Spotify + Starbucks = Smart Move…Ramble

The streaming game has been hearing up the last five years, turning a once geeky, slow connectivity and often frustrating early adapters experience into the preferred way to consume new music.

Jay-Z may have a point about artist payments, but the way he launched his own service, TIDAL, (in partnership with labels) has left a sour taste in the air of greed. I read his autobiography. He had a tough childhood, he’s been part of the one percent longer at this point….

We don’t look anything alike, you may be wearing a Yankee’s cap, but you owned part of a sports team, a management company, you party on yachts and hang out with PPP culture’s A-listers. I don’t feel bad for you, you have Beyonce on your arm. But back to the point.

Taylor Swift is in a unique position to sway younger listeners getting their feet wet with streaming, but does she need her own service with another select group of artists that range from hipster cool main streamers to super wealthy? Doubtful. Too many factions and artists cutting out will lead to fans getting the raw end of the deal or turning, once again, to piracy, which is what streaming in general, was developed to stop.

That’s where a business, in this case Spotify, has to look at their roadmap and reassess what is going to make them maintain their audience, and provide the next step of enhancement. What will make their content more compelling than the same kind of exclusives other content sites provide? They are going to add video, that’s great but that game is heating up with competitors, so where can they go next, where competitors are not? Spotify’s new relationship with Starbucks brings together the U.S.’s other daily need – the one for caffeine.

I’d much rather have baristas involved in Spotify DJ’ing and talking about music, with an added bonus of coffee perks, then the disastrous race relations program, #racetogether. This new relationship is forward thinking and beneficial to both brands. I say yes to Starbucks trying out new products, especially now they serve flat whites and cold brew.

This is not the first partnership to expand Spotify’s cool brand offline experience. Their parnership with Uber has my man tortured while I play DJ. It’s a mobile party in the U.K. Smart branding all round and making the streaming experience communal.

Congrats Spotify, now can we please expand the deal to Europe so this premium streamer can get in on it? Cheers.

The Power of Three…Ramble

The past month many of us in the music tech and tech world lost three truly great men- John Loscalzo (MTV, CBS Radio & much more), Dave Goldberg (Survey Monkey, co-founder of Launch which became Yahoo! Music) and Michael Deputato (Universal.)

When John passed I was speechless. My dear friend Courtney Smith called to tell me the news. John was her boss at MTV and her current role at CBS Radio. My brain could not take in what she was saying. John and I were not only colleagues at MTV Networks, we were neighbors. He owned the local news source, BrooklynHeightsBlog.com and we had only been in touch on a local issue the day prior.

John was a quirky guy with an offbeat sense of humor, who loved his wife Traci Zamot and daughter, Gracie with such joy, it couldn’t help but make you smile to see them together. He was only 51. He liked to scheme, to take part in local politics and he always did it with a tremendous grin on his face. Walking down the streets of the neighborhood after his passing, you can feel John noticing things to report on, delight in and rally in the air. A truly great human who is very much missed.

Then, last week, another friend sent me a Viber message asking if I had heard about Dave Goldberg’s sudden death. My first reaction was to curse, not very ladylike, but it was another blow. When I worked at Yahoo!, I loved to see Dave in action. There was one meeting, the first working day of the year, I’ll never forget. Dave was fired up in a good way. He wanted to counteract a bad contract. The head of legal shook his head – he had put in many months of work with his team and said the ink was still drying on the signatures. Dave was not happy with the terms and asked me for my support.

It was a deal that effected the programming of the website for years afterward – and Dave was right in his stance. He didn’t need my support, he could’ve, like so many other powerful men, simply dictated for me to carry out his orders. He was a great leader who knew how to inspire and be real.

Between his fire and beliefs in what he did at work, and his big heart- Dave handed out roses to everyone on Valentine’s Day and hosted amazing annual Super Bowl parties with his wife, Sheryl Sandberg at their home in the Palisades, Dave never let anyone feel like he wasn’t interested in what they had to say, and a true example of people who are truly successful championing other people.

It was on Facebook that another smart and wonderful fellow, Jon Vanhala, broke the news of a lovely man, and long time colleague, Michael Deputato succumbed to brain cancer this past Saturday. I remember calling Michael when Spotify first launched in the U.S. to ask his advice about naming conventions. The account was handled by sales, but the only way to make a daily impact is to create playlists, which tapped into my music programming experience.

While Michael and I discussed the account he asked me how many people were on my digital team. I’ll never forget his shock to find out I was a one person team with ten dotted-line reports, wok ring the active roster. After that Michael would call me to check in on me- and give me a bit of a sanity check. What a good man he was, as were Loscalzo and Dave Goldberg.

What I learned from these men is to pursue your passions, make time and notice people who need your help – most of all do something, so watch life from the sidelines.

Getting Fired Sets Your Creativity Free…Ramble

Some inspiration from Steve Jobs that remains timeless:

For those who are suffering from the Recession, and hope may be fading for you, dig in and set your mind free, let go of what’s done and find your passion again.

Exactly on Target…Ramble

I get to go to my fair share of conferences. Panels and open discussion forums can quickly digress into personal agendas (see Bandwidth Conference, but perhaps the music industry just isn’t mature enough to progress but only rehash because it can’t get out of it’s won way).

This week I flew out to Indiana for the first time for the Exact Target (that’s a two word title folks, no affliation with Target retail stores but that is part of my story too), a back-end hub for email, web and marketing intiatives online. This conference was so well organized, they had buses waiting for participants to take us to the hotel. Registration took all of two minutes.

I was a little bummed to realize the conference was starting the same day as Target’s Missioni sale, but fortunately I had just enough time to order a few pieces online before I left for the airport- although the net being slow at the time, I’m super bummed I didn’t scoop up a few more of the homeware pieces. I think this is the first time they have launched one of the designer collections on a week day ultimately leading to the Target servers crashing. I digress… here are some of my personal highlights from the Exact Target conference:

1. Starting with keynotes the focus of the conference was the Power of One (also a really great book of that same title by Bryce Courtney is one you might want to check out darlings!). I believe in the power of one. One person can make a difference and there’s nothing that makes that easier than the Internet and it’s tools.

2. Keynote speaker Jimmy Wales founder of Wikipedia talking about the collective “ones” who make up the world’s free encyclopedia. Wales broke down his contributors are 86% male, somewhat due to the complicated code needed to update parts of the site. This isn’t a sexist statement because as I’ve referred to in the past, females enrolling and graduating with engineering degrees are down since lower than the were in the 70’s. Wales gave further insight saying their’s is an authoritative website and there’s nothing man like to do more than talk authoritatively about subjects they no nothing about 🙂

3. Everyone is a winner! My coworker and I both won $5 bucks and $5 dollar Starbucks Gift Certificates. There were notes each night as motivation in our hotel rooms along with treats and even the baseball field next to the hotel was branded with “Exact Target.” Free goodies were plentiful wherever you looked.

4. I attended a panel with someone from NASA. Seriously if that is not the coolest social media job ever than you need to rethink your American Dream. 🙂

5. Katy Perry in concert was part of the conference. Seriously. Now Katy can write a great hook and some really catchy tunes, but Katy could you stop with the gross-out humor and writing for a soprano when you are an alto? I share that same fate and honey, nothing is sexier than hitting the right notes.

6. Meeting an English Bullie named Blue. Turns out Blue is the mascot for Butler University. When I was informed of that fact I recalled watching something on TV about him. Celebrity Mascots. Love it! Blue was asked to sit, instead, shiny waxed floor had him spralled out on his belly on his attempt.

7. Being amongst digital people who want to improve from all sorts of backgrounds. My people!

8. I went on stage for an award. You know I can’t miss a photo op!

Overall I would say this was my favorite conference this year- sorry SX you totally jumped the shark a few years ago for me and now I just endure you.

What a Geek…..Ramble

Well, I uh find it hard to follow a blog about someone who had so much impact with her voice in so short a time. I do. My Taylor Swift concert photos did not seem like a good follow-up or my advice to interns which needs more shaping.

Yet, here we are another post. This one I have to make fun of because last week was a surreal geek week in which I started with taping a show for engadget:

Non-geeks click here now: http://www.viddler.com/engadgetshow/videos/66/1861.995/

I think I look better than I thought I would, however given my friend Badass Betty took my favorite umbrella or lost it (!) on her last visit here, I think my somewhat disheveled via a torrential downpour , isn’t too bad. They do have a thing about moving the chairs off the mark. I was so uncomfortable in that chair and what is the result? I’m moving around too much!

The host also had to say my introduction twice as he called me Colin instead of Colleen. The studio audience was also pretty interesting and mostly male dominated …..what did you expect? Apparently most guests are a lot less over-the-top. I’m just being me and getting my geek on and I do apologize because the original point they wanted me to discuss was digital distribution and how that is effected by the introduction of Spotify into the marketplace here.

It’s too late to get into that my darlings however I will attempt to express my opinion on it soon. Promise! xoxo Grrlgenius

p.s. That was only Monday of last week. I did wind up going out to Silicon Valley and back- two days two red eyes but always worth it for a visit to Facebook. #geekon!

From What The Chuck to Seriously It’s Zuck…Ramble

Viva Nashvegas! Let’s say that three times and head to Robert’s for some real honky-tonk with locals. You’ll find everyone from old timers to debutantes coming from black tie events in that joint. After a taste of Robert’s, I was hanging out with friends at The Tavern when none other than country heart-throb, Chuck Wicks joined our table. I could not stop saying “What the Chuck?” anymore than everyone else could not playing with the fire for the smores they ordered for dessert. Girls do silly things when cute guys are around them. Oh yeah, he smelled good too.

Mmm, he is country strong!

I love Nashville and highly recommend hitting it if you are at all curious. After attending a double birthday party, laughing til I couldn’t stand up, it was time to head to San Francisco for some promo with a band. Silicon Valley has been a fascination of mine for years. I’ve often wondered why I didn’t move there after Los Angeles, but I guess I was really missing Brooklyn. Since one of my ideal places to work is anywhere, any time for Google, it is pretty rad I deal with folks over there all the time and got to swing by YouTube.

After that…..I was super stoked we went over to FACEBOOK for a personal tour from Zuck. Seriously. He introduced himself as Mark cause …that’s his name. He was a nice dude who was super enthusiastic to have The Dudes there. It was super sweet of Zuck to basically invite us to his house to meet his new puppy, Beast. See? Dogs are the best, they bridge the gap between billionaires and us regular folk.

You're my Geek Hero!

The Unfriend-ing Movement…Ramble

Last week I watched the video where Jimmy Kimmel declared Nov. 17th the National Unfriend Day for Facebook. He mocked a young woman’s profile who clearly updates her status with useless information on a regular occasion and said there is no way she could really have 500+ friends.

Apparently Jimmy’s test is for you to post you are moving that weekend and need help. The people who volunteer are your true friends. I am all for what I call “Defacing” (@copyright 2010!) people on Facebook. I work in the digital realm so, like, many of my contacts, I was quick to jump on there as soon as those doors opened beyond the college realm. It can be political and in this job market allow a person to stay connected with connections on a more personal level.

The episode of “South Park” was brilliant on the pressure to be on Facebook socially, spend too much time on it and how much of a time suck it can be. However the sheer magnitude of it’s numbers makes Facebook an undeniable community.

In light of National Unfriend Day, here’s my personal policy for who to weed out and may it help those of you who find it a challenge to do so:

1) Studies show you can only really keep up with 150 “friends” accurately online. Due to the politics of the digital world and having lead a life that involves many international friends as well as a multitude of jobs (start-ups or established online brands’ longevity is never a guarantee) I have known and worked with and liked a lot of people. My personal cutoff number is 500. It frustrates me to see that number reached too often.

2) I don’t accept people I don’t know as friends even if we have 40 friends in common.

3) If we met once at a party or you painted my apartment and we’re still friends, the likelihood that you are going to remain a friend  when I’m cutting is nil. The only reason we’re still friends is that your last name probably is somewhere in the middle of the alphabet and really who has the patience or the time to make it that far when some other person who is a tenuous tie comes up before I reach your name? But I will get to you because I am skipping ahead to different letters now.

4) Names I don’t instantly recognize or people who post too often about scratching themselves or selling me something.

5) Brands. There are those tricky brands who are now your “friend” and show up there instead of in “pages” and guess what? I stay on top of that so I find you and kick you to the curb. You are taking up a spot reserved for a life form.

6) If I see it’s your birthday and I can’t be bothered to wish you a good one, then we’re not friends.

7) I respond to your hello email or vice versa, then you can’t be bothered to respond or acknowledge it.

8) If you belong to the “Tea Party” and can’t respect other people don’t share your ideas or believe in basic human rights.

9) Delete your profile all together!

Good luck. I just did a pre-emptive cull since I was once again at 505 and now down to 498– room to grow as I start a new job and more requests come my way. 🙂

WIE Symposium..aka are you fabulous? …Ramble

The WIE Symposium held its first annual conference today, in fact it’s still going on while I write it up. The astounding $500 ticket price lead me to volunteer. Somehow they knew to put me with talent. Up, down, up, down chase the panelists all over the building. Oh goodie.

While schedules were incorrect, gift bags short and direction lacking, the panelists were such an incredible group of women I quickly undid a snafu for panelist Katherine Schwarzenegger. Her “people” were very nice.

Since I only got to hear snippets of the conference here and there (oh how I love you Nora Ephron, my seven sister’s school high five to you) so you’ll have to hit up Twitter for more speaking comments. I’d search for the always entertaining @CindyGallop founder of IfWeRanTheWorld.com .

My day entailed chasing and then checking in VIPS like the fabulous make-up guru Bobbi Brown and trying hard to hear what Diane Von Furstenberg was saying in an on-camera interview.

The fabulous outfits on women in attendance offered such a variety of fashion it was a wonderful celebration of color. Some of the VIPS included a Baronness, A Queen, A Princess– and under the column function “Of Sweden”; the very tall and wondrously humble former supermodel Christy Turlington looking very serious in a dull grey suit. I was absolutely smitten with amazing laugher Elizabeth Banks but of course, the best geek moment was breathing the same air as Melinda Gates. I felt a little taller and wiser as she was whisked through the green room.

Now, for you Real Housewives fans…seriously, you didn’t know I could combine my love of all things digital, women empowerment and the Real Housewives, did ya? Well YA got Jill Zarin- of Zarin Fabrics-go see Bobby at the store, to thank for that. She is so thin now it seems a little unnatural on her and I imagine without the show perhaps she’d still fabulous but slightly more like her frumpalicious sister who I had not one, but two she-wishes-D-list moments with– seriously. Jill Zarin was not on the VIP list my friends. Oh no, she talked her way into the Green Room. Then all the people working the event were questioning who this Faux Celeb in our midst was and I was the one with the answer, putting my countless hours of Bravo addiction to good use for a change. I was more than nonpulsed to be on the receiving end later by Jill’s “before” representation in her sister. Egads Jill why don’t you get her a decent haircut at least? Meow! The claws come out rrrr!!! Someone must have twittered about it because then even the models who showed up for the VIP Fashion Show now-in-progress wanted to get people “on the list.” Sweethearts, are you for real?

Another fabulous conference over and out and I’m exhausted! I will find a nap seriously empowering in 5, 4, 3, 2………..zzzzzzzz

Make it 10! Google Music Picks…Ramble

The gauntlet was thrown down during a conversation by a male executive friend in the music industry who read my earlier female candidates for the Head of Google Music gig. (Yes for some reason you all like to send me emails privately instead of actually posting in the comments. Who has other suggestions for candidates? Come on and make your voice public!)

Challenge: You stopped at six because there aren’t 10 qualified women to be considered for Head of Google Music.

I've got the magic in me!

Opps, I stopped at six merely because that was the number Billboard had on their list which if you want to go all male why didn’t they easily make it 10 by adding “King of the Ringtone” Jeff Dodes (he has a law degree)? How about Ted Mico (Head of Interscope Geffen A&M Digital)? Why not even go for Launch-founders-turned-Yahoo-Music-gone-Silicon-Valley Dave Goldberg & Bob Roback? Shall I go on? No, but like Celine my heart will and my heart is passionate about giving a spotlight on women in tech.

How about we go for not only female but add in my other passion for spotlighting great Asian women? Here’s two more candidates or 7 & 8 to add to my earlier list:

1. Roma Khanna – She is not only a lawyer, she also has an MBA. She happens to also be the President of NBC Uni International’s Global Networks & Digital Initiatives. Oh, how I love GLOBAL experience  and so does Google. Let’s continue because Ms. Khanna also has music experience having worked at not only CHUM Radio & Television, MuchMusic in Canada, but in legal affairs at Sony Music!

2. Rachna Bhasin- This Kiwi is also a) international b) an MBA holder. That MBA just so happens to be from Harvard Business School. As the current General Manager of Strategic Partnerships & Personalization, Dell Global Consumer Groups, Ms. Bhasin has put together deals that include the fabulous colors & fresh new logos on Dell Computers. Got music? Rachna worked in sales at EMI and biz dev. Need more tech than that? She was a product manager at CitySearch. Rachna has so many tricks it makes my head spin.

Detractors: What’s so upsetting? That these women are amazing or you are still asleep while they have been in 4 cities in one week making digital history round the globe?

9. Shannon Ferguson- Currently the COO of Silentale, a digital aggregator of all your conversations across social networks. She started out in Investment Banking at Credit Suisse before diving into entertainment at British Sky Broadcasting. She even reported directly to Elisabeth Murdoch. Next up Ms. Ferguson took her business & strategic acumen to Yahoo! Europe in Entertainment and Media before being named the GM of Yahoo! Music. Shannon is a great motivator in addition to being a fine human.

10. Susan Lyne- CEO of The Gilt Groupe. I saw her speak at a Mediabistro conference earlier this year and it was captivating. Here is this uber creative woman who transitioned from the magazine world to television as President of ABC Entertainment to running Martha Stewart Omnimedia reinventing herself in a more positive way than Madonna, to heading up and revamping Gilt Groupe. Perhaps you may shake your head and say that Susan is overqualified, but is that a bad thing? She discussed sitting down with engineers and going over the process so she could understand, dissect it and rebuild it to be better. Last year Jetsetter, the travel arm of Gilt launched and will also be competing with sites like Groupon and LivingSocial.com for city specific deals. She brings a lot of diverse, creative and business savvy to the table.

Don’t believe that Google isn’t afraid of women on top? Check out these fabulous Google female execs and decide for yourself.

My challenge to you as hiring managers out there in any company is to think outside of the box to get different results.

5 Questions with @BookSparksPR…Ramble

What I love about the Internet is the way it instantly connects you to people you may have never met without it living in other places. @BookSparksPR is one of those great people I’ve online when I inquired about writing for SheKnows.com. Crystal comes up with great digital campaigns for a diverse and talented group of female authors and really makes use of social media to bring books into every day conversation.

She's got a spark to her!

Location: Phoenix, AZ – but I service clients all over the US (and one in Canada!)
Vocation: BookSparksPR (book publicity)
Sign: Virgo

1. What is the benefit of having your own business over being with a larger firm?

For years I worked in corporate and agency PR, and I loved it. The creative people, the atmosphere, the water cooler and lunches with co-workers, the client meetings, the benefits package. There’s a lot to be said about that. However, nothing beats the flexibility and freedom of having your own business, setting your own hours, your own pace. Enjoying a mental health Monday or a Friday afternoon at the movies. It’s liberating!

2. How did you transition from corporate clients to representing authors and books?

I still have some corporate clients and do business PR (through BizSparksPR, the other division of my agency), but at the moment I have a lovely roster of authors that I am really enjoying working with. I’m passionate about books and stories and always have been – and so I’m thrilled to work with so many different authors. It sort of fell into my lap really… I took some out-of-the box approaches to book publicity – particularly online – and people responded and suddenly I was representing several authors.

3. What has been your favorite campaign you came up with this year?

This is so very hard to say – like picking your favorite child! I really loved working with debut author Sarah Pekkanen on her novel, The Opposite of Me. I was thrilled to be part of launching that book (along with Sarah and several very talented people!). I’m so happy that Sarah is in like her 5th printing now and signed another two book deal. I also am very proud of my clients Liz and Lisa (behind the popular ChickLitisnot Dead blog) because they’ve completed a second manuscript which is fabulous and are searching for an agent. They have come so far with their blog and writing in the last year – they are all over the place and I love seeing that! And I’d be remiss not to mention Allison Winn Scotch who I adore and who is so generous to readers and writers. And then, of course, there’s Christine Lemmon who is so inspiring! Her book was an Indie Excellence Award finalist and she is a lovely person. For Mother’s Day, I worked on a fun promotion of Irene Zutell’s Pieces of Happily Ever After with the help of the lovely Emily Giffin. Can I just say all of them? I could go on and on!

4. Do you think it is essential for authors to have an online social profile?

No, I don’t. There are several authors who do not and who do just fine. I think it’s a great way to reach readers and promote your book and build your readership – and also support other writers and readers. It’s exciting and effective – but not essential. Well, maybe a little essential. It’s certainly a lot of fun connecting with the book community – readers, writers, reviewers, book bloggers, and other authors.

5. How do you manage to juggle so many amazing projects and write too?

Oh my… well, I have a great team of people who help make it all happen. A wonderful co-worker who I met online and adore, a couple of fabulous, very beautiful, smart and savvy interns from Arizona State University (Go Devils!). So many authors who are so very supportive of my work and of each other. My lovely babysitter who my kids adore! A supportive family. My writing definitely takes the back-burner – as I’m too busy promoting other people’s writing. But I’ll get there… and when I do, I know a network of women authors who will be cheering me on!