 minute tease at South By So What, they ripped into a new jam to open the set. Unfortunately, Kile's bass went out before they even got through the first song, and the rest of the show was delayed for a few minutes. Chris tried to pass the time by improvising on the keyboards and singing, but he ran out of material after a couple minutes. Finally, everything was fixed and the show went on without a hitch. After rolling through "Empire," they played a new track that the audience (not knowing who this band was) really dug. The band played their usual energetic live show (at one point Chris took off his shoes and started beating on the cymbals), showcasing their talents beautifully, and closing with an extended rendition of "Snowflakes."
Knowing the band would need a few minutes to pack up and load out before I could chat with them, I snuck off to see Oh No! Oh My! Being Austin locals, I expected a slightly bigger turnout than they had, but they packed over a hundred folks into the top floor of Buffalo Billiards. In sharp contrast to the intensity of the first two shows, Oh No! Oh My! played largely feel-good, poppy indie rock with funky rhythms and beautiful harmonies. They closed with a new song that was so good it completely soothed the complaints of some vocal fans screaming for their favorite older song.
I tried to get back into Kaddisfly's venue, but it was popular enough by that point that they were only accepting badges and wristbands. I called Aaron from Kaddisfly, who was about to sleep in the van, and realized I probably wasn't going to get to hang with them as much as I had hoped, so I should go elsewhere. Right at that point, I got a txt from Atom from Feable Weiner telling me to come hang out. We met up at Shakespeare's for You, Me, and Everyone We Know, where he introduced me to the founders of Echospin (which has YMaEWK's label, Drive-Thru Records, as a client). When the band's microphones all went out before even the end of the first song, Atom ditched for PureVolume Ranch, and after talking to the Echospin guys, I followed suit.
It turned out PureVolume Ranch was a private artists' party. Luckily, Atom sweet-talked the security guy and got me in. It was really great to see Atom again (first time in 3 years I think...way too long). We nerded out for a few hours, talking about the internet and the state of the music industry, and the future for it all. He revealed struggles he's had trying to find the right record or distribution deal for the new FW record he's been sitting on for nearly two years (it's extra-complicated because they've topped out the charts in the UK, but haven't had a whole ton of commercial success on this side of the pond (yet)). We met a few other interesting folks at the party, but generally just talked, even all the way through Limbeck's raucous set. He and his girlfriend were even gracious enough to let me crash on her couch.
All in all, I could say that I was disappointed in not seeing more music, but the truth is it cost me $32 to see four truly outstanding shows in near-perfect settings, and I met some good people and got to catch up with old friends. Not too shabby. Maybe someday I'll get to go for more than one day...
I decided to wear a shirt asking people to come talk to me about what they wish the internet would do for their musical experience. I couldn't find iron-on letters at Target, so I figured the next best thing would be to get some nametags and write my message on those. I wound up drawing a lot of attention, but unfortunately no one actually talked to me about my message--they were all just interested in the design of the labels themselves. I must've had at least 25 strangers wanting to take pictures of me. Weird.
I got into the Habana backyard (where Kaddisfly was playing) a little after 7 and hung with the guys from Kaddisfly for a while before heading to Esther's Follies for Bryan Scary and the Shredding Tears. The venue appeared to be a cheap dinner-and-a-show joint frequented by local magicians and the like. Thirty to forty people watched (half seated, half standing) as Scary and his band rolled through a series of operatic rock voyages through space (replete with props) that scream of Meatloaf and Genesis influences. A mangy Scary alternated between beating on his keyboard and falling all over the stage, acting and reacting to his own lyrics. It was certainly more of a show than any magician I've ever seen.
From there I sprinted back to see Kaddisfly. Excited to play a 45 minute set after their 20 minute tease at South By So What, they ripped into a new jam to open the set. Unfortunately, Kile's bass went out before they even got through the first song, and the rest of the show was delayed for a few minutes. Chris tried to pass the time by improvising on the keyboards and singing, but he ran out of material after a couple minutes. Finally, everything was fixed and the show went on without a hitch. After rolling through "Empire," they played a new track that the audience (not knowing who this band was) really dug. The band played their usual energetic live show (at one point Chris took off his shoes and started beating on the cymbals), showcasing their talents beautifully, and closing with an extended rendition of "Snowflakes."
Knowing the band would need a few minutes to pack up and load out before I could chat with them, I snuck off to see Oh No! Oh My! Being Austin locals, I expected a slightly bigger turnout than they had, but they packed over a hundred folks into the top floor of Buffalo Billiards. In sharp contrast to the intensity of the first two shows, Oh No! Oh My! played largely feel-good, poppy indie rock with funky rhythms and beautiful harmonies. They closed with a new song that was so good it completely soothed the complaints of some vocal fans screaming for their favorite older song.
I tried to get back into Kaddisfly's venue, but it was popular enough by that point that they were only accepting badges and wristbands. I called Aaron from Kaddisfly, who was about to sleep in the van, and realized I probably wasn't going to get to hang with them as much as I had hoped, so I should go elsewhere. Right at that point, I got a txt from Atom from Feable Weiner telling me to come hang out. We met up at Shakespeare's for You, Me, and Everyone We Know, where he introduced me to the founders of Echospin (which has YMaEWK's label, Drive-Thru Records, as a client). When the band's microphones all went out before even the end of the first song, Atom ditched for PureVolume Ranch, and after talking to the Echospin guys, I followed suit.
It turned out PureVolume Ranch was a private artists' party. Luckily, Atom sweet-talked the security guy and got me in. It was really great to see Atom again (first time in 3 years I think...way too long). We nerded out for a few hours, talking about the internet and the state of the music industry, and the future for it all. He revealed struggles he's had trying to find the right record or distribution deal for the new FW record he's been sitting on for nearly two years (it's extra-complicated because they've topped out the charts in the UK, but haven't had a whole ton of commercial success on this side of the pond (yet)). We met a few other interesting folks at the party, but generally just talked, even all the way through Limbeck's raucous set. He and his girlfriend were even gracious enough to let me crash on her couch.
All in all, I could say that I was disappointed in not seeing more music, but the truth is it cost me $32 to see four truly outstanding shows in near-perfect settings, and I met some good people and got to catch up with old friends. Not too shabby. Maybe someday I'll get to go for more than one day...
Wednesday, March 12, 2008
Huge Tool: The LinkedIn Answer
Last Tuesday I was at a They Might Be Giants concert in Dallas, and amidst the usual witty banter between the Johns, John Flansburgh asked the audience “So do you think we should get on this Facebook thing?” There were some strong boos and some strong yeas, but to my surprise the majority of the crowd remained silent, or merely chuckling at the question itself.
The truth is, Facebook isn’t something people associate with music (though Facebook is trying to change that with their partnership with iTunes). I guarantee there were multiple people in the audience turning to their friends and whispering “Isn’t that what MySpace is for?” Just like it might be weird to get a Facebook Friend request after taking a business meeting with someone, but it might be appropriate on LinkedIn. Each site is, when all the initial excitement wears off, a tool for a specific purpose.
MySpace is for entertainment. It allows full creativity in making your profile as ugly as you dare, and is a hub for up-and-coming musical and comedy acts to share their material and plug themselves. Gone are the days of promoters and street team managers—bands manage all that by messaging their MySpace “friends.” It used to also be for people, but that was only when people on the internet were a form of entertainment, rather than an extension of real life.
Now Facebook is for people. People being the majority of people who don’t go to the internet looking for new relationships necessarily, but just want to keep track of what their real life friends are up to. Therein lies the beauty of the Social Graph—Facebook is a tool for keeping track of real life friends. Facebook has thus focused on communication and photos.
LinkedIn has survived in the face of possibly the worst design in internet history (recently upgraded to workable) because ultimately it was a very good tool for keeping track of business contacts (it’s syncing to Outlook was a fan favorite). In fact, one could argue that the poor design and difficulty in navigation may have been something of a comfort to business people who often see computers that way in the first place. If Facebook or MySpace (or Google's Orkut) buys LinkedIn and tries to integrate it, they will need to focus on the business-specific aspects of the site and be sure not to alienate long-time users by taking the focus away from that functionality.
Look at some of the other big guns: Google’s homepage is famously simple, focusing entirely on its search tool; Craigslist does nothing but provide a tool for online classifieds; eBay went through a craze, but now gets most of its traffic from stores and most of its revenues from PayPal (a smart pickup when they were on top of the world), both tools for facilitating ecommerce between existing merchants and everyday consumers; YouTube won in video not because it was the best in a lot of ways, but because it was the easiest tool to share videos with friends.
In the end, every truly successful website will boil down to being a tool—the others will have their fads, but will die off relatively quickly if they don’t evolve into valuable tools. While we have a fascination with this internet thing as though it were in an infomercial on tv, in the long run it’s going to boil down to a new set of tools for humans to get around their everyday lives. But perhaps by then we’ll be entertaining ourselves by taking family vacations to Mars.
The truth is, Facebook isn’t something people associate with music (though Facebook is trying to change that with their partnership with iTunes). I guarantee there were multiple people in the audience turning to their friends and whispering “Isn’t that what MySpace is for?” Just like it might be weird to get a Facebook Friend request after taking a business meeting with someone, but it might be appropriate on LinkedIn. Each site is, when all the initial excitement wears off, a tool for a specific purpose.
MySpace is for entertainment. It allows full creativity in making your profile as ugly as you dare, and is a hub for up-and-coming musical and comedy acts to share their material and plug themselves. Gone are the days of promoters and street team managers—bands manage all that by messaging their MySpace “friends.” It used to also be for people, but that was only when people on the internet were a form of entertainment, rather than an extension of real life.
Now Facebook is for people. People being the majority of people who don’t go to the internet looking for new relationships necessarily, but just want to keep track of what their real life friends are up to. Therein lies the beauty of the Social Graph—Facebook is a tool for keeping track of real life friends. Facebook has thus focused on communication and photos.
LinkedIn has survived in the face of possibly the worst design in internet history (recently upgraded to workable) because ultimately it was a very good tool for keeping track of business contacts (it’s syncing to Outlook was a fan favorite). In fact, one could argue that the poor design and difficulty in navigation may have been something of a comfort to business people who often see computers that way in the first place. If Facebook or MySpace (or Google's Orkut) buys LinkedIn and tries to integrate it, they will need to focus on the business-specific aspects of the site and be sure not to alienate long-time users by taking the focus away from that functionality.
Look at some of the other big guns: Google’s homepage is famously simple, focusing entirely on its search tool; Craigslist does nothing but provide a tool for online classifieds; eBay went through a craze, but now gets most of its traffic from stores and most of its revenues from PayPal (a smart pickup when they were on top of the world), both tools for facilitating ecommerce between existing merchants and everyday consumers; YouTube won in video not because it was the best in a lot of ways, but because it was the easiest tool to share videos with friends.
In the end, every truly successful website will boil down to being a tool—the others will have their fads, but will die off relatively quickly if they don’t evolve into valuable tools. While we have a fascination with this internet thing as though it were in an infomercial on tv, in the long run it’s going to boil down to a new set of tools for humans to get around their everyday lives. But perhaps by then we’ll be entertaining ourselves by taking family vacations to Mars.
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
Buy this record (yes, record)
I liked the post office yesterday--not only did my iPod Touch finally come in, but when I got to work in the morning I found a white box containing my double-disc, limited edition vinyl from Kay Kay and His Weathered Underground. I don't own a record player, but the band doesn't let you order the album in any other form (note: it does come with a card with a code to download the mp3s online). Not too many bands could get away with only selling vinyl, but for Kay Kay it seems somehow appropriate--they're very heavily influenced by the late 60s and early 70s (though they also show many signs of their Seattle rock roots). Their MySpace page describes them as "Alternative / Lounge / Experimental" music, but I think it's best to skip the classifications and let you hear for yourself. Oh, and don't forget to pick up one of the only 1000 copies of this record available--you won't regret it:
Buy: http://www.vinylcollective.com/2008/02/06/potp-kay-kay-and-his-weathered-underground-st-dbl-lp-3-colors/
Listen:
Buy: http://www.vinylcollective.com/2008/02/06/potp-kay-kay-and-his-weathered-underground-st-dbl-lp-3-colors/
Listen:
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