Sex, Drugs and Rock & (what's next?)

In the 50's, 60’s and early 70’s Rock & Roll would shake up the music world.  Its fervor defined the concepts of rebellion and a ‘counter-culture’ like no music genre before it.  Regardless of whatever words you used to describe it, when you saw it, heard it or experienced it, you knew it.  If you couldn't rock the stage with guitar riffs, make the women swoon, or piss parents off with your 'devil' music - hit the road jack.  This wasn't for you.

As the years progressed three curious things happened.

1. In the early 80's a new subculture was bubbling in the ghettos of New York called Hip Hop, birthing its four elements:  MCing (rapping), bombing/tagging (graffiti writing), b-boying (breakdancing) and DJing.  Hip Hop's perspective on entrepreneurship, counterculture and music has gone on to influence the world over.  It's a whole new world for business , culture and identity.

2.  A hop, skip and a jump to 1999.  For years the corporate suits were the gate keepers for the wider exposure of hip hop, rock & roll and pop (to name just a few genres).  What, where, when, why and how were orchestrated and determined soley by the major record labels.  Enter Napster - the leader of the first techno-head revolution. The ‘geekdom’ counterculture assault landed on the establishments front steps and the first hand-to-hand combat fights with the war-lords of the music industry had begun. The industry ‘virus’ known as a peer-to-peer file sharing system was released into the music world’s mainframe and the democratization of the music marketplace began its hostile takeover. 
 
3.  Around this same time a small handful of companies began flourishing. Ebay, Google, Napster and Amazon used the Internet as their weapon of choice to counter the 'establishment'.  These major companies along with numerous others evolved and popularized the now addictive, and on many levels, the now necessary online world.  These and other virtual companies would purposely or by default serve as conspiring agents alongside Napster as new online soldiers to change the battlefield/marketplace. previously ran for decades by the rules of the corporate mafias.  These four online companies were only the beginning.  The proliferation of other online businesses and internet services continues daily. 

In 2008 the marketplace is no longer under the sole dominion of the corporations.  Rock & Roll, Hip Hop and geekdom are merging into a new counterculture with the online world as its most powerful weapon. The Googles, Ebays and Facebooks of the world are rewriting the rules. The interesting thing today, though, is that the distinguishing line between the three-piece suits and the system buckers isn’t so clear anymore.  New online ventures that hacked their way  into the music ecosystem, fundamentally changing it, would be swiped up by larger conglomerates after their huge success in the market (i.e. MySpace and Youtube). Many unknowns, though, are carrying out successful day to day operations under the radar. Continuously reinventing the relationship of the triumvirate of the music labels, the market and the online world.

Other examples that the system is under hostile takeover. The 2007 June 28th Rolling Stone edition highlighted the staggering rise of online sales from 19.2 million in 2003 to 581 million in 2006. This year their January 24th edition  discussed how since 2000 more than 5000 music-industry employees have lost their jobs. A month later their February 7th issue reported that record business sales were down 36% since 2000; A continuous downward spiral over the last 7 years.  And this is only scratching the surface. 

Alternative musical artists like NIN, Smashing Pumpkins and Radiohead have left their record labels to distribute their music directly to their fans online.  Rock and Roll meets geekdom.  Musical artist Saul Williams is one of the most innovative artists on the scene today, fusing hip hop, spoken word and rock.  His latest album, The Inevitable Rise and Liberation of Niggy Tardust,  was produced by Trent Reznor of NIN and offered online either free or for $5 to its first 100,000 purchasers. 

Ladies and gentlemen the revolution will not be televised. 

Companies like AmieStreet, CD Baby, iTunes, and Pandora are among a new class of online companies.  Yet these are only a few.   So if you choose, you will determine 'what's next' in the revolution. It could be just a URL away.  These unique times are presenting opportunities to 'rock & roll' in the  market like never before.  So embrace your inner geek-rock star, and rock on baby, rock on! 

Escape from @$&hole Island!

By Leslie Phillips, 14, April, 2008

The alarm goes off.  The light switches on.  That familiar pain in your back or your head starts to throb.  It's anyone of your regular Monday through Friday mornings and you're dreading going into work.  Not because you're behind on your work.  Not because you're tired.  And not because your true passion is to be an actor, an athlete or any other dream job.

It's because of the @$&hole(s) with whom you work.  There may only be one.  There may be more.  You might even have one for a boss.  The bottom-line is that you're locked in a horrible cycle and you don't know how to get out . . .But today you're going to get a key.

It's called the "No @$&hole Rule".  Please see "The No @$&hole Rule" by Robert I. Sutton for a full tretise. But before we get into the rule let's make a business case for it.  Why is that? To prove that it costs you money.

Why do @$&holes even matter? What wrong with a little bit of stress and conflict?  It's good for the soul.  What doesn't kill you only makes you stronger - Right?

Examples are:

1.    Office gossip
2.    Silent treatment
3.    Yelling and name-calling
4.    Dismissing questions or failing to give all necessary information
5.    Rude, condescending, abrupt, etc. statements
6.   Copycatting - My friend doesn't like you so I can't

Bull$#!%.  We're not talking about having trouble meeting timelines, or calling out someone's mistakes.  We're not talking about a avoiding arguments or demanding friendliness.  We're talking professional respect.  Gossip, negativity and hostility in the workplace hinders mood, therefore productivity, and therefore your bottom-line.  Even if you're just starting - it hinders your progress.

And one more reason . . . Even though our current unemployment rate of over 5% is the highest it's been since 2005, don't think that you'll retain employees, contacts or contracts when someone else can do what you do with a better attitude.  It's just easier.

But, hey wait a minute; this seems standard Fortune 500 Human Resources.  Why is a blog that speaks about innovation and progress even discussing this topic?  Because too many companies haven't gotten it right and because a lot of new companies - creative, progressive, innovative, challenging and industry-changing companies - will do better in the long run if they incorporate the rule from the start.

Gordon Noble of Australia's Business Spectator wrote, "This week, former Perpetual general manager Fiona Dunn has lodged a $1.2 million claim with the Federal Court alleging she was bullied by the company while pregnant and on maternity leave.

Southwest Airlines, one of the few - ehh - let me say that again.  One of the few profitable American airlines has been repeatedly reported to hire and fire people based on attitude. Three American airlines have folded in the last week - Aloha, ATA and Skybus.

A quote from the May 2007 edition of McKinsey Quarterly tells the story of a Silicon Valley company, where managers "calculated the extra costs generated by a star salesperson—the assistants he burned through, the overtime costs, the legal costs, his anger-management training, and so on —and found that the extra cost of this one jerk for one year was $160,000. " That's not including the psychological cost to everyone involved.

One of the most common reasons for employee turnover is having a bad boss. (Google it)

How did the jerk-boss or co-worker get there anyway?  One, as yet no one has properly checked him or her on his or her behavior.  And two most companies divorce quantitative performance evaluations from qualitative work-environment evaluations.  And if you're thinking about Apple and Steve Job's notorious attitudinal outbursts just let me know the next time you produce that kind of genius and we'll talk. Consider how phenomenal Apple is now.  Then imagine what awesomely intellectual things Apple could do if the staff 'loved' their boss as much as the name recognition that comes with working for a company at the height of 'computer cool'.

A bad attitude, office gossip, a hostile and rude work environment, unhappy employees, unhappy partners, unhappy anything negatively impacts creativity and efficiency.

Institute a 'No @$&hole Rule.' Creative, progressive, innovative, challenging and industry-changing companies know that quantity and quality must stay married to produce a whole and healthy product or service.; to engender loyalty and longevity; to enter the newer realm of lifestyle companies you have to think about the 'whole.' 

That's Whole Foods, the place where you knowingly pay more, because the company caters to the 'whole' you.  That's Google, the place where low-ranking employees have made millions, where they sleep, shower and eat at work not because they have to, but because they can.  That's Ideo, the famed innovation and design consultancy that had 'more than a little bit' to do with helping Apple out on a few projects.

So, what's the crux of the issue? You're 'on the verge' that Threshold speaks of from a business perspective . . . Invest in the people perspective. That will push your 'whole career, your 'whole' company into a 'whole' new frontier.

Master Dub – Remix of the Workplace

Guest blogger, June Blanks

In the beginning. . . .

. . .there was vinyl. Then a quick 8 track blip on the radar.  Followed by the birth of the cassette tape (hello Walkman!).  The evolutionary chain then brought forth compact discs along with its sidekick - the Discman.  The next great leap landed us on the subway sitting next to this guy who has an iPod feeding into his ears, cool beat.  How did he get here?  

In 1999, Napster created a peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing program enabling music lovers to grow digital music collections.  You've got some + I've got some = Together we have more.  The collective idea was simple, explosive and totally ground breaking.  Napster harnessed the power of the crowd.  They advanced supply and demand for the emerging digital format of music.  Where did the multiplication of little white earbuds begin?  The evolution of sharing.

Companies are assembling around collaborative environments to crowdsource ideas and energize growth, showing us that together we definitely have more.  Bug Labs allows its community to create and modify gadgets to yield inventions that are chameleons for personal desires.  Our featured "Links on the Brink" CoolTown Studios uses crowdsourcing as an urban planning tool, cultivating interested focus groups aimed to develop places that further bring communities together.  With these tools the world map is sprouting collaborative crops. Collaborative mechanics are alive and growing inside offices as well.  Your office is a hotbed of knowledge and interest in the business of your business.  Loosening up the top-down attitude can root the foundation of your company in strong and engaged employees.  Here's a couple restructuring remixes that can turn your office into a peer-to-peer crop field.  

1. Open your door, the President of Hearst Magazines does. In an interview with NPR maven Diane Rehm, Cathie Black responds to an inquiry about being a leader who listens:

Rehm:  [As one of the top executives in the publishing world] when you say you have an open door policy, what does that mean?

Black: What it doesn't mean is that people just wandering around the hall come kind of strolling in on a constant basis.  I do have a gatekeeper [two assistants]…My calendar is available.  I want to generally know, Why does someone want to see me?...I like to know because then I think about, How do we make this productive?  

2. Tear Down the Walls or Build Without Them.  Keep your door if you must boss, but consider how your colleagues relate to each other on a day-to-day basis.  Design firms have relied on the creative energy flowing through a practically wall-less office for years.  Co-workers engage each other, encourage strong elements of projects, and help redirect projects that are getting stuck.  Everyone is more productive and bad ideas get weeded out earlier.  

Elkus Manfredi Architects describes the many benefits of community regarding their design for international consulting firm Towers Perrin: "Glass throughout transmits natural light to interior areas. While perimeter offices, and open workstations predominate, glass-fronted conference rooms, multipurpose rooms, and café areas create natural gathering places that strengthen the sense of community. The design message is clear – this is an exciting and comfortable space to work in, and Towers Perrin is a dynamic, forward-thinking leader in its field."      

3. Eat With Your Crops, Meet With Your Crops.  The staff at Smithsonian Books lunch together frequently, giving them time to stay connected, pollinate ideas, put everything on the table, and hammer out book after book. Discussing things in a non-office setting really opens doors.  Editor Christina Wiginton contributes that it is "important for the more experienced people in these half social/half business meetings to ask others direct questions to draw them out, ask directly for input, and create an atmosphere where contributions are valued."  

Threshold collaborates with CoolTown Studios' brainpower: "Think of your district [office] as an encyclopedia, full of resources and places to see.  However, no one's using an encyclopedia anymore; they're all on the crowdsourced Wikipedia."  Get your creative juices flowing for the remix, and reinvent your workforce collective.

New Adventures for the Old You (part 3)

6. Believe nothing of what you hear and only half of what you see.  Reinventing yourself means taking inventory about who you really are and what you are really about. Its about the process of understanding the relationship between the new developing you and the unique opportunities that are lying (already there) waiting to be unearthed by you.  This requires your own personal/professional archaeological expedition.  You're not depending on what you hear at the water cooler at work or what some national poll said about job opportunities but by doing your own personal research with books, people, web sites, newspapers, magazines, and the list goes on.  One important lesson that I've learned over the years is that whether working down the street, in the next city or overseas - nothing is as it appears. Don't depend on hearsay.  Find out out for yourself what the real deal is.

7. Perfect the art of conversation.  When I worked in recruitment and marketing at Peace Corps Headquarters in Washington, DC a huge part of my job was to know how to engage people in conversation.  Find out about their lives.  Who are they?  What are they interested in?  Where have they been?  Where do they want to go?  As you can see these are all questions (and during these conversations I learned an inordinate amount of interesting things!)  In this process of  talking and  listening to CEOs, diplomats, ambassadors, educators and students (to name a few), I often discovered that the questions they asked me allowed only limited responses - which is problematic - especially if you are in the information seeking department.  People didn't know how to ask good questions. I can't begin to emphasize the power of asking a good question (let alone multiple questions).  If you want to reinvent yourself and sharpen your conversation skills. . . know how to ask excellent questions.  I guarantee it will introduce you to new ideas, places and opportunities, and create a conversation of immense value.

8.  Know the art of storytelling.  When in the process of changing careers or taking a new path in life nothing is more important than knowing what your story is and how to tell it.  Why did 'No Country for Old Men' win the Academy Award for best picture?  Why are the Harry Potter books the third best selling book series of all time?  Because they tell an interesting story that engages people.  Your story about you needs to capture peoples attention.  It needs to draw them in.  It needs to make them think.  It needs to encourage them to ask questions.  If you ever read Rolling Stone's articles about new or legendary artists - there is always a back story.  These  artists want you to know who they are and  why you should buy their music.  Even though many of us aren't rock stars the principal still applies.  Who are you and why should we pay any attention to you?

9.  See the negative space.   Seeing what others don't see is key to reinventing yourself.  That means you have the ability to identify and exploit opportunities that are not apparent to others.  HIGHLY ADVANTAGEOUS.  This means knowing how to look at situations and scenarios and see what's there, but maybe not so obvious.  For example see the FedEx logo below.  What do you see?

                                          

10. Think at the intersection (not outside the box).  Ladies and gentlemen if you are about to embark on your new journey by thinking outside the box, you might want to reconsider.  Thinking at the intersection (in our opinion) is where it's at. As they say 'nothing is new under the sun'.  But what can be new is the way you intersect ideas.  When reinventing yourself you are in essence at the intersection. The old you intersecting with the new you.  That's where the future is.  For you and the new market in which you are reinventing yourself to be a part of.  All you have to do is open your eyes to see the intersection in action; Apple (nike+ipod), Pinkberry (yogurt+designer environment+music), Netflix (movie renting +internet +US mail system) to name just a few. 

New Adventures for the Old You (part 2)

 

So how do you reinvent yourself? As mentioned in the previous post there is no one formula to fit into the 're-branding yourself' equation. So I am not here to give you the silver bullet solution. But what I can do is share some of my own personal strategies that I have used as I have continuously reinvented myself over the years from architectural designer to sales consultant to Peace Corps Volunteer to diversity recruiter to branding strategist . . . and beyond.

 

1. Be the Sun Tzu of Confidence. For those who don't know, Sun Tzu was a mysterious Chinese warrior-philosopher who compiled, well over two thousand years ago, the 'The Art of War'. In this guide he outlines in great detail how to overcome your enemy - decisively. It is one of the most prestigious and influential writings on strategy in the world today. In the art and war of building self confidence there is a thin line between arrogance and confidence. Beginning to understand that thin line and how to navigate it effectively allows you to step your game up to the next level. When you understand in great detail the art of exuding confidence, your ability to reinvent yourself has become that much easier.

2. Have A.D.D. (Attention Deficit Disorder). Reinventing yourself is a creative process and one thing that can be said about people who are creative is that they are constantly moving onto the next thing. Continuously developing new ideas about who and what you are is a good thing. Having a short attention span and mentally staying on the move allows for you to ponder the many possibilities. Often you have to come up with a couple dozen ideas just for one to actually work. Once you arrive at an idea that sticks then slow down on the A.D.D. Easier said than done. . .

3. Make your first and last name 'diversity'. Figuratively speaking of course. In the previous post we talked about Outkast's 'multiple personalities'. In order to branch out into other areas you can't know or be into one or two things only. Having an array of interests and cultivating different sides to your personality helps the reinvention process not be so rocky. If you are a teacher but have always been interested in fashion, marketing or international trade (and have subscribed to magazines on these topics, followed news stories in these areas, etc) it becomes that much easier to wrap your mind around your potential transition versus one day waking up and deciding that you no longer want to be an IT technician but now you want to be an author (and you have never, ever written anything). Not impossible, but significantly harder.

4. Make sure you know and understand that Shift Happens. Many people go about their lives in a bubble (for better or for worse) doing things the same way this year as they did last year. While the world around them is changing and evolving. One day you wake up and you (and your department) are being down sized. Shift happens. The marketplace changes and business as usual is no longer usual. To be leaner business processes need to be streamlined to adapt to technological developments and new market realities. So to keep up or stay ahead shift needs to happen. When you are aware that there is a world happening beyond what you may be familiar with, that will at least put you in a position to ask the question: "What happens if my world changes?"

5. Act your shoe size not your age. Well sort of. In saying this what I mean is be like a kid. Reinventing yourself means to look at who you are and what you can do from a new perspective. Looking at yourself and the world with new eyes. This is what kids do all the time. They are curious. They ask questions. They are constantly in a world of amazement. They step through the world with unbiased attitudes to their experiences. Now is it unrealistic to see the world through the eyes of a 9 year old? Perhaps. But opening up yourself to new possibilities WILL require you be and do in ways that you may not be used to.

Stay tuned. . .