The Truth Hurts, but Also Sets You Free

Goldstar’s John Loken forwarded me a blurb from the New Yorker by Alex Ross that included the following graph:

From the League of Orchestras, via the New Yorker

So this graph shows the percentage of people of different generations level of participation in attending classical music as they age.

From the point of view of what it portends for the future, there’s one word I’d use to describe the picture:  bummer.  My group, Gen X, would historically be expected to turn upward in one of those big bumps you see for the rest of the generations at about age 40 to 50, but instead, there’s a clear downward kink at age 30 from which we haven’t picked up the slack.

But even if we do, we’re just not big enough.  Boomers outnumber us dramatically, so even if we returned to early boomers participation levels, it would still represent a drop off.

I feel like one of the TV networks at 8:01 on election night when it’s clear that one guy is going to win in a landslide:  I’m calling it early.  Gen X will not rise to the levels of previous generations participation, and Gen Y will be even worse.

What does it mean?  Only this: if the classical music institutions stay essentially as they are, many will fold in the next decade or so.   Essentially, the industry as we know it will be swept away.

What’s left?  Only this:  something else.

You can’t save what is currently out there.  All you can do if you want to see classical music as a live form continue to live (and hopefully even thrive) is create something else from the assets that currently exist.

There’s no more time to debate ‘if.’

“Every Marketing Program Begins with the Same Question…”

“What is the intrinsic value of the product or service?”

So says Lynda Resnick, creator of POM Wonderful pomegranate juice, as quoted by Harvey Mackay in his most recent column.

What does intrinsic value mean? In developing your product and your way of talking about the product, Resnick says you should “recognize above all that consumers aren’t stupid. They are looking for value, honesty, respect and occasionally, fun.”  And while I’d say that the ‘fun’ part of the equation is more than just occasional, I’d agree with the whole list.

And while I suppose it’s easy enough to play with the meaning of “intrinsic” til whatever you happen to be doing is delivering “intrinsic value,” you’re still not going to see the benefits of this philosophy until you discover what makes your product special to consumers, both the ones you have and the ones you want.

Are you listening, orchestras of America?

If it can work for pistachios, pomegranates and collectible plates, it can work for great music.

To Be or Not To Be

We’ve been talking a lot lately about organizations with long and storied histories on the verge of potentially catastrophic change, like the Philadelphia and Cleveland Orchestras and the Pasadena Playhouse.

But as you might know, I see this time in our history as not merely an especially nasty recession, but what I have been calling a ‘frame-breaking’ or  a ‘remaking.’  I quoted Jeff Jarvis a few weeks ago as saying that we’re moving from the industrial age to “whatever comes next.”  But that’s cool with me because I’m a future-oriented person, eager to see what’s next.

Maybe that’s naive.  After all, in 1935, “what’s next” was pretty freakin’ awful.  Maybe those who look to an unknown future with a certain amount of dread have the right idea.  After all, what do we know about it?

This is what "Not to Be" Looks Like...

When Hamlet contemplated taking the revenge his father’s ghost demanded, he was ready to spring into action until…until he realized that he had no idea what would happen when he made that leap.  Taking action would be easy, he said, if only we knew what was coming next: “Ay, there’s the rub.”  In other words, that’s the problem.

Please continue, Sweet Prince:

“For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,

Th’ oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely

The pangs of despised love, the law’s delay,

The insolence of office, and the spurns

That patient merit of th’ unworthy takes,

When he himself might his quietus make

With a bare bodkin? Who would fardels bear,

To grunt and sweat under a weary life,

But that the dread of something after death,

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn

No traveller returns, puzzles the will,

And makes us rather bear those ills we have

Than fly to others that we know not of?

“The undiscovered country” Hamlet talks about means, for us, the future economy.  If you’re in the live entertainment business today, the question you face is whether the “dread of something after the death” of our current economy “makes you rather bear the ills” of decline “than fly to others that we know not of.”

Seth Godin recently said, “We need to get past this idea of saving [things like newspapers, the record industry, etc.], because the status quo is leaving the building, and quickly. Not just in print of course, but in your industry too.”

I’d add that the only people who should be in the business of saving the past are museums.

The 20th century is dead and gone.  The body isn’t even warm anymore.  The opportunity to cling to its fading past expired in fall 2008.

So the question is to be or not to be.  To be vital and relevant in our time, or not to be.   To be one of the people who lead our industry to a new place of prosperity and prominence or not to be.  To be a builder of that “undiscovered country,” that “whatever comes next” or not to be.  To be standing when this is over or not to be.

That’s the question.

The Endless Struggle to Think Well of Yourself

The tendency toward arrogance and self-satisfaction is so natural.  People start with a pretty high opinion of themselves, and even the slightest evidence they’re right is enough to prove the case.  And many people have a hard time feeling good about themselves without also looking down on you and me.  And that small seed that can destroy companies, organizations and nations.

No one I’ve ever met is immune to this, so if you want you organization to succeed, you’ll probably need to make a conscious effort to keep the roots of arrogance and smugness from taking hold.  I find this quote, from T.S. Eliot’s play, The Cocktail Party, helps:

“Half the harm that is done in this world is due to people who want to feel important. They don’t mean to do harm– but the harm does not interest them. Or they do not see it, or they justify it because they are absorbed in the endless struggle to think well of themselves.”

There’s no useful purpose for arrogance in any organization.  Confidence, definitely.  A little swagger, as the ballplayers say, sure.  But arrogance goes past believing in yourself and into believing you’re a superior sub-species to all the troglodytes around you.