Innovation, education…to plug or not to plug, that is the question

 

Fancy getting paid to go and blabber to someone about music, finish, and then go down the road and do it all over again. It seemed an easy enough way to make a living, and maybe the right time for me to move from sales to promotion anyway. Once I made the decision there was a whole new opportunity in front of me. All the relationships I had built up in the retail sector meant nothing, I now had to go and do it all over again. What I had learned from working in sales however, was vital to my communication skills. I had met a bunch of great people, now I was hoping I would meet a bunch more….but I wanted to write the script.

 

We really did make it up as we went along. I don’t remember any formal training at Island Records, I didn’t take an exam, I don’t have a ‘BA Plug’. I and others like me were employed because it was deemed we were the type of people who could get the job done. Most of what else happens is what you make happen. It’s not really like being a mechanic…….if someone doesn’t teach you how to fix a set of brakes then someone might drive off a cliff, or if your bath malfunctions you may drown. There are basic principles in trades, and you need know the basics to fix the job. Working in the music industry is about who you know as much as what you know, nothing happens until you build relationships………and building relationships takes time.

 

None of us went to any music school, nobody taught us. What for when we had the opportunity to learn from real record people, people like Chris Blackwell, Ahmet Ertegun, Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss. What you learn from music industry courses depends on how innovative that school is. While a teacher may think they know how to teach music business…….  I think you need to have real world education and be taught be people who’ve been there and done it. An academic in the music industry is a recipe for disaster.  Teaching and working with artists are a million miles apart.

 

You can’t teach an artist anything, they are creative people. You need to understand that person and what you need to do to help them be creative. Tell them what to do and you may as well go and look for another job. No teacher could ever have taught me what I learned from my education in the music business. If I was around someone who’d been there and done it, someone who played a part in my initiation to music as a record buyer I was attentive and receptive to their ever word. I wanted to learn from their experiences. You don’t want to be them but you are inspired by what they have done and strive for that level of accomplishment. My mentors were my vision of where I wanted to go.

 

That pedigree of music industry person no longer exists and has a lot to do with why the industry has declined.  These people and others like them, made the music industry a better place to be.

Filed under: About Tony Michaelides, Business Lessons, Innovation, Journey Through The Past, Managing Creativity, Opportunity, Add new tag, Ahmet Ertegun, building relationships, Chris Blackwell, Herb Alpert, Innovation, Island Records, Jerry Moss, music education, plugging records

Innovators and the lessons you can learn

The American Heritage Dictionary defines innovation as ‘the act of introducing something new.’ To me that IS David Bowie. His whole career has been one of innovation, even at the tender age of thirteen he had a pretty good idea of where he wanted to be by the time he was 30. He would watch as his career evolved and make the moves at the optimum time. Picking up a guitar, writing and singing was just the beginning. Even when he first picked up a guitar and excited as he was at the thought of being a pop star he still saw music as just the beginning, a steeping stone to everywhere else he wanted to go…. art , film, fashion. He was probably born knowing that there was so much that he wanted to do. Whatever he put his mind to he approached in the same determined way. If he didn’t think he could do it he wouldn’t bother trying. Always recognized throughout his career as the chameleon, Bowie has consistently been one step ahead of the rest.

 

You can learn many lessons from an artist like David Bowie that translate on a very human level too. Whilst he is obviously a motivator and a leader, his interpersonal skills are unique. I think I learnt as many managerial skills from working on his Earthling tour as I did in 20 years of running my own company. For someone so busy and active in all parts of his career he always manages to find time to listen to what people have to say. His time management skills are exemplary. If you wanted to talk to him about something important it would be ‘Let’s do it after sound check or let’s meet tomorrow for breakfast.’ An acutely alert mind with great attention to detail together with an ability to make a decision there and then as to whether or not he would do an interview. He would just ask the sensible question…..’What is it for?’  ‘Who will be doing it, tell me about them?’ and then ask your opinion ’What do you think?’

 

What I found amazing was that he even decided that he himself was best equipped to make these decisions. He dispensed with the services of a manager as he didn’t even feel he needed a soundboard, a second opinion on such crucial, potential career damaging decisions. To have that type of confidence and belief in yourself is truly remarkable……and then quietly go about making each of those career moves a success is even more commendable. You only need to look at where he is in that quest to realize there isn’t too much he has done wrong. Again I wonder why I continue to talk about him the way I do and realize quite what an impression he left on me. I find the people who impress you the most are the ones who try the least. They just have an ability to make you interested in how they go about things, and to make you want to learn.

 

To say I was impressed would clearly be an understatement. He also hand picks the people he wants around him and has a knack of bringing out the best in those people.  As the innovator he has that inspirational effect on you and by employing like minded people he wants to hear what those people have to say. There is a real feel good factor working with someone like Bowie and to work with him makes you want to be as good as him at what you do. People like this have always been my inspirational mentors, the people you aspire to and want to emulate professionally. For me it has always been a bit like football/soccer (wherever you are reading this.) I always supported Manchester United, my home town team from the UK. When players signed for them they raised their game, they played at that level. If you were destined to play in lower divisions you played at the level you needed to, and for some that is ‘just enough’ ……..a level you can get away with. You never test yourself. When I was a record promoter the projects I achieved the greatest success with were the ones where the team of people around me were all ‘Manchester Uniteds’ I didn’t ever want to work in the lower divisions and run the risk of underachieving, never testing myself, coasting. I needed to feel challenged and when I looked around at who I was working with I wanted to feel that we all wanted it. 

Filed under: Business Lessons, Innovation, Managing Creativity, Add new tag, David Bowie, earthling, Innovation, leadership, Managing Creativity

Inspiration from innovation … the leaders of the pack

 Looking at the people that have inspired me the most over the years, both as a fan and later professionally it has to have been the innovators. As much as being the torch carriers of new ideas it’s the risk taker in them I love. They believe in change and they’ll tear down the barriers to get there…. and as much as they have belief in themselves and their ideas, they also know it will only work if others adapt to their way of thinking. It’s so important in today’s world that we have these people looking at ways to move forward when all we hear on a daily basis is about the mess we’re in. Innovative minds are the way, the only way forward…..and a few innovative politicians wouldn’t go amiss either…

 

I was immensely proud to have had the opportunity to work with David Bowie. I went from promoting his records to TV and radio to working a lot closer with him as a publicist on his Earthing tour. I had been inducted in to that inner circle where you got to see first hand how the whole infrastructure works….and a more professional, competent and affable bunch of people you could never hope to find. The way the whole business of Bowie operates is so innovative, every piece of the process. It’s his ideas and his vision that is complemented by like minded individuals who get it and can help provide what he needs to make it work. He overseas it all but he allows people to breathe, even to make mistakes. David Bowie taught me that you can be hands on by keeping your hands off.

 

Now in his early sixties he is as confident in his writing as he ever was. He is always aware of what is out there, not necessarily as competition but more from a fan’s perspective. As with Nine Inch Nails and The Pixies he will even invite artists on tour with him. That is always the best way a successful artist can put something back and help others, yet so few do. Fancy being invited to play in front of Bowie’s fans, what a compliment. Again nothing new, he’s always been that way. Whilst Bowie invited people on for the ride he is still changing his own vision, the way he sees himself. After all these years I still remind myself of how he killed Ziggy off in his prime, how he even dared to!

 

As I got older I realized this is what all my heroes had done.  Neil Young had done exactly the same the very same year 1972, with Harvest. The follow up album came 20 years later with Harvest Moon and in between he too was the innovator. Bob Dylan in the sixties going from being a folk hero and a spokesman for a generation to picking up an electric guitar and having a band .All of them innovators, creators of something new.  And although there have been a couple of periods where this innovation hasn’t necessarily translated in to record sales there has never been a dip artistically and creatively with these people. Innovation is as much imagination, the ability to stand back from something that has brought you success and wonder what is next both creatively and artistically.

 

Bowie has been described as the most influential artist of the century. Accolades like that come from more than just making good music. He is the catalyst for a thousand pop stars of the modern era, so influential yet so hard to emulate. There have been many pretenders but no successor. With some they have may great music but they lack that something…..that little bit extra. He’s one of a kind. I often wonder, as I did with Bob Marley…….. will anyone ever replace them?

Filed under: Business Lessons, Innovation, Journey Through The Past, Risk, Add new tag, David Bowie, earthling, Innovation, inspiration, The pixies, tony michaelides, ziggy stardust

Innovation, David Bowie and Ch ch changes

I remember seeing David Bowie in London in 1973. It was his Ziggy Stardust period and he was the biggest rock star on the planet….. and Ziggy was the very icon of the Glam Rock era. Little did I know that at the end of the night he would announce it was his last ever show, he was killing off Ziggy. I looked up at him from the third row, my mouth wide open…. You’re doing what??…..What about what I want? Turns out that Bowie needed a character to unleash the creative beast within him. Playing a character allowed him to do the things that he, as David Jones just could not do.

 

And then 25 years later when I ended up working with him I felt like I owed him an apology. If he hadn’t have done what he’d done I for one certainly wouldn’t have had the privilege of working with him. Bowie as that chameleon has had many different personas apart from Ziggy. There was Aladdin Zane, The man who fell to earth, The thin white duke.  Add to this the collaborations with Mick Jagger, Iggy Pop, Eno, Lou Reed, Bing Crosby…. and you get a taste of the man.

 

Even back then in 1997 when I toured with him and as he approached his sixth decade he continued to motivate and inspire me every moment of every day I spent working with him, by just doing what he does. Seizing opportunities and taking risks is what Bowie has always done. There was a famous Japanese proverb which said Vision without action is a daydream, action without vision is a nightmare……… Sound and Vision and Moonage Daydream.

 

 I’m sure killing off Ziggy was a risk, but for Bowie he always had that vision, the vision to be innovative. Without the ability to innovate over the years he would never have survived

 

Bowie has had many emulators, some with greater success than others but no successor. He has defined himself with more variety than any of contemporaries and that is why he is known as the most innovative artist of our time. It’s amazing to think that David Bowie has innovated the innovatable…himself. I just invented a word innovatable, love it the ability to innovate!

 

At 22 Bowie said that by the time he was 30 he would be a millionaire and spend the rest of his life doing other things. By the time he was 30 he had released 12 albums and 25 singles, made his first film, The man who fell to earth and on John Lennon’s recommendation taken control of his own career, dispensing with managers and setting up his own group of companies in Switzerland.

 

He created his own ISP, like AOL an internet service provider, an IPO an initial public offering where he sold shares of himself and his catalogue of music. By consolidating the value of his copyright he has amassed a fortune of somewhere in the region of $600million.

 

David thinks of himself as a brand, a corporate entity, a platform and a change agent. If he limited himself to the traditional realm of musician we probably wouldn’t be talking about him today.

 

 

 

Filed under: About Tony Michaelides, Business Lessons, Innovation, Risk, David Bowie, Engine Room, Innovation, tony michaelides

Innovation……risk and courage

 I don’t think I had a clue at the time but when I was a kid growing up in the north of England the people who inspired me the most were the innovators. I doubt back then I even knew the meaning of the word but there was just something about the type of people who took chances that I admired. I later discovered that all my heroes were innovators….from artists like Neil Young to Bob Dylan, The Beatles, Frank Zappa, Captain Beefheart, The Pink Floyd and David Bowie who I’ll revisit many more times in future blogs. Bowie is arguably the most innovative artist of our time and a totally fascinating subject alone.

 

These artists and others like them were constantly challenging themselves, they were constantly evolving…..they were masters of reinvention.

 

Innovation requires that sense of adventure, a willingness to try something new. It’s not a fad, it’s not a fashion it’s where innovators position themselves at the forefront of creativity and at the frontline of invention. They are the true pioneers.

 

You need to inspire and to collaborate so that you can build a team of people around you and then delegate to help implement those ideas. And then you need the courage and determination to deliver. Innovators are risk takers, they thrive on it …… it is the risk and the challenge that drives and excites them, makes them want to succeed.

 

It is now more important than ever for businesses to be aware of the change in the way people do business and in order to compete and to increase efficiency they need to be constantly evolving. It is the innovators who move the business forward by constantly creating new ways for businesses to re invent themselves, their product, how they sell, market, promote. We need the ideas otherwise we stand still. The innovators are the creative people…. they are the ones with the ideas. They connect other areas of business and help to bring them all together. Innovative people will attract like minded innovative people. Have that and you have a formidable line up

Filed under: Business Lessons, Innovation, Business Lessons, Innovation