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Wednesday,
Feb. 4 - "Turbulent
Times... Where are the answers?" - Rob Light, CAA
The
secret to being an innovator and an entrepreneur is not the brilliant
idea but the tenacity and determination to make it real. Instead of
looking for excuses and blaming the other guy, or confusing empathy
with action, the true innovator gets to work just tackling one problem
at a time.
Our business will be defined in the future by what we choose to do
and what we choose not to do.
We are experiencing the first true generational shift in our business.
The Frank Barsalonas, the Jack Boyles, the Mo Ostins have retired;
there is truly new blood in this room that can learn from old experience
and then apply it to the new innovations.
Everyone in this room cannot be Frank Barsalona, or Ron Delsener,
or David Geffen, or Rick Van Santen or Perry Farrell, yet everyone
in this room can be a contributor to fixing and changing and invigorating
our business.
Bobby Brooks, my friend and one of the best agents I ever knew, was
an innovator. What did he do? He reinvented the way an agent approaches
his job. He treated every assistant, every roadie, every underling
with the same importance he did label presidents and artists.
It was a small thing; not an idea that will show up in a textbook
someday, but I watched as young agents saw his success and learned
from a new style.
Not everyone can be Bobby Brooks, but everyone in this room can bring
something new to their job, especially when it is treated as more
than just a job.
I asked a professor at Syracuse University who teaches the Music Industry
Program to give his students an assignment on the first day of class:
Define why you want to be in the music business.
Everyone said basically the same thing. One girl, Melantha Hodge,
summed it up for most: “I could go on and on trying to answer
this question, but to sum it up, I love music. I want a career that
I have a true passion for. Music soothes my soul and makes me happy
and I want in as soon as possible.” I agree, and we were all
lucky enough to get in.
I am still excited to come to this convention, just as I was when
I was a wide-eyed kid going to Billboard conventions in the late ’70s.
I was thrilled the first time I got to sit in that little room on
the side of the stage at the Palladium in New York and listen to Delsener
and Barsalona and Meyrowitz. I like shaking every hand and I like
hearing every notion and idea.
I implore all of you to take the rest of this week, put aside your
cynicism and leave your fear of the future behind. Shake a hand you
normally wouldn’t. If you are an old vet, impart some wisdom
on someone new. If you are younger, give a grizzled old vet a moment,
a little respect and don’t dismiss them as dated.
An old thought; maybe a new innovation. Hear out an idea you would
normally dismiss and encourage someone to take a chance and if they
fail, do not berate them but applaud them. Use this week to remind
yourself why you chose this career and how lucky you are to have gotten
in.
Whether you work for a promoter or a label, whether you work at a
building or live on a tour bus, whether you sell tickets or take tickets,
whether you are an assistant or the head of an agency, you have a
choice. You can be complacent or you can aggressively change what
your piece of the world lets you change. You can accept mediocrity
or you can challenge yourselves and those around you to work at a
higher level. You can accept the status quo and complain or you can
find a new answer. You can live and flounder in the model of yesterday’s
success or you can choose to learn from it, be inspired by those who
created it and then build upon it in an innovative way that no one
could have expected.
And, 20 years from now, someone will stand here and point to a moment
when an innovator stepped up in turbulent times and found the answer.
Thank you very much.
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