Let’s Welcome Building429
It’s that time again folks. Time to welcome another artist to the SkörInc family. These guys have been on the ‘interactive train’ for a while now, but I’m excited to take it to the next level with them. You’ll notice their site’s got a lot going on over there so take some time to click around and check out all the little goodies.
And here’s where you all come in. You know what to do right? Start spreading the word. Tell your friends, Tweet it, blog about it. Do anything to get as many people as we can to check out the site. Let’s give the Building429 boys a big fat SkörInc / BlogNation welcome, like only you guys can.
Be on the lookout for some really cool stuff from them and make sure to subscribe to their blog. Sound good? And while we’re here, what’s your favorite Building429 song?
Ready? Go.
Stats Suck Sunday – In Bullet Points
Well it’s late but it’s still Sunday, so here we go. Welcome to Stats Suck Sunday, where everything is random because no one’s really reading. Here we go.
- Today marks the day of the launch of the MercyMe iPhone App. It’s pretty basic but does somethings to keep everyone up to speed. We’re still working out some of the bugs but it’s cool to have it out there and running.
- There are plenty more apps where that one came from so be looking for that.
- Our hometown is currently on fire in California so be praying for all of our friends out there. From what I have heard several of them have already been evacuated.
- I slept two chunks of 3 hours last night and drove home from the bus in between. Not exactly a good night’s rest and I’m feeling it now.
- Fantasy Football starts pretty soon and my team is no good already.
- I’ve got some pretty huge meetings this week, but I’m not going to tell you about them until later. But it could be really cool.
- Date night tomorrow.
- I’m in Texas all next week. I think mostly the San Antonio area, which happens to be several miles away from anyone I know in Texas.
- Today I finally got Kristin to admit she likes a song performed by an American Idol contestant. Hey, that’s a big victory for me.
- Bouncing back and forth between this and the news websites so I think I’m gonna wrap this up.
How’s your Sunday looking?
If You Like, Then You’ll Love…
Welcome to another installment of “If You Like, Then You’ll Love“. The rules are simple. Just finish the sentence. Everyone ready?
“If you like ‘the outdoors’, you’ll love…”
Ready? Go.
Country Boys Are Going To Roll
So, today we are in Louisville, KY at Cardinal Stadium for a show. From what I can tell it’s a normal show except for one thing. Today Billy is filming the “live” stuff for the music video of his new single “That’s How Country Boys Roll”. From what I understand they are filming ‘B Roll’ stuff today and later they will do some other stuff. I’m not really sure what that means other that it’s supposed to be the “country boys” hanging out. Honestly I haven’t really heard much except that the guys have to play the song three or four times tonight to get different shots. Should be interesting to watch. And really all I have to do is stay away from the cameras right? I’ll let you know how it goes.
And while we’re talking about music videos, let’s hear it. What’s your favorite music video out there. I know most of the recent ones are pretty much trash, but remember the good ol’ days? Remember when MTV played music videos? Let’s hear it.
Ready? Go.
Influence
I’ve heard a lot of talk about ‘influence’ the last few years popping up with this whole blogging craze. You know, ‘word of mouth’ stuff, ‘cultural influence’, ‘consumer driven publicity’, all that. I’ve heard talk of movies being scared of what Twitter will do to their opening weeks if they have a few bad reviews floating around. I’ve heard of viral tactics of indie bands overshadowing popular mainstream artists. All that stuff. I’ve heard it and so have you.
So here’s what I’m wondering today. We all know about the Seth Godin’s and guys like that, but what I’m wondering what are top ten most influential bloggers you know of. And don’t give me a list of Huffington Posts or anything like that. I’m talking about real people, who actually sit in front of their computer and blog. And when they do, they influence people. I know Carlos will be on the list a hundred times so I’ll just mention him up front, but who else? Give me your top ten.
Ready? Go.
Sorry Oprah, You Lose
According to Forbes.com Chicago has been rated the ‘Most Stressful City In America’. Sort of a surprise to me, but after reading a little about it I can see it. I’ve heard so many great things about how ‘Chicago is the perfect city’ when it comes to development, and urban living and all that. Turns out, not so much. What’s really interesting to me, and much less of a surprise is that six of the top sixteen most stressful cities are in California. That’s a big number. Interesting to see Vegas so far down on the list, simply because I’m always a stress case anytime I am there. But then again Wal Mart stresses me out a little too, so I guess that makes sense.
From what I can tell the information was based on five things in bold below. Seems like a pretty good list of things to base this on.
METHODOLOGY
To find the most stressful cities we examined quality of life factors in the country’s 40 largest metropolitan statistical areas, or metros — geographic entities defined by the (OMB) for use by federal agencies in collecting, tabulating and publishing federal statistics. We looked at June 2009 unemployment figures provided by the Bureau of Labor and Statistics and cost of living figures from the Council for Community and Economic Research (C2ER). We examined median home price drops from Q1 2008 to Q1 2009 that were provided by the National Association of Realtors. Population density based on 2008 data from the U.S. Census Bureau and ESRI also factored. Last, we examined the number of sunny and partly sunny days per year, based on 2007 data from the National Environmental Satellite, Data and Information Service, as well as air quality figures, based on 2007 data from the US Environmental Protection Agency.
So what do we think? Pretty accurate list? Where’s your city rank? Glad to see Nashville way down at the bottom there.
Full Court?
About six years ago I had a group of guys that would get together every week or so and play basketball. We’d sometimes to a full court thing, sometimes half depending on the number of guys that showed up. It was never really an organized thing, but it was really fun when a bunch of guys showed up and we could make it a real game. We’d play for a few hours and then all hang out or grab dinner or something after. Like I said. That was about six years ago.
Well last night I got a text from my buddy Josh letting me know that a group of guys were getting together to play. I’ve been wanting to start playing again ever since we have moved here but haven’t found out where people were playing. So last night I decided to give it a shot.
Now it’s been literally about four years since I have even tried to play an organized game of basketball and I get there only to find out that this is full-court, five on five, real deal basketball. With guys that are used to doing this every week. And me without my oxygen tank. Two straight hours, five games, more running than I have done in years, more jumping than I have done in years, more running into sweaty men than I have done in years, and today I can barely walk.
I had a great time though and can’t wait till next week. I just hope I get the feeling back in the bottoms of my feet by then. Turns out taking six years off of doing something like that can really make it hard to get back into it.
What’s something you used to love to do, but haven’t done in years? What’s stopped you from doing it?
Dear (Christian) Music Industry (Part 11)
Dear Christian Music Industry,
It seems like I’ve been away from you for a while now. It’s not really the case, but at least I haven’t been traveling with you for about 6 months now. Do you miss me? I didn’t think so. Not that I expect for you to be paying attention, but if you’re wondering I have been traveling and working on the “Country” side of things. You know them don’t you? I’ve heard that you and them go way back. Well, if you haven’t talked to them in a while, I’ll let you know. They are doing good. Selling records, touring, same old stuff that you would expect, but you know what’s funny? I heard a conversation the other day that made me think of you, and I remembered I hadn’t written in a long time.
The conversation I overheard was a pretty simple one but it reminded me of conversations we have had. Conversations about budget. I know, I know, you’re not one to really want to bring that up are you? Here’s the problem, Christian Music Industry, we have to talk about it. Everyone does. Even your more affluent cousin Country Music Industry.
The conversation went something like this, and forgive me if I’m paraphrasing. I wasn’t really listening because there was a new episode of Cake Boss on TLC playing on the bus.
One guy: ”Man, you know what’s cool about touring in the Pop world is the budgets are so much better that it frees you up to do different things.”
Other guy: ”You’re not kidding. Country budgets aren’t even close to Pop budgets.”
I told you I missed most of it, but you get the idea. Anyway, this got me thinking. We’ve had this same conversation about the Country Music Industry haven’t we? I can hear it now. ”Man, Christian budgets aren’t even close to Country budgets.” Blah Blah. Yep, the grass is always greener right? I wonder who the “Pop” guys are wishing they were.
So here’s my deal. It’s simple. We’re all the same. We’re all wishing we had just a little more to spend on different things we wanted to do. Whether it’s touring, production, web, promotion, there’s never going to be enough. I promise. And there’s always going to be more buy then there is to spend. And here’s where we have to adjust our thinking Christian Music Industry. It doesn’t matter what you don’t have. What matters is what you’re doing with what you do have. Make it work. And I’m saying this to your cousin Country Music Industry too. There’s no reason to short sell excellence. Don’t do something crappy because you don’t have the budget. Do it right the first time and make it work for you. If its important, it’s not a question of ‘can we afford it’, it’s a question of ‘how can we afford it’. All it takes is a little work and initiative. A little creative energy. After all, it’s a job you know.
I know this letter is a little different than the others I have written you but I felt like it was something that needed to be said. Stop crying about money and make it work. You’re not the only ones out there affected by this jacked up economy, and there’s still a billion people out there willing to spend ten bucks on a record. We just need to go at things a little differently and figure out what it is that makes us succeed.
Your Friend,
Brody
Read Dear Christian Music Industry Parts 1-10
Read But It’s Still Not Happening Parts 1-4
If You Like, Then You’ll Love…
Here we go. Another installment of “If You Like, Then You’ll Love”. The rules are simple. Finish the sentence. See. I told you it was easy.
“If you like treasure hunting movies then you’ll love….”
Ready? Go.
Twitter Observations
Now, I know that everyone has their own opinions on how Twitter ‘should’ be used and I agree with the thought that it’s really best when each specific user is using it in a way that makes them more comfortable and effective. I also know that there’s certainly not a shortage of ‘articles’ written out there about the different ‘styles’ of Tweeting. This is not going to be another one of those posts. This is more of an observation over the last couple days and I thought I’d share.
As most of you know I’ve been working with Billy Currington for the past few months. Now this hasn’t been a SkörInc thing necessarily, but more of a ‘consulting / online presence management’ type of thing. You know starting him off on Twitter, making strategic web moves, gathering content, that kind of thing. Well, when I first sat down with Billy, he had 94 Twitter followers. It was a few radio stations and some fans that were paying attention. Not that big of a deal though, because he had just signed up and hadn’t even started using it. At that point we decided that we’d take the “follow everyone that follows” approach. You know, to boost the numbers. Well, we’ve been using that method for over 15,000 followers now and yesterday we decided to change that. See, Billy has figured out his Twitter experience and it doesn’t involve managing 15,000 different feeds. Makes sense right?
So yesterday, literally all day long, Billy and I were clicking the ‘unfollow’ button. Not because he doesn’t like people, but because he wants to follow the people he wants to follow. You know, like Twitter was made for. Now, one thing I did notice in the fifteen hours of ‘unfollowing’ was how much spam there was out there. I can not believe how many real estate companies, money making schemes, and porn Twitter accounts are following Billy, and in turn he was following back. Not exactly something you want on your list of “Following” right? So, in this ‘unfollowing’ process Billy has lost about 70 followers and my guess is that he will lose about 100 more. But that’s okay right? I mean who cares if @EarnMoneyFast stops following you, right?
So here’s my thought. Billy’s ‘Followers” number is dropping the more people we stop following from his account. Now, that’s less impressive when I go to the label and show them what we are doing. They see the end result. The final number, and over the last two days that number has dropped. They aren’t going to like that. But I see a number that is free from porn and spam and a more cohesive list of “Followers” wanting to connect with Billy.
So here’s my question to all you “Follow Everyone That Follows” people. How do you deal with the porn sites, the money making schemes and the businesses just looking for a massive number? Do you deal with it? Or are you just another one of those same things?
***And here’s the other thing I realized throughout this whole process. How can I confidently and morally advise a band like MercyMe to “follow everyone that’s following them”, when I know that anyone with Twitter can check out their list of “Following” and be subject to an array of adult content? Is it ministry or numbers?
Here’s what I’d advise you to do. Take a second and go browse a few of your favorite “Tweeters” Following list. Check out who they are endorsing. Who they are publicly proclaiming that it’s “okay to follow”. Who they are okay with “Following” themselves. Let me know what you come up with.***
