“Facebook – isn’t that just for kids?”

I often encounter this question – and/or the attitude behind it – when suggesting the use of social media (primarily Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, LinkedIn) for marketing, customer relationship management, or some other business-related area. Despite social media’s rapid and widespread growth in recent years, there is still an air of uncertainty – even resistance – amongst many adults towards using social media for business purposes. Read More

Even though I have being using Facebook for a few years now, it wasn’t until recently that I had the light bulb moment of how to tackle a bothersome issue. My friend list has many different facets to it, including:

• personal friends
• colleagues in the web industry
• colleagues in the music industry
• colleagues who play trombone specifically
• random connections

My posts and comments on Facebook will sometimes be relevant to all of these groups, and at other times be very specific. Throw into the works the fact that my Facebook profile has relatively low privacy settings – I use it mainly for professional purposes and need people to be able to find it. (I am not arrogant enough to make a Page about myself to handle the professional traffic). This causes a few  problems: Read More

Read Part One

I came across some interesting articles over the past week that are influencing my thoughts about how orchestras can survive and even grow in the future. Whilst my thoughts are specifically focused on the Northern Rivers Symphony Orchestra, the principles can be applied to any orchestra.

Firstly, an article in last week’s Australian mentioned that the Sydney Symphony, despite a critically acclaimed first year under new Chief Conductor Vladimir Ashkenazy, posted a deficit of just over $1 million. The named culprit is, of course, the Global Financial Crisis pushing down ticket sales. Read More

It’s not often that I pause reading one book in order to start another. But last week when I picked up The E-Myth Revisted I also picked up a book by Mitch Joel entitled “Six Pixels of Separation”.

Joel is one of the world’s more prominent commentators on the online interaction already going strong in today’s world, and the focus of this book is on how businesses can utilise this phenomenon to increase their presence and engagement (and therefore, market position) within the growing online community. At least, that’s my nutshell take on it so far. Read More

I still remember when I first heard Symphony 3 by Henryk Gorecki – it was in the later part of 1999 and it was one of those rare moments where I was awake during a lecture at the Queensland Conservatorium (hey, I did say this blog would be honest!). I attribute my awakedness to the fact that Stephen Emerson was lecturing – finally, someone who knew how to keep an audience’s attention!

Anyhow, I can’t remember the context of the lecture but I remember Emerson playing excerpts from the first movement. By the next day, I had listened to the entire work twice in the library and by the end of the week had made my way to a music store (iTunes was still just a thought in Steve Jobs’ head at the time). Some 11 years later, I still listen to it and am moved in no smaller way as during all those years ago.

I am not going to talk much about the work itself – I won’t deny you that journey. I will say that I really LOVE music that draws directly from people’s experiences – not just an abstract concept or music written for it’s own sake. I still dig those types of music too, don’t get me wrong.

And…yeah – that’s all I’ll say. Enjoy and be moved