Mumford And Sons – Sigh No More
Okay, it’s no surprise here that I’m massive fan of this style of music. Mumford & Sons is absolutely no exception. How epic is this song? Barry didn’t seem impressed, but that’s okay, he’s weird. Now, I’ll warn you, there is a song on here where he uses some…. aggressive language, but other than that, this album is absolutely epic.
For real, check out this album. I’m in Arkansas today… and listening to this all day.
Great Expectations
I’m a bad “meeter”. What I mean by that is that I don’t feel like I do meetings well. Which is weird because I have a lot of meetings and I’m always sitting down with people that I don’t know. But that doesn’t make me good at it. So, the other day I was thinking about the meetings that I have coming up and how I should prepare for them. I also started thinking about the expectation I have going into these meetings.
See, here’s the thing. I don’t really prepare for meetings probably the way I should and typically I only have one goal going into them. I want whoever I am meeting with to be either A.) Happy they are working with me, and thrilled about what’s to come, or B.) Encouraged by what took place in the meeting. I feel like going into meetings with that as the goal both puts me at ease with what I’m there to accomplish and also hopefully leave with the person I talked to feeling happy about our interaction.
Now, obviously, this doesn’t happen every time, but I think with this being the goal, it takes away the expectation of leaving having “sealed the deal” or anything like that. I think if I can go into a meeting looking to encourage or reenforce a positive feeling, then I’ve achieved what it is that I came there to do. And hopefully helped both that person and myself out in the process.
I know this is sort of a weird topic, but I have just been to too many meetings where if you don’t leave with a “sealed the deal” handshake, the other folks are dissatisfied and want to keep ‘selling’. And I get that to some degree. Why meet if you’re not going to accomplish anything? But here’s the thing. Just as it is with an online interaction I think it’s that way in real life too. If I’m bombarding you with ads and “buy this” text on my website, you’re not going to stick around long. Same with actual, sit down, get coffee meetings. No one wants to be blasted with sales pitch after sales pitch. They want coffee, genuine interaction, respect and (in my opinion) time to think on it.
This may not be the best approach to business meetings, but it makes me leave feeling a lot better.
Thoughts?
MYNH – Aftermath
So, I got this record from my friend Daniel and I just realized today that it hasn’t come out yet. So, while it’s Music You’ve Never Heard, it’s really Music No One Has Ever Heard. That’s alright, I’m still going to tell you about it. I was going to show you another song, but since the record isn’t out yet, I think I’ll hold off showing you that one and just showing you the video from his website.
Most of you know that I’m a sucker for simple acoustic tunes and this falls right in line with that. Aftermath is stripped down, it’s clean, but it’s got some great layers tucked in there.
You can check out more and hear more songs here. Let me know what you think.
The 3% Is Laughing At You
I’ve had more than one conversation with “non-web” people that ask me the importance of design. I’m there geeking out about how cool something looks or the little details of the way a logo looks or the way a mouse-over works, and I look up to a blank stare. Someone once told me about “The 3% Rule”. It’s the rule that in music, only 3% of people hear when a band member messes up on stage unless it’s a major screw up, where everyone notices. The 3% of people that hear it and notice that it’s wrong and can also appreciate the details of the notes that are hit perfectly. The rest…. They enjoy the show.
I’ve been told that it’s similar with web design stuff. I’ve heard that there’s really only 3-5% of people that care if the drop shadows are off, or if your artist website looks out of date. ”Most people just don’t care, and you only do because that’s what you do for a living”, they say. Fair enough. I might be looking at it through “web-nerd” glasses. Or maybe an art-director’s glasses. Who knows. Either way that might be the case. But it occurred to me yesterday, If your site is bad, it might be only 3-5% of people that notice, but those 3-5% are laughing at you.
3-5% of people think that you’re not spending enough time or effort on your web presence. 3-5% of people know that you took the easy route and didn’t care about them. The other 97% don’t care, but you’ve insulted that 3-5%.
Now, I totally understand that there’s a flip side to it as well. If your site has trees growing and leaves falling, blasts music as soon as it loads, and there are sounds of electricity in the background, but I can’t find the blog button, you may have offended the 97%… at least until they find the mute button. So I get there needs to be a balance, but I think this cartoon above nails it. Can it look good and have great content? Sure. Does it take a little effort and forethought? Yep.
So what do you think? Is the 3% Rule pretty accurate? How many of you actually pay attention to the aesthetic details of a site? Does it impress you when things “look” really good or just if you can use it?
MercyMe’s Lovewell Live
So, I’ve decided to really put some focus on photography this tour. I don’t really know what that means, but one thing I think would be cool is to actually know what I’m doing when I’m taking pictures. I’ve had all sorts of photographers ask me different things about the concert photos I take and I’m tired of telling them, “I have no idea. I just point the camera and push the button when it looks good.”. I even thought about getting some new lenses before this tour, but then realized how much they cost so I changed my mind. The cool thing is that Jim has a really nice camera and awesome lenses so he’s letting me play around.
At this point I can still only say that I pointed Jim’s camera at things and pushed the button when it looked cool, but I’m learning and I’m even going to start writing things down, like settings and F stops and all that.
One thing I’m not sure on is the editing process though. What do you guys think of these? Too “scratchy”? Is that ‘so 2009′? It was late last night when I was editing these so I’m not sure my “arty judgement” was all that great. But this morning I think they still look kinda cool. What do you think? Is a clear picture better than a “roughed up” one? I suppose I could do both.
Anyway, if you guys are cool with it, I might throw some stuff on here during the tour and see what you think. I doubt I’ll do pictures from every show on here so make sure to check out MercyMe’s page too where I’ll most likely be putting pictures up from every show. Appleton, WI is today. Let’s see what happens.
Google’s Christian Music
Yesterday I was doing some Google-ing to read what people were saying about “Christian Music”. While most of it was embarrassingly bad websites and animated gifs, there were a couple things that popped out to me and I found some great conversations going on. But that’s not what this post is about.
See up there? That Google search? I searched the words ‘Christian Music’ under the “Blogs” section of Google. Seems like a pretty broad search right? I mean, about 3,500,000 results came back. And here’s the thing. See that third thing to pop up? ChristianMusicFan.com. Seems like if I were a Christian Music Fan and decided to Google “Christian Music” and saw a link to ChristianMusicFan.com I’d be inclined to visit there. I’d assume the folks at that link would have their act together and there’s probably some great content there. I mean, you don’t search something that broad and end up at the top of Google for nothing right?
So, as a Christian Music Fan searching far and wide to connect with others just like me, I’ve searched “Christian Music” and I’ve noticed there’s a link right there at the top calling out to me, the Christian Music Fan. Then I’d click the link.
Then I’d read about how b5Media has downsized and “eliminated some of the smaller niche blogs in the network”. Third on Google’s Blog Search for “Christian Music” and it’s just not something we need to keep around. Interesting. Now, I don’t know the people over at b5Media but it seems like they’ve sort of missed the point here. And I don’t know how much traffic ChristianMusicFan.com brought in, but what I do know is that there are companies/labels/artists out there that would kill for that type of placement on Google. And b5Media decided it just wasn’t worth keeping around.
And maybe that’s the problem with the amount of content being produced online. Most of the link that I clicked searching such general subjects were sites that have either been abandoned or are so archaic that they should be re-designed or abandoned.
I guess my point in all of this, and it’s not an original idea by any means, is stressing how important it is for companies or blogs to be aware of their place on the internet. And before you go the route of b5Media and “downsize” a massive resource you have, maybe do some checking around to see the potential you’re sitting on.
Let’s do a little test. Search Google’s Blogs for your favorite hobby. If it’s fishing, camping, playing Wii, dancing, you name it. Check out what the first couple sites are that come up and see if they are doing it right. Then come back here and let us know what you come up with.
33 Miles “Today”
So, I’ve been trying to blog more about the bands that we work with over at the Skör Blog simply because I’d like for that to be the place we all discuss that stuff. However, I always feel like kind of a jerk for not posting something on here too. Not to mention, I think more of you are used to hanging out here than over there, so for the time being, I’ll have to do both.
Well, if you haven’t heard, we launched a brand new 33Miles site today. It seems everything went off without a hitch and the guys seem happy with the site, so that makes us happy. Now, I have to tell you. These are hands down, some of the nicest guys you will ever meet. I know I say that a lot in this industry, but I guess there’s just a lot of nice people. These guys are right up there. I’ve known Jason casually for a couple years now, and just met Chris the other day. Both of them are super genuine, super caring guys that love their families and love what they get to do for a living. And speaking of that. What they do for a living is release CD’s just like the one they did today. It’s on iTunes for only 9 bucks. So I suggest you head over there and pick that up.
Anyway, I’m looking forward to getting started working with these guys and really allow their personalities to come through on their site. For now, head over to 33MilesOnline.com and welcome them to the SkörInc family.
Ship
“What you do for a living is not be creative, what you do is ship.” – Seth Godin
I love having ideas. I love brainstorming. I love collaboration. And when that happens, I’m ridiculously impatient until those ideas becomes a reality. No doubt this is super annoying to the folks who actually help me implement those ideas. See, I know enough about the technical side of things to break stuff, but when the question “can we do this” pops up, I’m out of my league. And that’s pretty often.
The other day I was having a conversation about “the idea guy” and the problem with him. People have ideas every day. I have ideas every day. So do you. The kicker is getting those ideas out of your head and put into practice in a timely manner. While it’s great to have the conversation that starts with “wouldn’t it be cool?” the longer I do this stuff, the more I see how much cooler it is when that idea is shipped. It’s not enough to have the ideas.
This week I head out with MercyMe and we’ve got some cool ideas that I think will become a reality. It’s taken a little while to set up, but there’s some cool things that I think we’ll be able to pull off on the road that hasn’t been done before to my knowledge. I’m excited to see these ideas being ‘shipped’.
We’ve got another project that, what I believe, is an absolute game changer in not just the Christian Music Industry, but possibly the Entertainment Industry as a whole. I don’t know if it will work. I don’t know if we can figure it all out, and if it does, I don’t know if we can get it out there. But here’s the thing. We need to ship it. It’s not enough to come on this blog and tell you, “Hey, check it out. I got an idea.”. It’s something that we need to pull off.
And this is where my impatience comes in full force. I want to make phone calls about it. I want to blog about it. I want to not sleep until it’s a reality and a fully functional product. I want to find a big league investor. I want to ship.
Anyone else out there have either problems shipping, or having the patience to see it happen?
Jurassic Park Wisdom
“Your scientists were so preoccupied with whether or not they could, they didn’t stop to think if they should.” – Dr. Ian Malcolm
I remember seeing Jurassic Park in the theatre years ago and even then, that simple, pointed line stuck out to me. Now years and years later more often than not I find myself replaying that line over and over in my head when it comes to the web. We live in a time where nearly anything is possible online. We can not only find out where you live, but we can get an image of your house and take a look at your unkept lawn. We can communicate in more ways than ever, we can build programs that change the way money is traded and we have the ability to access things we’ve never seen before.
I touched on this a little yesterday and took a beating on Twitter because of it. No big deal. Opinions are opinions and sometimes I have different ones than others. But here’s where I’d like to go with this. It’s not an ethics thing, it’s not a financial thing or even a safety thing. It’s just a simple musicians ‘web presence’ thing.
Now, more than ever, record companies are being pounded with the newest shiny thing to advance the career of their artist. Companies are popping up everywhere saying that they can increase your Facebook following by ten-fold, companies are offering to manipulate your audience and increase your Twitter Followers, more plays on your Myspace, you name it and there’s a company out there that can offer it to you with little to no involvement on your part. And honestly a couple times a week I’m asked if SkörInc can do some of these things. And it’s at that moment I hear Mr. Jeff Goldblum’s voice repeating that line from Jurassic Park. Now obviously, if SkörInc builds some gimmick app for you, dinosaurs aren’t going to storm out of the jungle and eat you, but I think there’s some absolute value to the question, ‘Just because we can, does it mean we should?’.
“But Brody, two days ago you were talking about spaghetti and throwing it all over the place and seeing what sticks right?”
Yeah, I was talking about that. I was talking about that because that’s what I believe we are all doing as an industry. That doesn’t make it right, and it doesn’t answer the question, ‘Should we?’. I think there’s value in taking risk, but only if the risk is looked at from a perspective way beyond the possibility. Beyond the ability of ‘pulling it off’ and truly asking yourself, ‘what happens if we pull this off?’. ”What does it benefit?”
Now, I’m not going to lie. This is something I have to ask myself daily just to make sure that I’m keeping with a ‘greater purpose’ for the artists I work for. Sure we can pull off some crazy stuff. Four years ago we were broadcasting live, mulit-camera concerts online and even Ustream was telling me we were ahead of the game and pushing limits. This week alone I have heard of four different events being broadcast online. Technology moves quickly. But the point is that I wholeheartedly felt that pushing to ‘pull that off’ was important enough to take a shot and see if it would work. Turns out it’s sort of a cool thing. There’s that spaghetti again. But there was a “why” to it.
And maybe that’s where I’m going with this. What’s the ‘Why’? Sure, you might have figured out some way to quadruple your Facebook fans, but if your artist isn’t engaging, why does it matter? Just because you can manipulate the system doesn’t mean you should.
It seems that we always land back at the content of things. Content has always been and will always be king when it comes to your online presence. So if you can connect with them through Twitter or Facebook or Tumblr or Gowalla, then do it. But if the “why” behind all of it is “because we can make money”, don’t bother. In fact, in my opinion, if “to make money” is your only “why”, you’re wasting your time.
Obviously I’m a little all over the map on this one, so you can tell it’s something that I daily go back and forth with. I’d love to hear your thoughts.
