Jazz and hip-hop star Soweto Kinch joins Creative Networks

Birmingham’s multi award-winning jazz and hip-hop musician, Soweto Kinch, will join this month’s Creative Networks event, to explore the resurgence of live music and its positive impact on local communities. Organised by Birmingham City University’s Technology Innovation Centre (TIC), the event will take place at Millennium Point, on Thursday 24th April.

In a period where the music industry is shifting from physical-format music sales, to a wide range of internet-based digital distribution strategies, there has been a significant resurgence in live music performance. Research by Mintel indicates that attendance at live music events doubled between 2001 and 2007, when the market was estimated to be worth £743 million. This figure is forecast to rise to £836 million by 2009.

Dave Taylor of TIC’s Centre for Interactive Media comments: “Faced with considerable change and turmoil, it is interesting to see how the industry has turned to its roots in live performance. The live experience cannot be replicated and revenue generation is relatively straightforward.”

The increased focus on live performance is illustrated by the growing use of ‘multi-rights’ or ‘360 degree’ contracts. These seek to share the revenue of an artist’s tour and merchandise sales, in addition to the traditional percentage of recorded music sales. Madonna has famously moved from a major record label, to sign a $120million multi-rights contract with Live Nation, a specialist live event promoter. Other artists such as Prince and The Charlatans, have also increasingly relied on live performance revenues, after giving away their latest albums for free.

Dave Taylor says: “Whilst established acts may be able to rely on their existing profile to take this extreme approach, it is vital that grass-roots talent is still able to progress from pubs, clubs and community centres, into larger arenas on the national and international stage.”

Creative Networks’ special guest speaker, Soweto Kinch, is a shining example of a local talent that has reached the global stage. He demonstrated a passion for jazz at an early age, initially playing the clarinet, before taking up his trademark instrument, the alto saxophone, aged nine. After completing a degree in Modern History at Oxford University, Soweto was offered a place on the ‘Tomorrow’s Warriors’ jazz musician development programme, established by British jazz legend, Gary Crosby.

Having initially gained prominence through live performance with his band, the Soweto Kinch Trio, Soweto’s debut solo album, ‘Conversations With the Unseen’, was released in 2003 to critical acclaim on both sides of the Atlantic. Successfully fusing jazz and hip-hop, the album earned Soweto the MOBO Award for ‘Best Jazz Act’ in 2003, and a major international tour followed. These live performances resulted in the 2004 BBC Radio Jazz Awards for ‘Best Band’ and ‘Best Instrumentalist’.

A passionate advocate of the power of music to inspire and transform communities, Soweto’s second album, ‘A Life In The Day Of B19 - Tales Of The Tower Block’, was inspired by his immediate surroundings in Birmingham. With narrative supplied by former BBC newsreader, Moira Stuart, this ground-breaking jazz concept album follows the everyday challenges of three men in a block of Birmingham council flats.

The album is a response to Soweto’s belief that media coverage of certain areas of Birmingham negatively focuses on stories of crime and unemployment. He suggests that the immense talent and rich cultural inspiration in these areas deserves greater coverage, in order to instil people with a high estimation of their capabilities and a vision of what is possible.

TIC’s Dave Taylor says: ”Just as Soweto’s music is an inspiration to the communities of Birmingham, his experience and insight will be inspirational to his fellow musicians. As always, we extend a warm invitation to all creative freelancers, companies and groups.”

Established in 2004, Creative Networks is a regular monthly gathering of up to 200 creative community professionals. The event is free and opens from 6pm. Anyone interested in attending should contact Creative Networks Co-ordinator, Scarlet Scardanelli, on 0121 331 5400 or e-mail creative.networks@tic.ac.uk.

Further Reading:

Myspace: Soweto Kinch:

http://www.myspace.com/sowetokinch

Dune Music - Soweto Kinch:

http://www.dune-music.com/artist_index.asp?ID=2

A Life in the Day of B19: Tales of the Tower Block:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Life-Day-B19-Tales-Block/dp/B000HXDHD2/sr=8-1/qid=1159894097/ref=pd_ka_1?ie=UTF8&s=music

Mintel reports on live industry growth

http://www.musicweek.com/story.asp?storyCode=1031576&sectioncode=1

UK Venues: Thank you for the music

http://www.brandrepublic.com/News/770680/UK-Venues-Thank-music/

A change of tune

http://www.economist.com/business/displaystory.cfm?story_id=9443082

Madonna announces huge Live Nation deal

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21324512/

Charlatans to give away new album as free download

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/charlatans-to-give-away-new-album-as-free-download-395626.html

Mama nurtures new talent as live music group becomes labels’ envy

http://business.timesonline.co.uk/tol/business/industry_sectors/media/article2641418.ece

Internet and middle-aged fans fuel live music boom

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/music/article-23408177-details/Internet+and+middle-aged+fans+fuel+live+music+boom/article.do

Anthony J Huges:

http://anthonyjhughes.vox.com/

Podnosh - Soweto Kinch:

http://www.podnosh.com/blog/category/soweto-kinch/

Birmingham Music Scene

http://www.bbc.co.uk/birmingham/content/articles/2007/04/24/birmingham_music_scene_feature.shtml

Live Music Forum

http://www.culture.gov.uk/what_we_do/Creative_industries/music/live_music_forum.htm

But I can’t wrap my chips in a blog

Last night, possibly for the first time in my life, I slipped back into a world that I imagine my dad once inhabited – I sat at the kitchen table, ate tea and read the local paper. It took a bit of effort to not fly around as usual, or switch my head off and watch Top Gear repeats on “Dave” - but I do feel better for it.

Of course, it is widely suggested that newspapers are dead, circulations are dwindling – and it is all the fault of the internet…..or more specifically just lately, the rise of so-called “social media”.

Well excuse me (if I now indulge in some blog cheese)….. but did cinema kill live theatre? did TV kill radio or the cinema? Has multi-channel super-wizzo TV actually stopped millions and millions tuning in to watch something decent on one of the proper, sorry, old channels? The old and new still appear to be jostling for position to me - they all have have their ups and downs.

I’ve been hooked up to the internet since 1996 – so any suggestion that the internet is going to kill traditional media seems a little odd. Newspaper circulations may be down – but they’re still shifting a fair few copies all these years into the big bad internet revolution.

Maybe, just maybe, newspaper circulations are down because they’re just not always giving people the content they want? Maybe they just don’t market themselves effectively? Maybe, like with me yesterday evening, people have just forgotten the simple pleasure of reading a paper? Since I buy newspapers and read news on the internet, I’m at least allowed an opinion as a member of the audience.

Content wise, there’s one really big thing on my personal wish list – confronted with an internet full of blogging and twittering – could someone PLEASE PLEASE take the time to spend all day sorting through it for me, then serve it up on my desktop during working hours and on a nice paper plate to mull over in my own time. Sure, not every blog contains golden newsworthy nuggets – but there’s plenty out there for gold mining prospectors!

I want quality over quantity – I just can’t keep up with all the blogs and things, there aren’t enough hours in the day. I also get a little despairing with news websites full of online toys – content is still king for me. I’m mostly sat with a screen at work – where I just don’t have the time to play with all the videos, sound clips, online votes, etc, etc. Give me the news, straight, undiluted, when I want it….. without distracting frippery.

Oh and I actually don’t mind paying if it is worth buying!

As for the simple pleasure of reading the paper – well, like going to the cinema is still, for me at least, better than watching even the biggest TV at home and live music events are better than any download store…. sometimes a paper is just nicer to have than a screen. Think of the buses going around the city every morning with lots of heads buried in that free paper.

At lunchtime I want a break from the screen – give me a paper to read……give me something to read on the bus home…and quite honestly, after sitting at a screen all day…..do I really want to sit at another?!

Apart from certain national papers putting some slightly self-obsessed ads on poster sites around the city – where’s the marketing?! Where is the communication of some killer USP’s that give people a good reason to pick up a paper? I’m sorry …….but I’m just not seeing it.

That does seem a shame – the paper empire has a lot to give and really could strike back.

Blogging on the inside

My blogging thought for the weekend as been: “Blogging could be great for internal communications”. Of course, that eureka moment was short-lived, with some google research showing that the usual corporate suspects are already big on internal blogging.

I’m sure that the idea of closed internal blogging might offend the blogging purists, but I believe there’s a time and place for open discussion – internal issues, matters of an organisation’s intellectual property, etc, aren’t ideal out in the public domain.

I don’t know the official stats off the top of my head – but where I work, well, it’s pretty big, with various faculties and departments around the city. I’m sure that I can’t be the only one at the coalface, who is too snowed under by my own bit of the organisation’s “here and now” to look too far around at what other parts are doing. Lets not even mention any possibility of internal politics actively getting in the way anyway. (I did say “possibility” if anyone is preparing my P45!).

However, after a week in blog land, lets just say that I’ve learned a little more about people and activities in other parts of the organisation than I otherwise would in a week. Actually, that’s not strictly true – there was a recent out-of-the-ordinary forum that got people together. I was summoned to Perry Barr (sorry, City North Campus..) for a “brand workshop”. The purpose of that probably isn’t for public forum, but the overriding thing I took from it was how great it was to get together and chat for once.

In fact, thinking about it, one of the most powerful tools for a communications professional in an organisation is the ‘random wander’ around the building, talking to people and having corridor meetings. And it isn’t idle gossip – it is a great way to find out what people are doing, what they’re planning on doing, etc. Talk is good – and I’m thinking that internal blogging could be a way to get those thoughts and ideas out from every corner to anyone who might be interested.

A couple of years ago, I migrated my faculty’s quarterly printed staff newsletter to a monthly email format – the idea being that we could get more news out, more often. One unforeseen benefit has been that it seems to have encouraged more people to find the marketing unit and tell us their news. However, people only tend to tell us about their story when they’ve got something to shout about, i.e. they’ve got some results from their work. A blog would give them a voice when they’re starting out on that journey – and they wouldn’t have to formalise it into a story and wait ’til the end of the month for distribution!

I’m thinking shared ideas, pooled knowledge, collaborative working……. anyone for an internal blog?!

UPDATE 08/04/08: Word has reached me that internal blogging is in the pipeline…..apparently we have an enlightened web team ;-) 

A blogging good get-together

Nearly a week into my venture through blogland – and I’ve a pleasant realisation -  despite all the technology enabling us to keep in touch from almost anywhere, at any time, many (if not most?) people are hankering after a good old fashioned face-to-face natter.

An overriding desire for face-to-face contact seemed apparent in the discussion about creating a shared physical workspace, during Monday’s Blog meeting. In fact, within just four days of taking an active interest in blogging, I’d met a whole load of new people, in person, at the ’spotted dog’ and ‘rootys’ blogging meetings. I’ve also discovered the LikeMind face-to-face conversation group - thanks to Katie.

So, overall, my mind is racing off with the thought of ”blogging as a tool to get people together”. That can only be good.

Is big brother watching me?

There was me blogging about ‘how blogging can affect the organisation’ – and the ‘mothership’ has already caught up with me. My blog is now linked from www.bcu.ac.uk/blogs …..I supposed I’d better slip some blatant plugging into my posts from now on

Letting the outside in – to everything

From my initial thoughts on the apparent blogging social classes, as well as a session of lunchtime philosophising across the desk at work….. I’d like to raise a toast to the “outside world”!

When starting my career in marketing communications, my esteemed mentor gave me a little pep talk – and perhaps the single most important piece of advice:

“Think outside in, not inside out”.

I dare say that some may regard that as clichéd and rather blindingly obvious, but it seems “outside in” thinking is not often thought of.

I’d sum it up as the problem you get when you’re so caught up in what you want to do (or are doing), that you lose touch with “the rest of us”. A simplistic marketing example is to name/describe what you’re offering without saying what it is actually going to do for your audience.

Without naming names, there are numerous examples of events/groups/marketing that are so inward looking, I’m sure it can’t just be me left asking “what the hell is that all about?” - or perhaps even worse “so what?”.

It is always the person who walks into a room you’ve just painted that spots “you’ve missed a bit”…..so here’s a vote to give more consideration to the power of the common man/woman, the outside world….the people who matter most of all.

Badges for bloggers builds barriers?!

Just back from the “official” Birmingham Blogging meeting – and firstly I’d like to thank those who pulled it together, these meetings have been really great for a blogging newbie.

The overriding thing that I’m compelled to blog about isn’t quite the ’social media cafe space’ agenda – it is the language and labels that seem to crop up, when talking about blogging and bloggers.

The idea that people who write blogs are part of a “blogging community” really concerns me. It begins to feel like an old boys club – or at worse, a new society of blogging classes. The world is so utterly (and to my mind pointlessly) divided by people badging themselves, which always seems to erect barriers, whether intentional or not.

Personally I’d like to see “blogging” to remain what it essentially is - a TOOL for communication and networking (yes….and all the associated spin offs!).

It is not a society, it is not a special club – blogging is a tool to share with everyone, without a membership card!

Do we have to have social badges for blogging? Lets just show as many people as possible how to use and benefit from this tool!

Thoughts on blogging for the organisation: Part 1

As introduced in my “On your marks….set…..go” post, I was compelled to start my journey of blogging discovery, through a desire to explore the opportunities and threats of blogging in my workplace. Here’s my best effort at making sense of my brum-blog mini-meeting thoughts so far:

Firstly the positive (and yes, this is probably blindingly obvious to all but newbies!):

* Communication is necessarily a two way process – and blogs provide a direct forum to engage and interact with an audience.

* By the very nature of the internet, blogs provide an extremely powerful means to disseminate information widely.

* The “media relations” aspect of my marketing life can only benefit from blogging. Within a blog I can create a new form of transparent press release, with links to information sources. With the information trail there, ‘media types’ will hopefully see that I’ve got a story, not a trumpet blowing solo of spin! (I had a good mentor – it is not the point of the exercise!) Transparency seems a good thing for them too?

* Blogs are great information sources too!

On the “issues to be concerned with” front, the whole marketing desire to avoid any communications howlers, intended or accidental, still has plenty to think about. When it comes to expressing individual opinions, it seems many organisations get twitchy – the old “these views don’t necessarily reflect those of us” line gets wheeled out as the last line of defence, from newspaper columns to twitter streams and….my employer’s own website.

What on earth are the views of the organisation? I’d like to see the book of the “views on everything” for the organisation! Would it be correct to assume that the organisation will accept any individual view as a shared one, so long as it isn’t going to have a detrimental effect on a key stakeholder or relationship?

‘Managing the organisation’s views on life and the world’ – there’s a job to keep someone busy.

One key thing I took from Friday’s meeting, was that in the wild west of blogging, you are just going to have to trust individuals blogging in the name of the organisation, to be responsible for what they’re doing. To manage the inherent risks, rather than any “regulations” and “guidelines”, that are ultimately unenforceable due to the vast expanse of the internet, I’m thinking that an open and regular internal forum of dialogue could be an idea. A self scrutiny group of bloggers perhaps?

As for what people external to the organisation might blog about, it is impossible to avoid the unpalatable! Two points from Friday though, firstly if someone is being plainly ridiculous and erroneous, there’s a fair chance the world will fairly scrutinise it. If, however, someone has something constructive to say, we need - somehow - to be there and respond. There’s some respect to be earned from responding well to criticism – no organisation is infallible right?!

I dare say that in those last two paragraphs, I’ve posed more questions than I’ve answered for myself. I did say this was a journey of discovery! I am however back to communication and blogging being a two way process – the organisation should listen as much as talk?

Bloggers Vs Lurkers

Shock horror to have ever been a lurker! There was one striking little nuance of my first trip to the blogging table – the blogging social classes of “Bloggers” and “Lurkers”. It was as if the people only listening (well reading) – the lurkers - were somehow second class.

Ok, so I’m minded to believe (well hope!) that it is a little harmless jesting – however, there is some value in the distinction between those talking (blogging) and those listening (lurking). There’s obviously very little point indeed in blogging and having no readers – and just because they’re not responding with their own 2p’s worth, people should nonetheless be pretty darn honoured that a fellow human being has took the time to listen to them. Talk can be cheap……listening is priceless?

On your marks, set…..go……..

There seems only one logical next step after the random meeting of brummie bloggers last night – get blogging. I do hate labels though, so I’m refusing to call myself a ‘blogger’ – it sounds like a cult – blogging is a tool, not a society (IMHO).

Anyhow….it isn’t everyday that I venture into one of Brum’s darkest back streets to meet with a load of strangers in a pub….. so what was I doing there?! Well, with ‘marketing’ and ‘communications’ in my job title, I’m interested in the opportunities – and (sorry blog fans) any potential ‘dark side’ of blogging.

At work, some people have started blogging, some are keen to start, some are positively evangelical about it – and no doubt, some are petrified by it. As a marketing person, everything I communicate to the world is carefully and necessarily monitored, edited and approved so that it will have a positive impact and keeps various stakeholders happy. (It sounds like a ball and chain, but its half the fun!). In blogging – there are no apparently no rules – it is the wild west of communication……which can be a little uneasy for us marketing types.

From the very outset, it is clear that organisational blogging can’t actually be managed or controlled – even if there is an official, monitored and edited blog, anyone wishing to avoid that can do so in various other forums. So, the interest for me is how are we all going to live with blogging, make the most of it – and perhaps most importantly, use this new tool responsibly.

I know its unfashionable in some quarters to be the guy going “yes, this is good….BUT”….however, I’m not here to be a stuck-in-the-mud. What, as a marketing person, am I scared of? Well…there’s the intentionally malicious – and the wholly unintended clanger dropping!

I’d be at best irresponsible to not be thinking through those consequences, assess the risks (as well as the opportunities) – and thinking of a way forward.

So folks….that’s what I’ll be doing.

By the way…thanks to all those last night who so willingly shared their knowledge, views and opinions to a newbie at the blogging table – I’ve got plenty to think about! Those thoughts will follow….!