What Sonic Branding Can Learn from Graphic Designers

VISUAL CRITERIA:

• Size
• Shape
• Position
• Direction
• Units
• Repetition
• Pattern
• Figure
• Ground
• Hierarchy

Now apply to audio.

Music Licensing is Cannibalizing Your Business

Monster # 2 by Julia P.

If you're the Executive Producer or Creative Director of an established music production company whose core capability has long been the development of original music compositions for advertising and entertainment, how do you compete in an environment when agencies and brands increasingly elect to license stock music, not simply because it's cost effective, but because buyers perceive that such tracks work just as well as a bespoke commission (at fulfilling their client's marketing objective)?

In light of this exponential increase in licensing, more and more music production companies that once specialized in original music scoring are re-inventing themselves as one-stop sonic solution providers, and as such, now offer their own mid tier to bargain basement priced libraries.

For some organizations, this simply means classifying and bundling unsold demos that they once relegated to their archives, or recycled for incoming projects that required or accommodated the same genre and timing. For other companies, the result is an open source library that includes external talents as well as their own. And for still others, this means devoting the time, talent and energy to composing entirely new libraries from scratch based on the formulaic models they anticipate will work for a given class of cut.

Work on enough luxury automotive spots, for instance, and the majority can be seen to bear some editorial similarities. Work on enough detergent spots, and one can pretty much predict exactly where a hole will be required for a product demo in any and all subsequent like spots. The assumption, valid or not, of course, is that average commercial timings will generally remain stable in a world when all other media is experiencing tremendous flux.

Either way, there is certainly a valid argument to launching  a limited license option if only as a means to neutralize competitive offerings. For those who intent to reach parity with or overtake the market leaders, such a strategy requires not only a conviction to succeed, but an honest assessment of risk, and the reserves to carry out a prolonged and costly campaign. In all likelihood, once they achieve their goal, what ever original members remain with the company will find themselves, for better or worse, employed by a very different organization than the one they initially joined.

Other audio providers, however, proceed with greater reluctance, and perhaps great resistance, because for them, scoring sound to picture, collaborating with clients,  scheduling downbeats under looming deadlines, recording live musicians and mixing right up to the media buy is what makes this profession so fun. And why would you do anything if it wasn't fun? Not to mention that they also firmly believe that the process of tailoring custom sonics to moving image produces better results, even if they can't quite quantify exactly why.

For this class of creative venture then, it will be interesting to see if, on the whole, whether the provision of an in house music library will result in profit and growth, or if it will result in dwindling revenue, auction sales and eventual burn out?

For incumbent bespoke music organizations that already possess a large market share, success will be measured depending on whether clients who opt for a bargain priced, off the shelf track, only do so intermittently, and whether they will, hopefully, continue to and more frequently commission projects that resemble or approach normative budgets.

Nevertheless, in the interim, for those organizations that pursue such a bilateral strategy, one can imagine the awkward position that these contemporary music professionals now find themselves in when pitching to a prospective client.

Here's how I imagine it might sound:

"I can score an original composition  that will sync to picture, save the spot, support the story, compliment the cut, propel the action, emphasize the emotional content, enhance the product, clarify the unique selling proposition, bedazzle viewers, win prestigious European awards, move markets, earn your Fortune 500 client millions in fans and sales, and communicate the brand’s core message across borders and languages, and throughout the world, all via the power of music."

"Great! How much will it cost?"

"It'll only cost you $25,000 to $30,000, –a phenomenal deal since it represents relatively the same unchanged rate from the mid 1980's, despite subsequent inflation;  plus you'll need to pay residuals to a group of musicians and singers for the life of the spot. –But, trust me, it's well worth it, and I’ll even sign over all the intellectual property rights to your client, so that they wholly own the work, for use on any other property that they wish, in perpetuity.”

“Gee, we already used up most of the budget on editorial overruns. Do you have anything cheaper?”

"Oh sure, lots of stuff; I'm not just a composer, I'm a sonic solutions provider. As a matter of fact, instead of scoring something to picture, I'll be happy to license another track to you that I wrote using the same super amazing talent that I would use for an original commission. I'll even modify the arrangement and sweeten the mix, if you want, in order to make it fit the final cut better. It will be just as effective as a bespoke score, and it's yours for a cycle for only $500 flat."

"What about musician royalties?"

"There are none: it's all samples and synths, and I'll be happy to forgo my own legally entitled  portion of performance portion residuals just to have your business.”

So, will this strategy work for you? Maybe, maybe no. There is no one size fits all strategy,  but regardless of whatever tact you employ, it's wise to ask the following:

When assessing a project, do you evaluate whether any given near term investment in time, money and resources is truly worthwhile for achieving your long range business goals, or do you simply convince yourself that by being a resource, you and your organization’s objectives will eventually be met?

Is there evidence that once you establish a baseline price, and then thereafter devalue your art, craft and expertise, that you will be able to flip perception later? It's interesting and informative to note that the American Association of Advertising Agencies (AAAA) tells its own members (your clients) that: “If you accept an agency fee that is much lower than it should be just "to get the account", your chances of increasing it to where it should be in subsequent years are slim to none.” (Guidelines for the Pursuit of New Business)

Stock or library music is functionally similar to bespoke music, but can a case be made that it is technically different from a custom composition in it's ability to address communication objectives? Can you create a business case that establishes both legitimate value and a compelling reason for electing a costlier original music commission over a more economically priced licensed option?

Consider this: Why don't Ferrari dealerships also sell Ford Fiestas?

THE TOP 3 THINGS YOU MUST DO IN ORDER TO BLOW UP THE CULTURE

Photo Credit: AK Rockefeller

As much as it may be that Music is no longer the catalyst for social change that it once was, it is still a powerful medium for political communication.

Consider Pussy Riot, for instance:

Has there been a single musical performer in the last decade that exploded into our collective conscious with as much political punch as this candy colored group of Guerrilla Girls?

Or another band that made one ask if its members were musicians or semantic terrorists?

Whatever one might think of the group's music, or even if one questions if the noise its members make is music, I have no doubt that some future young man or woman will stumble upon one of the band's online videos, and find themselves quite intrigued.

What happens next? Well, it's not out of the question to think that someone along the way will find themselves so inspired that they then don a pink balaclava and go try to take down a dictator with a drum stick and an electric guitar. After all, the band may not have dismantled a government, but they did somehow manage to shake up the world, not to mention demonstrate to young people who didn't live through the sixties that music can be weaponized.

Addressing the Russian court, the band’s Nadezhda Tolokonnikova described the group's work in this manner:

"Pussy Riot’s performances can either be called dissident art or political action that engages art forms. Either way, our performances are a kind of civic activity amidst the repressions of a corporate political system that directs its power against basic human rights and civil and political liberties."

Clearly, Pussy Riot is not just a band but a manifesto, and I think that if one were to reduce its tenants to tactics, and then describe them as a repeatable formula, it would read something like this: 

THE TOP 3 THINGS YOU MUST DO 

IN ORDER TO BLOW UP THE CULTURE

* Advance a socially disruptive message.
* Wrap in compelling imagery.
* And then go ignite the damn thing with music

Handle with care though, because you just might start a revolution.

Music as an Ecosytem Service

Future Music Festival 2013 (Courtesy Eva Rinaldi)

It recently struck me that music, like water, is arguably the product of an ecosystem, –another complex but demonstrable asset that economists have trouble pinning value to with any accuracy.

“An ecosystem is a community of living organisms (plants, animals and microbes) in conjunction with the nonliving components of their environment (things like air, water and mineral soil), interacting as a system." (Wikipedia)

So how then is the one like the other?

Music and Ecosystems both: 

• Provide services that are public goods;
• Are affected by externalities;
• Possess property rights that are often not clearly defined.  

Additionally, “Ecosystem services are often public goods, with the beneficial outcomes, for the natural environment or people, that result from ecosystem functions. Some examples of ecosystem services are support of the food chain, harvesting of animals or plants, and the provision of clean water or scenic views.”*

The problem with both music and public goods is also that, “although people value them, no one person has an incentive to pay to maintain the good.  Thus, collective action is required in order to produce the most beneficial quantity.”*

Despite the complexity assigning value, however, value can nevertheless be determined and costs imposed, "...in various ways, on those who are responsible for consumption of those services...  Economists measure the value of ecosystem services to people by estimating the amount people are willing to pay to preserve or enhance the services.”*

So, instead of asking what the market will bear, perhaps, like ecosystems, it may not be necessary for music to be bought and sold in markets in order to measure its value in dollars, but rather we might assign costs to society based on a fair valuation of the services to society.

What the formula for that is, however, I leave to others to consider.

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*Source: Ecosystem Valuation

Ch-ch-ch-ch-Changes (Turn and face the Hard Drive)

A few decades ago, it was a common childhood aspiration to grow up to be a platinum selling rock star who practiced neurosurgery (The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension); but in this day in age, it seems more young people would rather flip that model and be a neuroscientist with 93 million downloads.

Music has not been a catalyst for social change since the sixties, or for lifestyle choices since the collapse of grunge. In the meantime the ascent of Internet distribution has reduced the costs of production, distribution and access, so of course it has less value than it did thirty years ago.

We don't want or need a songwriter with a rap or protest song to start a revolution with, we have Twitter for that now.

Most of the time, we just want something we can listen to in our ear buds at the gym, or at work, or while in Starbucks drinking a No Foam Skinny Cinnamon Dolce Latte.

We no longer perceive songwriters as shamans or mediums capable of summoning a song that can transform a society, and those who continue to adopt that role feel oddly out of sync with contemporary culture. Nor is the song the thing now; it is now more likely simply the soundtrack for the thing; and if it doesn't suit us, we'll switch it out for one of the other billion economically worthless if still emotionally charged tunes in our pocket.

If you accept that premise, then the disruption we’ve experienced in recent years doesn't necessarily or only originate from the competition between a pay model vs a free model, but rather perhaps from the incumbents resistance to the notion that music has been re-assigned from its old position of valuable resource to a new position of complimentary service.

Just like water, when the logistical issues of a given region regarding supply, sanitation and distribution networks are suddenly resolved.

Consider at one time in the ancient world freshwater was difficult to come by, and therefore its value was commensurate with its scarcity. Then along come the plumbers, they lay down the pipes and suddenly everyone has access to water. Naturally, the cost of freshwater declines exponentially, and now, go to any restaurant in the world, sit down for a meal, and your waiter will bring a nice, tall, ice cold glass of freshwater for 'free'.

Well, the Internet is such a pipe.

There's money in the pipes, to be sure, if not the content.

That is to say, music like water is nice on the side, even necessary for life, but should by no means be mistaken for the main meal.

And this not to say that the creators of music shouldn’t be compensated; after all, even complimentary water isn’t free. It’s free to you, the customer at a restaurant, but someone pays for its collection and processing somewhere along the line. It may also be cheap, but plumbers are still expensive.

Ironic, though, at the exact same moment in history when the world is parched for content,  artists are asked to run the tap and give it away for nothing.

Perhaps we should ask not whether music has value; of course it does. Music possesses immeasurable social value, and as such, contributes to much human happiness.

But so does sex, and that's also 'free'.

Either way, we might re-consider both how we pay for music and how much we pay for music. It may be that we no longer buy it directly, but that it is provided, like water,  as a compliment to another purchase for another  item, service or device that provides access to music; this band courtesy of that brand or benefactor, and would you like fries with that?

In the past the LP, the cassette and then the compact disc served as containers for music, and few mourned the passing of cardboard and plastic once they got used to carrying a thousand tunes in their pocket.

The mixtapes of my own childhood represented not simply a playlist, but a painstakingly conceived piece of personal multimedia. Maybe portable screens and drives –or whatever sub dermal embedded doodad they think up in the future– will render all such packaging obsolete, and where we once relied on packaging to provide context, digital wireless media floating in the ether or implanted in our bones will suffice.

Of course, it's already happened, but there are still some people of all ages that push back, deny, ignore or otherwise resist the tectonic technological shift that all but shakes the ground beneath our feet (–he said dropping a piece of vinyl on the deck).

Crisis Management and the Emotionally Intelligent Producer

Image Courtesy David Castagneto

In the 20th Century we respected producers who got things done by any means necessary. In recent years, the increasing influence of digital processes have promoted the ascent of project managers into what were once conceived as creative processes.

I submit that while there is much we can learn from classic project management, that media production is its own discipline. That said, traditional methods of production are in many cased outdated.  It is evident that we require is some combination of skill sets I think of as Production Management.

Unlike project management (within the context of a production company or a post production house), ongoing operations and project development are quite often combined activities. We can not therefore manage staff with the same expectation we manage free agents commissioned to deliver within a given set of constraints. Not that we diminish our obligation of excellence to our clients, but that we develop a professional means by which to combine ongoing organizational analysis, long term strategy and team building with the execution of often overlapping projects and services, where a single person is often assigned to any or all in current production.

Naturally, this requires a new kind of media producer than from days past. Our new media producer must first and foremost exhibit a professional degree of competency across several disciplines. Contrast this with the traditional model whereby a producer might simply be a rainmaker, a relationship builder (external), or a project manager of sorts. Our new paradigm requires that producers who lead production and post production companies, and who direct the execution of multiple, overlapping projects also exhibit leadership qualities –that is, qualities and qualifications.

Some producers thrive on anarchy being excellent at crisis management; it may even be a source of pride. Fortunately, this kind of behavior, though it is still rampant, is also increasingly regarded as anachronistic.

Seasoned professionals understand that every project involves some uncertainty, but not all uncertainty is indicative of a crisis. So, if the EP at a given shop frames every project as a crisis, it's quite likely that this is someone who creates crises because this specific psychological context is one of the few things that motivates them, or because they need others to perceive them as a kind of professional hero. It is a bit like the arsonist who furtively starts a fire only so they can then publicly put it out.

Of course, producers aren't the only ones guilty of manufacturing crises.

Equally toxic to employee moral is the dissonant lead creative who assumes his or her knowledge of Autodesk or Avid software comes with people skills, or who procrastinates all day and then finds him or herself buttressed against a hard deadline which now requires additional human resources to complete on time and budget.

"But I work better under pressure," he or she says.

Perhaps they do, but what does that say about that person's regard for every other member of the organization? That there may be a person that has no qualms sending an entire organization into disarray, not because a project requires an immediate pivot, but simply in order to suit their individual needs should be considered irresponsible and impermissible. Unfortunately, and all to often, such behavior is exhibited not by one's immediate colleagues but by the organization's founders or leading talents.

Some crises are legitimate, of course, and nearly all productions come with timelines that require urgent execution to meet delivery expectations. Indeed, sometimes an agency or production company arrives with a project that they have already framed as a crisis.  Your job, then, like a smoke jumper into a forest fire, is not to perpetuate the situation but to minimize further loss and alleviate it with expert judgement and solid  technical solutions.

In practical terms, this should manifest itself as a seasoned ability to assess options, tradeoffs and impact, for any given decision one might make to avoid or manage any given issue. It should not result in unmanageable frustration, blame casting or denial by a person in or who hopes to hold a leadership position.

Afterwards, however,  one might then review the elements that led up to the crisis and make modifications to those observable inefficient processes, practices or persons that are in one's direct authority to revise, change or influence.

Otherwise, routine activities needn't be framed as crises, but rather as commonplace business problems which one can generally resolve via the protocols developed by the organizations constantly adaptive strategy:

• Is the goal realistic? 
• Is progress measurable? 
• Are resources available? 
• Is there time to execute? 

Yes?

Then the dream is achievable.

But do you also possess the necessary skill set to gather and direct a collaborative team to that end? Is your capacity for team building equal to your capacity for strategic thinking? Or does your authority simply come from your job title? And does everyone on the project understand how information should be directed and distributed to the rest of the team?

Do you anticipate, execute, monitor and manage every project so that commissions are inhibited from spinning out of control? Between the initiation of a project and its execution, do you take time to plan a specific outcome, or do you just jump in? When deadlines loom are you generally still calm, courteous and collected, pragmatic and empathetic? Are your able to re-evaluate priorities, inspire colleagues and collaborators, and still competently balance constraints? Are you cool under pressure because despite the ticking clock, you're comfortably covered by human resources with the necessary technical and creative skill sets?

Do you understand that important milestones of Concept, Develop, Execute and Finish (CDEF) are fueled by Strategy, linked by Communication and managed with both Purpose and Empathy?

I submit that an emotionally intelligent leader will act quickly and purposefully, but will not act independently of the organization he or she serves. Likewise, I have found that the most effective company owners and partnerships do not treat the organizations they founded as an extension of themselves, but as independent organisms of which they are part, and which therefore require the appropriate care and management one needs for any organic entity. In other words, your child is not you.

A common tactic employed by incompetent producers is to intimidate, manipulate or otherwise threaten the key creative and technical talent necessary to the execution of a project. Projects get done, but at what long term cost? More than likely the organization sustains itself by purging itself of legitimately disgruntled employees but otherwise remains a dysfunctional black hole perpetually in danger of collapsing in on the Executive Producer, Managing Director or Creative Director.

Alternately, one might first instead take the tact of questioning feasibility of a given task with others who might be identified as important internal stakeholders, with whom you might build rapport and solicit support, and then together set specific, measurable and realistic goals. Remember, in a healthy company, tactics support organizational strategy, not the founder's personal whims. You can certainly abuse staffers and colleagues, but at what cost and impact to the long term viability of the organization?

Many lead creatives and producers do not fully frame the organization they founded as including staff. It may certainly be that all a creative organization  requires is the ability for the lead to deliver to the client's satisfaction on time, and every time. But limited to this framework, an opportunity for the organization to learn from others is missed or ignored as inconsequential.

By aligning tactics with strategy, employees who pull an all-nighter will more deeply appreciate the necessity of their contribution, and those that have to cancel prior plans may feel better about trading one night of their life to assume an active role in a the effort to produce a collective success.

If you're not a partner, perhaps realize, too, about both yourself and the person or persons that you work for, that no one is perfect, that no one can know or be good at everything, and everyone makes mistakes, says the wrong thing at the wrong time, to err is to be human, blah blah blah –okay, you got it, but now go take a class and figure out how to better communicate with and manage other people.

With any luck and a bit of tact, you'll be able to train your boss into being better at his or her job, too.

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Articles in this series:

Professionalism and the Post Production Paradigm
Crisis Management and the Emotionally Intelligent Producer
The Problem with Post

The Problem with Post

Beautiful But Deadly

Great creative, a shelf of awards, a stream of clients – Gee, what could possibly be wrong with this picture?

The fact is that when you're riding a rocket fueled by creative success or innovation, it's easy to miss, ignore or deny mistakes until the whole thing blows up under your ass.

In this regard, organizational accomplishments and industry recognition can actually produce a dangerous mindset if either is leveraged to conceal individual shortcomings at the leadership level.

One reason this attitude might prevail in the post production community is that principal stakeholders in such organizations are often promoted to a leadership position by first demonstrating excellent creative judgement in an artistic role, without exhibiting an equivalent aptitude for management. Compound this with the all too common reality that even top tier companies do not always make the effort to train such producers or creative directors with the management tools that they need to be effective leaders of those organizations.

Unfortunately, the Cannes Gold for pushing pixels, slicing video or sampling sound, does not automatically make one a capable leader of people. While clients may still come for star talent, the internal culture suffers until everyone, including those in charge, wake up each morning dreading work.

Or as is also commonly the case, organizations may deploy business strategists or office administrators  to leadership roles where they may not fully understand the creative and technical processes required to properly execute a media project. The result is a lot of 'why isn't it done' or 'get it done' directed by someone who doesn't actually know how or want to know how to get it done.

This is not to suggest that flame artists acquire an MBA in order to lead a post shop, or that agency producers who lack proficiency in design take an art class. It does indicate, however, that once promoted from design or project coordination roles to one that involves talent management, that one then simply ask themselves the following questions, and then commit to resolving those answers on an ongoing basis:

• "How will I learn to be an effective manager and communicator?"  
• "How can I become an inspirational leader of this community?"
• "What measure can I use to know if I'm actually doing my job well?"

For many creative boutiques, sales and happy clients are the only scorecard that matters, –and bonuses, commissions and inflated job titles are accepted as proof of professional excellence. But the fact of the matter is that one can possess a pretty amazing sales record,  capably push projects through sound and editorial suites, earn accolades and awards, service and sustain a very happy group of clients, and yet still be a flaky boss fully responsible for cultivating an angry and dysfunctional organization.

Armed with only the maxim of Concept-Develop-Execute-Finish, many serve long careers without ever understanding that this framework maximizes media production and creative performance to an exponential degree only when it's also fueled by Strategy, linked by Communication, and directed with both Purpose and Empathy. The latter two are fundamental to creating a strong cohesive culture, and when combined with great work, they are what truly creates for a sustainable business.

In Primal Leadership: The Hidden Driver of Great Performance, by Daniel Goleman, Richard Boyatzis, and Annie McKee, the authors argue that:

 “A cranky and ruthless boss creates a toxic organization filled with negative underachievers who ignore opportunities; (whereas) an inspirational, inclusive leader spawns acolytes for whom any challenge is surmountable.”
 
So, is that the dirty little secret about the post production industry? Cranky bosses?

It would be more accurate to suggest that outdated management practices and behaviors are the issue here, compounded by the fact that an amalgam of talents might consider other staff members replaceable. This is typically exemplified when a member of one part of the organization begins to consider members of another part of the organization wholly replaceable, and then treat his or her colleagues as chess pieces rather than professionals.

Short term, things get done; long term, the faces change, because no one can stand working with a person they don't like for very long. Eventually, the last person who remains standing will complain to an empty room that the world lacks good, talented or committed people. But are good people hard to find because they don't exist, or are they difficult to hire because they don't want to work with you?

By way of example, one owner of a multimillion dollar production company once told me, his award winning staff notwithstanding: “I am the only person in this company that matters; everyone else is expendable.”

Similarly, the Executive Producer for another highly successful shop once revealed that her philosophy, regarding full-time employees, was to “hire them until you fire them” and “use them till you lose them.”  

Wouldn't it be much more rewarding, I thought, if instead of creating an autocracy botched together by coercion and hazing, that both these post pro principals focused on building great companies?

So, what exactly does make a great post production company?

Is it the work? Is it the foosball table in the lobby? Or the beer and bagels in the kitchen?

Those things alone will not guarantee a happy and productive staff.  More important is cohesive culture where everyone feels validated, valued and no one comes to work expecting that the politics will distract from the pixels.

And why is that important? Because happy staffers become evangelists for your company; bitter employees do not, and if they don't leave, you will be forced to fire them before they become a drain on resources, thereby incurring additional costs for the organization as you attempt to fill the void for which you are fundamentally responsible. Each subsequent employee then becomes a temporary patch, only meant to last until the next break or breach in what will eventually become, if it isn't already, a very leaky vessel with little confidence in its crew of every reaching its destination with all of its original members aboard.

Certainly, these outliers aside, there are also many, many positive examples to be found throughout the industry.

In the meantime,  it continues to be an open secret in Adland that the problem with many post production companies is the inadequate value held for emotional intelligence or modern leadership abilities by many primary stakeholders of many such companies. Creative, it seems all too often, is often mistaken as a free pass for social and professional incompetency, and one can very easily become a professional artist without exhibiting an ounce of empathy.

However, while this may be  sufficient for the proverbial artist painting landscapes in the countryside, it describes high risk behavior when expressed by the lead designer of a modern organization who hopes to continue attracting and managing multiple projects with diverse in-house teams at an elite level in the media industry.

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Articles in this series:

Professionalism and the Post Production Paradigm
Crisis Management and the Emotionally Intelligent Producer
The Problem with Post

Zeitgeist Explained

20th Century → 21st Century
Industrial Age → Information Age
Book → Interface
Actify → Gamify 
Album → Playlist
Alone → Connected
Analog → Digital
Art → Design
Artist → Curator
Audience → User
Authentic → Adobe
Assumption → Data
Big → Nimble
Boomer → Millennial
Broadcast → Dialogue
CIA → NSA
Cliques → Tribes
Collaborate → Crowdsource
Collage → Mashup
Compose → Sample
Construct → Disrupt
Cryptic → Encrypted
Customer  →  Client
Creative → Optimized
Daydream → Touch Screen
Desk → Cloud

Explanation → Medication
Expert → Consensus
Factory → Open Office
Family → Friends
Field → Console
Fix → Hack
Governance→ Politics
GRIT → STEM
Guru → Ninja
Hard Rock → Soft Synth
Hardware → Software
Harvard → Stanford
Hippodrome → Headphone
In Tune → Autotune
Institution → Network
Isolated → Affiliated
Inventor → Innovator
Job → Gig
Launch → Release
License → Acquire 
Linear → Agile
Long Form → Long Tail
Loyalty → Like
Maintain → Sustain
Make → Develop
March → Tweet
Method → Palette
Mr. → @
Musician → DJ
Mythology → Technology
National → Global
NATO → SINO
News → Trend
Observation → Conversation
Office → Café
Offshore → Locavore
Organize → Self Organize
Outside → Inside
Own → License
Paper → Pixel
Papyrus → Scroll
Plan → Prototype
Play → Prepare
Poetry → Code
Popular → Viral
Portable → Wearable
Post Office → Post Comment
Private → Promoted
Procreate → Recreate
Producer → Facilitator
Product → Process
Professional → Amateur
Proprietary →Transparent
Performance → Performant
Public Domain → Open Source
Publish→ Post
Quote → Retweet
Rules → Heuristics

Sage → Wiki
Salary → Fee
Sell → Share
Sell Out → Opt In
Share → Adopt
Solution → Option
Stable → Mobile
Store → Site
Story → Message
Suburb → City
System → Matrix
Talent → Brand
Talk → Text
TV → Phone
Theme → Meme
Third Word → Third Place
Tool → App
Tune In → Log On
Turn On → Chill Out
Unify → Occupy
Update → Iterate
Watch → Record
Word → Glyph
Zeitgeist → Swarm

Sound of the Year: 2013 – The Tap-Tap Tapping of Internet Surveillance

Image Courtesy Alberto Racatumba

In May 2013, an infrastructure analyst by the name of Edward Snowden, working for US defense contractor Booz Allen Hamilton, arranged to meet with documentary filmmaker and journalist, Laura Poitras and Guardian commentator Glenn Greenwald.

The meeting took place in Snowden's Hong Kong hotel room after he had fled the United States with a trove of classified information which revealed a 'systematic surveillance of innocent citizens', and which he was now about to reveal to the international press for public scrutiny and judgement.

What ever the final legal opinion of his actions, or one's own opinion of Snowden (traitor, idiot, whistleblower), he expressed his intentions as well meaning:

“It’s important to send a message to government that people will not be intimidated.”(The Washington Post)

On June 7th, after an initial examination and two days after the initial published report of Snowden’s leaks, major outlets reported that “the NSA is accessing the systems of US internet giants including Google and Facebook, and collecting data under a previously undisclosed surveillance programme called Prism. The programme allows officials to collect material including emails, live chats and search histories." (BBC)

Additional NSA documents leaked by Snowden indicated that the NSA had also extended its  practice of casting a wide digital net on both the leaders and citizens of several allied nations.

The sweep inlcuded 70 million digital communications in France, in just one 30-day period alone, between Dec. 2012 and Jan. 2013; and it also revealed that the agency had tapped German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone for a decade. Naturally, she and other leaders across the globe expressed outrage.

Certainly, both wire and web tapping have long proved a valid and acceptable means to protect the populace from criminal endeavor. However, the legal interception of electronic communications has typically required a warrant and is usually limited to those communications that meet a stringent standard of relevance to a specific case.

In the United States, in order to obtain a warrant, the FISA [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] court typically requests the production of records "pertaining to a specific named target who is suspected of being an agent of a terrorist group or foreign state, or a finite set of individually named targets."

Snowden has since been granted asylum in Russia, although his residence in that country is limited to a year. Meanwhile back in the United States, mention of the erstwhile Booz Allen cyber spy continues to ignite heated discussion, as he is defended as a whistleblower by his supporters, and called a traitor by others.

How this story finishes is anyone's guess at this point.

Either way, as a result of Mr. Snowden’s explosive revelations and the ensuing international clamor they caused, the the 2013 Critical Noise Sound of the Year is awarded to the Tap-Tap Tapping of Internet Surveillance.

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HOW THE SOUND OF THE YEAR IS SELECTED:

The Critical Noise Sound of the Year goes to that sound source, event, entity, happening or concept which so effectively produces wide response and reaction, whether intentional or not, such that it stirs collective emotion, inspires discussion, incites action, or otherwise lends itself to cultural analysis and resonates across the globe.

Prior Sound of the Year winners include Pussy Riot (2012), The Cry for Freedom (2011), The Vuvuzela (2010) and Auto-Tune (2009)

From Media to Management

Image Courtesy liladepo

The hardest lesson I had to learn in my professional development from producer to Executive Producer is that:

Neither sales nor doing is leadership; Communication informed by empathy and purpose is leadership.

But maybe you don't even want to be a leader; delegation can feel like an awkward at first, while others are simply uncomfortable giving up control.

Or maybe all you ever wanted was to be a professional artist, a working composer or film editor, but along with acquiring professional success, you also acquired a staff. Suddenly, you've got mouths to feed and you spend less time making cool stuff, and more time running a company.

Nevertheless, for whatever reason, you may not want to accept the responsibility that comes with your job title.

One Executive Producer confessed to me that she didn't want to do sales. "But that's your job," I said. I wasn't being arrogant or pompous; I was simply stating a fact and the sooner she accepted that, the sooner she would reap the benefit gained by assimilating to her actual role, not the role she had in her head.

The fact is, the moment your job changes from artist to strategist, and you go from coordinating tasks to managing projects, then you're a leader. Whether you want to be a leader is irrelevant; if you have people under your charge, then the only thing that matters at this point is whether you're going to be an effective leader or an incompetent leader.

If you're any good at your job, then one day it will stop being just about Crayola crayons, or Adobe Creative Suite, or Autodesk, or ProTools, Davinci Resolve or whatever you count among your creative tools. You'll still have tools in your belt, but you'll also have people in the truck, so to speak. You'll gain a few more responsibilities, and with them will come the obligation to actually learn new management skills. In no particular order:

• Leadership is now your job.
• Communication is now your job. 
• Community Building is now your job
• Empathy is now your job.
• Strategy is now your job.
• Purpose is now your job.

Do what you other people before you have done to do to figure it out: read books, find a mentor, take a class if you have to, but don't permit yourself to turn into an obstinate jerk just because when you came up through the ranks, you worked for an obstinate jerk, and now you think, well, that's just the way you do it in our industry.

Here's a tip: an overwhelming number of psychological investigations and research into human learning suggests that the use of positive reinforcement in changing behavior is almost always more effective than using punishment. And you don't have to take my word for it, go ahead and Google it.

–And then, Good Luck!