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Convergence

8 Dec

I love taking photos, and I’ve got a very decent compact camera that I used to take with me everywhere. But it hardly ever leaves the house now. Why? Because my mobile phone takes photos like this over Sunday breakfast in a cafe:

Don’t get me wrong. The camera on my phone is very limited, and can’t compete with the sort of pics I take with my “proper” camera:

But in 99 percent of cases it’s more than good enough to record a moment in time. It got me wondering about technological convergence, and how portable items such as cameras and phones are slowly and steadily merging into one thing. My first digital camera (circa 2000) wouldn’t have been able to take a picture as good as that one at the top. But my phone now has GPS, web and email facilities too. All of which I use on a regular basis. I even subscribe to podcasts on it too, which I download via my home network using the phone’s wifi capabilities. So, where will it end?

I pondered this as I ran across the clifftops of Penarth before dawn this morning (not a regular occurrence – I couldn’t sleep). I watched the sleepy, blinking lights of England across the channel and wondered about the tankers in the shipping lanes. How would they benefit from convergence? Nothing sprung to mind, but then I know absolutely nothing about shipping. I realised that convergence is driven by portability. It’s about making stuff smaller, and reducing the amount of items to save our overwhelmed pockets and bags. Tankers, by their very nature, have plenty of space aboard. I suppose it’s not such an issue….

My phone is smaller than a pack of cards, but in most cases it means I don’t have to carry a laptop, camera, satnav, gaming console, radio etc.

As I mentioned recently we live in incredible times. And we’re seeing the world change right in front of our eyes. My good friend John Rostron pointed this out yesterday, as he wrote about the slow, inevitable decline of CD sales. Technology is moving very, very quickly. We are literally watching the world change day by day. It’s a fascinating time to be alive!

Oh, and big thanks to Mr Rostron (who’s also co-organiser of the Swn festival) for my brilliant Swn t-shirt. It’s a doozie, and a Howies one, too. I really must remember to pay him!

p.s. Play a musical instrument?

Pollen is dead. Long live Nocci.

6 Jun

I’m really proud and pleased to announce the “re-launch” of Nocci, the network for the creative industries. It started in a small way in Cardiff last year, but now we’re rolling it out across the UK and beyond. It used to be called Pollen. But now it’s not!

The site is still a little bit of a work in progress, but I’m so chuffed with it as it stands. I have to thank the brilliant Marc and Milen for putting in such great work on it. I can’t recommend both of them highly enough.

Please check out the new site, sign up and get involved with the forum. We’re also looking for people to run Pollen events in their part of the UK/world.

Also, I have to say that I am *stupidly* excited by the news that Stevie Wonder is doing some dates in the UK in September. I’ll do whatever it takes to get tickets!

p.s. If you’re wondering, it’s pronounced “nocky”.

(This blog’s picture was taken at The Big Chill festival a few years ago, by the side of one of the ponds)

Pollen is dead. Long live Nocci.

6 Jun

I’m really proud and pleased to announce the “re-launch” of Nocci, the network for the creative industries. It started in a small way in Cardiff last year, but now we’re rolling it out across the UK and beyond. It used to be called Pollen. But now it’s not!

The site is still a little bit of a work in progress, but I’m so chuffed with it as it stands. I have to thank the brilliant Marc and Milen for putting in such great work on it. I can’t recommend both of them highly enough.

Please check out the new site, sign up and get involved with the forum. We’re also looking for people to run Pollen events in their part of the UK/world.

Also, I have to say that I am *stupidly* excited by the news that Stevie Wonder is doing some dates in the UK in September. I’ll do whatever it takes to get tickets!

p.s. If you’re wondering, it’s pronounced “nocky”.

(This blog’s picture was taken at The Big Chill festival a few years ago, by the side of one of the ponds)

Knowing what’s good for you…

4 Jun

I’ve been incredibly busy and stressed of late. I tend to deal with it pretty well as a rule, but the lack of sleep, added to the travel and poor diet, has resulted in me being pretty wiped at all times for the last week or so.

So at the beginning of this week I committed to being in bed by 10pm for three consecutive nights, gorged on vegetables, and went out for a couple of long runs. Result? Bags of energy and feeling like a new man.

It’s so important when you’re working on several projects to manage your time effectively, but most of us (me included) never seem to schedule in time for “self-maintenance”. Schedule an hour of your day to looking after yourself (swimming, running, tai-chi, meditation, press-ups or all of the above) and your productivity and energy levels will sky-rocket.

News in brief –

- I wrote and produced a documentary about Prince, a childhood hero of mine, a few weeks ago for an ace internet radio station. You can download it here. Nudge me if the link has expired and I’ll upload it again.

- I’ve been working with Milen from MTR Design and Marc from The Undercard to get a new Pollen website up and running. It’ll be going live within about 24 hours, I hope. So keep checking back to www.pollenhq.com to see the utterly brilliant site they’ve put together. It’s been a genuine pleasure working with both of them and I can’t recommend them highly enough.

- I’ve decided to make my blog a bit more attractive by using some of my photos in it. They won’t necessarily relate to the blog (this week features a shot I took in Lyon when I was there doing a gig a few years ago), but they should make it a bit more colourful around here….

Knowing what’s good for you…

4 Jun

I’ve been incredibly busy and stressed of late. I tend to deal with it pretty well as a rule, but the lack of sleep, added to the travel and poor diet, has resulted in me being pretty wiped at all times for the last week or so.

So at the beginning of this week I committed to being in bed by 10pm for three consecutive nights, gorged on vegetables, and went out for a couple of long runs. Result? Bags of energy and feeling like a new man.

It’s so important when you’re working on several projects to manage your time effectively, but most of us (me included) never seem to schedule in time for “self-maintenance”. Schedule an hour of your day to looking after yourself (swimming, running, tai-chi, meditation, press-ups or all of the above) and your productivity and energy levels will sky-rocket.

News in brief –

- I wrote and produced a documentary about Prince, a childhood hero of mine, a few weeks ago for an ace internet radio station. You can download it here. Nudge me if the link has expired and I’ll upload it again.

- I’ve been working with Milen from MTR Design and Marc from The Undercard to get a new Pollen website up and running. It’ll be going live within about 24 hours, I hope. So keep checking back to www.pollenhq.com to see the utterly brilliant site they’ve put together. It’s been a genuine pleasure working with both of them and I can’t recommend them highly enough.

- I’ve decided to make my blog a bit more attractive by using some of my photos in it. They won’t necessarily relate to the blog (this week features a shot I took in Lyon when I was there doing a gig a few years ago), but they should make it a bit more colourful around here….

Top 100 Startups

24 Apr

- Apologies for the lack of updates. I have lots of things I want to write about, but they don’t seem to lend themselves to quick and pithy posts. Normal service will be resumed soon.

- Startups.co.uk have just published their top 100 startups for this year. It makes interesting reading. Lots I’ve heard of, and lots I haven’t. Many of them are based in the financial sector, but there’s a reassuring amount that are creative, or creative solutions to traditional problems. But it’s still a shame to see that only a quarter of the entrepreneurs are female, and the majority of all the businesses are still London-based. I’m not sure if this is because London based startups get more exposure, being in the hub of all things media and publishing, but I don’t actually think there’s any in there from Wales. Let’s hope we can change that soon!

Edit: I had a closer look at the list and it appears there is at least one company from Wales in there (Afan Films). I think any stats for Wales must be lumped in with the South West, or just not reported at all.

Ikutaro Kakehashi

4 Apr


I’ve just met Ikutaro Kakehashi, the founder of Roland Instruments and the man who “invented” MIDI (he initiated discussions between electronic music manufacturers to develop a universal communication method). For anyone who’s ever been involved in music production you’ll know what a massive influence Roland and MIDI have had on technology over the past few decades.

Mr Kakehashi’s a kind of foreboding looking character but, at nearly 80 years old, he’s an impressively forward thinking, charming, charismatic and witty guy. I was priveleged to be invited to his receiving of a honorary professorship at Glamorgan University’s creative industries school, which is sponsored by Roland. It’s an impressive site (and sight!) which should hopefully push forward the future of the creative industries and music in Wales.

I was pretty spell-bound by Kakehashi’s hour long “lecture” about music technology that he interspersed with slides and videos. It was fascinating to hear what he had to say about his past (orphaned at 2yrs old in Osaka, hospitalised for four years as a young man), his business (setting up his own electronics store in 1954, designing Hammond organs, cajoling the defiantly anti-electronic Oscar Peterson to appear on one of his adverts) and the future of music technology. This was the area where he had the most passion. He talked at length about Roland’s audio visual products and how he sees this as a big area for the future. Especially with much of the technology being instinctive and easy to use. Full audio-visual sets from us musicians, without the need for world-class VJs may not be too far away….

Anyway, suffice to say that it was a very interesting afternoon and after his lecture i was lucky enough to swap a few words with the man himself and get given a copy of his book. Not a bad buffet afterwards, either!

Ikutaro Kakehashi

4 Apr


I’ve just met Ikutaro Kakehashi, the founder of Roland Instruments and the man who “invented” MIDI (he initiated discussions between electronic music manufacturers to develop a universal communication method). For anyone who’s ever been involved in music production you’ll know what a massive influence Roland and MIDI have had on technology over the past few decades.

Mr Kakehashi’s a kind of foreboding looking character but, at nearly 80 years old, he’s an impressively forward thinking, charming, charismatic and witty guy. I was priveleged to be invited to his receiving of a honorary professorship at Glamorgan University’s creative industries school, which is sponsored by Roland. It’s an impressive site (and sight!) which should hopefully push forward the future of the creative industries and music in Wales.

I was pretty spell-bound by Kakehashi’s hour long “lecture” about music technology that he interspersed with slides and videos. It was fascinating to hear what he had to say about his past (orphaned at 2yrs old in Osaka, hospitalised for four years as a young man), his business (setting up his own electronics store in 1954, designing Hammond organs, cajoling the defiantly anti-electronic Oscar Peterson to appear on one of his adverts) and the future of music technology. This was the area where he had the most passion. He talked at length about Roland’s audio visual products and how he sees this as a big area for the future. Especially with much of the technology being instinctive and easy to use. Full audio-visual sets from us musicians, without the need for world-class VJs may not be too far away….

Anyway, suffice to say that it was a very interesting afternoon and after his lecture i was lucky enough to swap a few words with the man himself and get given a copy of his book. Not a bad buffet afterwards, either!

Ticket Touts, Microsoft, China and Digital Nomads

11 Mar

* “Concert promoters have joined performing artists’ managers in their battle to get secondary ticketing companies to pay a levy from the profits they make on live shows”, says an article on FT.com. In essence this means that they want the likes of eBay to pay a percentage of any profits from tickets sold online. Part of me says this is an important way to start to eat into the “problem” of ticket touts buying up normal price tickets before the real fans can get there, and then selling them on at several times the price. Another part of me thinks we can’t mess with market forces. If I sold a car to a man for a price I’d set, and then found out that he’d later sold it on for more money I couldn’t demand a share of his profits too, could I?

* I’ve been keeping half an eye on the swelling giant of a market that exists in China. There’s so much potential for any entrepreneurs who are willing to take a punt on providing for the burgeoning middle classes in this exciting country. I can’t say I’m much of an expert on consumer goods, but if you can leap the cultural hurdle (if you’ll excuse the metaphor) and find a product or service that captures the imagination of the Chinese nouveau riche there’s plenty of exciting opportunities ahead. I for one would love to spend time out there. It’s a vast, intriguing country that is just asking to be explored. My friend Rob has been out there for the past year and I always enjoy checking out his photos.

* You may remember that I wrote about working from my new local cafe recently. Well, a few days ago Microsoft’s Steve Clayton blogged about the very same thing. He links to some great articles on the subject of “Digital Nomads” (hey, I’m a Digital Nomad. I like the sound of that!). Definitely worth a read if you’re the type who does (or could) work from anywhere.

* I mention Steve Clayton because I’ve really enjoyed reading his blogs of late, and he has really “humanised” the Microsoft behemoth for me. They are often seen as the faceless, corporate flipside to Steve Jobs’ “hip and groovy” Apple. But through reading Steve’s blogs I’ve got a sense of the passion with which Microsoft go about their creativity and innovation. I was lucky enough to meet one of his colleagues, Steve Beswick, recently when I sat on the panel of a Dragon’s Den style event for Make Your Mark‘s “Ideas Igloo”. A really cool event, supported by Microsoft, which aimed to identify and encourage young entrepreneurs and innovators. I really enjoyed the event and it reassured me to see that this bunch of young students had some amazing ideas and tons of energy.

1000 True Fans

6 Mar

Just a couple of quick things for you, as I’ve got a backlog of things I’d like to tell you all about but they’re building up and I never have enough time to blog as it is!

Those of you that read my last blog about Chris Anderson may know of his seminal work “The Long Tail” – the business model of supplying niche products, rather than targeting the obvious products that sell in huge amounts* – which, while really just a re-explaining of already-understood concepts within business practice, has described how a lot of people are making money off the back of the internet.

Anyway, I digress. Kevin Kelly‘s latest blog argues that as a musician/artist/whatever that The Long Tail makes life difficult, but that if you’re clever you only need 1000 “true fans” to make a living. It’s a really interesting read for anyone wondering if they’ll be able to survive in the creative industries. It all kind of depends on your definition of a “true fans”, and whether an artist can generate enough “product” to in turn generate enough sales to keep those particular fans spending on you. It’s easy enough to get 1000 “friends” on Myspace, but as a singer-songwriter who’s only just releasing his first album, would you be able to create box-sets, DVDs and online subscriptions? Or would albums, singles and t-shirts be enough. It’s a question that each individual needs to answer themselves, but I think it’s a very important one to ask. Read the article and get thinking. It should give you a much better understanding of what exactly you have to do to live off your passion.

Also, if you’ve ever worked for, or been involved with a major label you should check out this article from FT.com. It starkly lays out how the music industry as we know it is changing (as highlighted in my last entry), and A+R men are under massive pressure to deliver the goods with a fraction of the budget. As I’ve told many of my clients and friends over the last few years – even if you get signed by a major, the chances of being unceremoniously dropped like a hot potato within a year or two are huge. To the label you are a gamble, and until you go platinum your costs will be subsidised by the likes of U2, Coldplay and the like. And until you make up, as in EMI’s case, one of the just 3 percent of artists that generate a profit (yep, only three percent!) then you’ll be a liability and prime for the chop.

So maybe it’s time to work on those 1000 “true fans” yourself and cut out the desire to sign to an unweildy and outdated major…

* This is a gross simplification, but if you know anything about marketing you’ll be able to relate to it as a different aspect of the Pareto Principle. I’ve actually just found a better description from The Long Tail website that reads: “The theory of the Long Tail is that our culture and economy is increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of “hits” (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve and toward a huge number of niches in the tail. As the costs of production and distribution fall, especially online, there is now less need to lump products and consumers into one-size-fits-all containers. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly-targeted goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare.”


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