Give Me My Nickel Back

Earlier this week I gave a presentation on the influence of file sharing on the music industry, and how this innovation ushered in a drastic paradigm shift. We discussed how the advent of file sharing permanently changed the buying habits of music fans, and how the music industry's entrenched paradigm (Kennan, 2010) responded without innovation to this game changer. The industry responded reactively to this new innovation through lawsuits, Digital Rights Management, and price hikes on CD's to recoup the costs from illegal file sharers. But while this entrenched paradigm dug in it's heals, the artists did what they do best; creatively innovate. Some responded proactively by embracing the internet as an effective and more personalized medium to distribute their art. Some began to interact with fans on Myspace and gave their labors away for free, or more recently, put the pricing power in the customers hands through the Pay What You Want Model. While these trends were certainly not ubiquitous one thing was for sure; a new era had begun. The new paradigm of choice and personal melodic exploration were here and it wasn't going anywhere.

The article I presented on came to one interesting empirical conclusion; people who download music illegally are more likely to buy music legally. This phenomenon can be explained through the concept of cognitive dissonance; a force that will prove to be a key x-factor in this new paradigm. Downloading music illegally creates an inconsistency between one's attitudes (I want to support my favorite artists) and behaviors (I take money out of my favorite artist's pocket through illegal downloading). This inconsistency breeds discomfort, which we communication people label dissonance. There are two ways this dissonance is cured; changing the attitude to match the behavior (the record company gets all the artists money from this CD anyway so I'm not really hurting the artist I love by illegally downloading, or I don't really like this band enough to pay for their music) or promising yourself that a future behavior will rectify this attitude inconsistency (I will buy two of their other albums, I will go to their show, I will buy a shirt, etc). This creates a marketplace of highly motivated fans that are willing to pay for the artists they believe in. Artists that are enjoyed passively are more likely to succumb to the attitude switch (they don't deserve my money anyway) instead of a behavior switch (I will buy the album, shirt, concert ticket, etc). Thus cream is rising to the top, and the depth and breadth of quality music has never been more present.

"But Danny?" you ask "how is it that Nickelback continues to sell records after pumping out the same mind-numbingly formulaic song for the last decade? Shouldn't they have been taken out to pasture and shot by this new paradigm?" Touche salesman. Let's take out our Uncertainty Reduction Theory flashlight and shine some light on this Canadian calamity. While the demand for newness is indeed high, there will also always be a market for familiarity. Axiom #7 of URT: "Increases in uncertainty produce decreases in liking." A great deal of uncertainty is always present in a drastic paradigm shift, which for some breeds a dislike for this newness, and thus breeds a need for familiarity. People like what they know, and Nickelback found a formula to hit on every cliche and generic aspect of rock and roll. They have created a perpetual familiarity machine where they pump out the same song with limited to no variations. Need proof? Check out the video below where two of Nickelback's biggest hits, This is How You Remind Me and Someday, are listened to at the same time.



Laughably similar right? So even though the talent pool of artists is getting deeper by the day; pop music will always have a market based on familiarity.

"But Danny?" you ask again "What about Lady Gaga? Her whole persona is based on a break from the familiarity and she's the queen of the pop world."

Don't you have something better to do than ask me questions.....

Gaga's persona is indeed far from the norm. However, she is still a variation on a theme. Lady Gaga is like if Madonna shot cocaine straight into her eye balls and had a fabric store vomit on her. Pop stars have always tried to teeter the edge with their image, telling themselves that, 'if I shock, the awe will come.'

In terms of musical quality, the former conclusion holds; she's just a variation on a theme. She's a talented singer (she went to Julliard when she was 16 and fronted a Queen cover band) but her talent is not awe-inspiring. Her music is catchy, but is not unlike other artists in the top 40. She is a testament to Gladwell. She is exceptional at getting things to stick. Once it's in your head....no matter how hard you try...it never leaves.....ROMA OOO GAGA.....dammit....

So now that the music industry has moved to a consumer driven market where the people decide whether an artist is worth their money, what is the appropriate buying mechanism? In their book, The Future of Music: Manifesto for the Digital Music Revolution, authors David Kusek and Gerd Leonhard predict that "in the very near future, music will be ubiquitous. They envision that music will become more of a utility that seamlessly fits into our lives rather than merely a product." If Kusek and Leonhard are correct, it seems as though the appropriate mechanism would be the Pay What You Want Model. We could see artists begin to put a digital file on their website, and put the power of price in the customers hands. Instead of buying from a dispassionate outlet (Napster, Rhapsody, Itunes, Amazon, etc) you would buy an album straight from the artist you love. The artist becomes a provider of an essential service instead of a product to sell, and the listener would decide what donation to give the artist.

The Buffet Model (paying $20 a month for all you can listen to music) is also an interesting innovation. But if there's anything consumers enjoy it's choice. The Pay What You Want Model puts the power in the fan's hands, and allows the fan to choose what the artists' work is worth. This would also engage a fan's cognitive dissonance directly. Especially if there is an "average donation" or "top donation" bar to the side of the donation window, a fan will be more inclined to pay the artist what they believe they deserve to be paid. Of course there are flaws, but if buying music at an artist's website becomes a comfortable medium to buy music, people wouldn't feel as inclined to the download their favorite artist illegally.

What do you think? Is the Pay What You Want Model viable? Will the familiarity of pop music ever stop being marketable? What's the next paradigm shift? Should Canada formally apologize for Nickelback?

The incomparable MC Lars summarizes this blog quite well. It samples the Iggy Pop song "The Passenger" and basically echoes the sentiment expressed throughout the blog. Remember when Jason talked about the "nerdcore" underground scene that gained a respectable fan base due to constant touring and it's generosity with it's music. MC Lars is one of it's greatest champions.

.....and to think.....without illegal downloading....white rappers everywhere would be in danger of unemployment....would be a shame yo'

Youth is Wasted on Young

It's the first day of school. The butterflies raced around my stomach in wild anticipation. I was used to this feeling. The uncertainty of what lay ahead of me and the excitement that followed. Except the difference between that day and others like it that preceded it, was that I was in front of the class instead of blending into a sea of seats. It was my first semester as a professor of record, and my mixture of nerves and excitement was only increased by my class' location; the newly renovated Young Hall. Radford University spent a whopping $6.5 million to create an innovative learning environment for it's students. Two years of inconvenient construction later, Radford University had a new toy to play with and I was one of the first to lay their hands on it.

I walked into the building and said, "this...is....so...cool." A sleek interior design complete with color coordination between the chairs and the walls greeted me. Along with a gorgeous spiral staircase that led up to the second floor where a "laptop bar" and spacious group work areas were set up. I continued to walk through the building, gawking in admiration. Everything I encountered had a distinct "cool" factor to it.

I walked up to the third floor to my classroom, and noticed how well spaced the hallways were. Usually classrooms are spaced out prison style, where you fit the most rooms into a designated space as possible. But there were only about five or six classrooms on this floor, and next to each classroom was an enclave where a group could meet before class. I continued to be impressed. I then walked into my class room and stood awestruck at the litany of technology that stood before me. Three (count em' THREE) HD TV's, portable whiteboards, a touch screen control panel that switched between multiple displays (computer, TV, document camera, DVD, etc), and coolest of all a touch sensitive SMARTBOARD where you could navigate web pages with the touch of a fingertip. You could even write notes on the SMARTBOARD with a digital pen. My nerdiness was geeking out. "I could take attendance on the SMARTBOARD! I could put quizzes on the document camera! I could use the white boards for group activities! I can watch Judge Judy before class!" All of these ideas of how to utilize these new innovations ran though my head as I set up for class.

I got all my things in order and as students filed in I took stock of the room itself. It finally dawned on me that the room was a claustrophobic's nightmare. It was absolutely tiny. Students were cramped onto both sides four long tables (no desks), and many student's view of the front of the class was almost completely obstructed. The University explains the room size by saying these "non-traditional seating arrangements are designed to facilitate collaborative learning and group work." If by "collaborative learning" and "group work" they meant, "giving students way too easy of a chance to cheat off each other" then they hit the nail right on the head. My colleague Tyler Morris very aptly summed up my feelings on this sudden new revelation, "while [this room] has more gadgets than the Starship Enterprise, it is not much bigger than a broom closet...not gonna work..." Indeed.


I calmed down a little and told myself that the technology in the room would make up for it's small stature. I'd be able to blow students away with this new technology and help them gain retention and understanding of course concepts. One con does not outweigh all the pros, I thought to myself. But as the semester went on the pro column dwindled. My idea of taking attendance on the SMARTBOARD failed miserably. If you touch the board twice with your finger it automatically erases everything on the board. So after the second time 80% of the class signed their name in and someone accidentally hit the board with their finger, I officially squashed the idea. Also the document camera was in an awkward place in the room, which made it very difficult to utilize. And the portable whiteboards were completely unnecessary. Having a student rip out a piece of paper and have the group take notes on that paper basically fulfills the same function. And the three TVs in the room were only there to compensate for the size of the room (this season of Judge Judy was not nearly trashy enough either....). There were students who literally could not see the front of the room from where they were sitting, so they had to have a TV in their line of sight so they'd know what to take notes on. But if you can't see the professor in a PUBLIC SPEAKING class, you're missing a pretty vital aspect of the class. Compensation for an inadequacy is not innovation.

Radford touted Young Hall as "The Future of Instruction and Learning." Apparently in the future, everything is superfluous. Don't get me wrong it's very imaginative and very aesthetically pleasing (like Avatar), but in the end there was not much substance to work with (like Avatar). There is not one useful thing the classrooms in Young Hall allowed me to do that I couldn't have done in the average classroom on campus. There is a big difference between innovation and beautiful imagination; innovation denotes an upgrade in usefulness. I can imagine creating a robotic flying unicorn that sings Age of Aquarius while leaving an exhaust trail that says, "Death to Vampires." But just because it's awesome (...and insanely ridiculous), doesn't make it useful, and therefore doesn't belong under the umbrella of innovation. If you reprogrammed that robotic unicorn with the technology to spot a landmine, send a signal to a command base, and leave an exhaust trail letting soldiers know to stay away from that area; that would be innovation. A key facet of innovation is utility, and Young Hall (even for all it's beauty), severely lacks innovation.

A Bandade Without Stickiness

A day after President Obama's State of the Union Address I flipped to Comedy Central and caught an episode of The Daily Show. I was particularly excited for this episode because anytime an inflated political event occurs The Daily Show shines it's brightest. And there are few more inflated moments in television than The State of the Union. The Daily Show brought on Doris Kearns Goodwin, a presidential historian and a frequent guest of the show, and during Goodwin and Stewart's banter Stewart brought up an incredibly interesting point. Take a look at the video.




The whole interview is rather interesting, but the part I found particularly intriguing was when Stewart criticized Obama's communication strategy as being overly complex. He suggested a communication strategy where the administration focuses on a few core issues and articulates clear solutions to each. A strategy resembling Ronald Reagan. In essence, Obama's communication strategy isn't sticky enough. Reagan was called the great communicator not necessarily because of his oratory powers (even though he had an actor's touch with his words), but because he was able to make messages stick, "a government that governs best is one that governs least," "a people free to choose will always choose peace," etc. Now I am not a Reagan enthusiast, but Stewart is right you have to appreciate Reagan's communicative abilities. His messages stuck with people. Obama has this ability too. We saw it in his campaign. But now that he's here and has to follow up on his rhetoric, he's beginning to throw messages into Teflon...unable to get anything to stick.

Stewart very astutely described Obama's dichotomy as a communicator; being a prolific orator but being a less than prolific communicator. Obama has been called one of the greatest orators of our time, which seems to presuppose that he is a great communicator. But a key component of being a great communicator is being able get people to come to some shared meaning. Obama was unable to articulate successful persuasive messages to the American people on the public option, a single payer system, or a significant expansion of Medicare, and has received a significant backlash from many Americans. These visions just didn't stick. You could argue that these just weren't good ideas, and failed because of their inability to effectively solve health care problems. However, this may have also been due to the difference between the complexity of the issue, and the simplicity and stickiness between competing messages.

Obama was calling for sweeping reforms and extensive change; something that can cause excitement and hope for the future (campaign) or crippling fear and aversion (Presidency). He couldn't go back to the "yes we can" well because that epidemic ran it's cycle (epidemic in Gladwell terms, not epidemic in death and destruction terms...I'm not Glenn Beck...), so he devised a complex communication strategy because of the density of the issue. Republican's devised a counteractive communication strategy that is far more sticky. It's simple, easy to play off, and even easier to implement. It's so easy it can be condensed into one word, "no (with variations)."

Republican's aversion to anything Obama has sustained an adversarial communication landscape. Where pragmatism is traded in for political points (this isn't anything new and Democrats aren't innocent of these charges either). Now, I'm not saying Republicans don't have legitimate concerns about health care. Health care is an incredibly complicated and layered issue, and we need to get it right rather then right now, but there seems to be very little middle ground to tread. In order to create this middle ground Obama needs a clear solution and multiple messages that stick. He needs to adopt a Reagan-esque communication style where he is able to communicate clearly and concisely what he wants to do. Otherwise this incredibly important issue will be dominated by the fear of change and "no".

It's like when you decide to start exercising. In the beginning its a great idea. You almost feel good about yourself just for deciding to do it. But when you get into the gym, you realize sustaining a workout regiment is incredibly difficult. It's painful, time consuming, and you constantly question the costs and rewards of the activity. After two weeks you look at yourself and see little change. The costs begin to pile and the rewards are slim to none (pun absolutely intended). You begin to lose motivation. You begin to be dominated by the power of "no". Until finally it overtakes you. You stop going to the gym and you stop taking care of your health (get it.....health care.....care of your health......God I'm on fire...).

This obviously is not the case for everyone. Once you get through the growing pains, accept the change, and tell yourself messages that stick ("it's worth it", "you can do this", "I want to see my toes again.."), working out becomes apart of your life. It requires perseverance, resilience, and variety of messages that motivate you to change. Obama needs to do the same. Find messages that stick, so America can heal.

Well Howdy Nieburh

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference." - Reinhold Nieburh

I love this quote. I truly do. The Serenity Prayer encompasses three incredibly admirable dispositions and weaves them together into a hopeful and insightful adage. It takes two incongruous concepts, acceptance and activism, and binds them together through the prism of wisdom and choice.

So what makes Mr. Nieburh's quote noteworthy beyond aesthetics (sounding nice)? It does a particularly fantastic job encompassing the nature of change. Let's look at the first part:

"God grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change."

Change is an inherent part of life, and it comes in all shapes and sizes. There are some things about the natural order of the world that we can not change; death, time, the weather, getting annoyed at Lady Gaga being stuck in your head...again, etc. These are the things that lay the groundwork for everything we do, and no matter how much we try to avoid them they effect everything we do. The natural order of the world are the universal variables that change the way the game is played, and it takes a great deal of wisdom to achieve a certain level of serenity with the finality and finite nature of life, the acceptance of your choices throughout time, and RA RA OOO LA LA......dammit...

There are also things outside the natural order of the world that are unchangeable. For example, within a two year span of my life: my parents divorced, my father married my best friend's mother, and my mother came out of the closet. A hefty bit of change to deal with indeed. But in order to survive with my sanity intact, I had to accept these new instruments of fate. I was not going to change my mother's sexual orientation, my father's genuine love for my best friend's mother, nor my parent's obviously fractured marriage. These were new variables that changed everything about my life, and thus fully shaded the perspective from which I saw and now see the world. It took time, patience, and understanding to accept these changes and gain a certain level of serenity with my family. One of the life lessons I learned from this experience was that a part of the nature of change is knowing that it's inevitable, and being adaptable to unavoidable changes is an irreplaceable virtue.

Let's now look at the second part of the quote:

"God grant me...the courage to change the things I can."

Real change is hard and it requires a great deal of fortitude, resilience, and yes...courage. There are very few true quick fixes in this world, and the larger the problem, the less likely a quick fix is possible. Whether a problem is small, large, personal, or organizational; change is the catalyst for success. But in order for that catalyst to spark, someone needs to light the fire. Change is not silent, and it takes real courage to fight for what you believe in. There is no honor in apathy, and no glory in complacency. However, there is validity in the age old saying, "if it ain't broke don't fix it." Changing for the sake of change is neither admirable nor wise, and this is where the last part of our quote comes in to tie everything together.

"God grant me....the wisdom to know the difference"

Knowing the difference between what you can change and what you can't is incredibly difficult. Being able to identify a problem, a strategy to solve the problem, and implementing that change all pose high levels of difficulty. If we misidentify a problem we may be trying to change something that doesn't need to be changed. If we create a faulty strategy to solve the problem it might get even worse, and if we can't convince anyone to implement the change then the idea wallows in futility. It takes an immense amount of wisdom to know if something needs to be changed, what needs to be changed, how we can change it, and convincing people why the change is necessary. If one part of this process goes, so goes the change. Therefore without wisdom, change is useless.

This will act as my intro manifesto. What I thought about change before I entered this class. I am hoping to gain more insight and wisdom in this subject so I can professionally and personally become more capable. Or at least be able to have a sense of serenity with the things I can't change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.