Case in point, the music industry.

In 1999, the U.S. accounted for 14.9 Billion in record sales (CDs, albums, tapes, etc). Record sales (including digital downloads) fell to around 11 Billion in 2008. Forrester projects that number to be around 9 Billion by 2013. The music industry “hoped” that digital sales would increase their overall revenues earlier in the last decade. That is all but a pipe dream now. Unless a major innovation is announced soon, I speculate revenues will continue to decline.

Because the music industry can’t rely on record sales alone to create profits, bands must now tour and sell merchandise regularly to account for lack of revenue. Even the biggest (and some of the oldest) like Bruce Springsteen, Elton John, Eric Clapton, Billy Joel among others are touring the country providing the only marginal utility left for these musicians — opportunities to hear them play live. According to 70% of those who participated in a recent survey, ticket prices are too expensive. In spite of this sentiment, gross ticket sales are rising and so is attendance.

While record sales are a commodity, live music isn’t. Demand has, seemingly, never been greater.

With the recently approved merger between Ticketmaster and Live Nation (the biggest retailer and promoter now one and the same), I speculate musicians will choose promoters and agencies that will allow them to play in the best venues and have the most powerful reach to allow them to increase revenues. If the economy holds constant, I speculate revenues for the live music business to increase steadily.

The music business has a winner on its hands.

It’s also a good time for new original bands to make their mark. The reason music sales are so commoditized is because of outlets like Napster and YouTube which made listening and watching music to become almost free. On YouTube, consumers are watching musicians like Dave Carroll sing about how United Breaks Guitars or Jonathan Coulton wax musical about Code Monkeys. Bands playing original music, like the Elders, connect with fans by planning excursions or having drinks with fans before and after concerts. Also, bands are updating on Facebook and Twitter.

Its still an uphill battle for relatively unknown bands to make money playing music. One expense for bands: promotion. Bands pay promoters to get their show booked, advertised and sponsored. Another expense: ticket brokers. Brokers take a cut of every ticket sold. Ticketmaster is rumored to see around 40% of every ticket sold.

Live music is carrying the music industry. The demand for live music has never been greater. Conglomerates are consolidating and seeing record profits. And yet, why are so many (i.e. the fans) the ones paying the expensive ticket prices, so unhappy?

Because of the merger, Irving Azoff, the CEO of Ticketmaster, Michael Rupino, CEO of LiveNation and Barry Diller the Ticketmaster Chairman appeared before the Senate Judiciary committee last year to testify.

Rupino remarked:

“I would also like to get on the record that when people hear what Ticketmaster’s service charge is, Ticketmaster was set up as a system where they took the heat for everybody. Ticketmaster gets a minority percentage of that service charge. In that service charge are the credit-card fees, the rebates to the buildings, rebates sometimes to artists, sometimes rebates to promoters.”

Essentially, bands, venues and promoters are paying Ticketmaster to be the fall guy for the Music Industry’s woes. According to the testimony, the breakdowns experienced by fans are not due to the fault of just Ticketmaster and the promoters. The breakdowns are caused by the entire industry itself.

Keep in mind, because of the very nature of live music and the scarcity of the musician(s) performing, artists are able to set their own prices in the marketplace. If fans wish to see their favorite artists play live, fans will have to pay.

The world is a better place because of the legacy of openness, generosity, and love left by Bob Wormington.

I hired a personal trainer and I am finding the physical limits my body can take.

It’s been apparent to me that I have lived a very comfortable existence for much of my 43 years. I had a good paying job. I was single. I ate what I wanted. I chose comfortable things to do like playing video and card games over exercising and eating healthy. Living comfortably was more important than living healthy.

Here is what I have learned. The only way to know your limits is to “find” your limits. Find out what you are capable of. I wonder exactly how many people do this. I speculate that people don’t know how useful this practice is.

I also speculate this is because our culture is so focused on being comfortable. To live with discomfort is so foreign to people. We feel entitled to comfort. Something is wrong or un-natural if we aren’t comfortable. I’ve come to find the whole thing so interesting. I’ve begun to notice the conversations I’ve had with people when I talk to them about some concern I’m struggling with, like my body. For those who think and act with their body as a concern, they listen. I can have a real conversation with them about different strategies I can employ to provide a more meaningful impact. For those who don’t think and act with their body as a concern, they look at me with incredulity and tell me how great I look. It’s as if they think I have a self-esteem problem because I feel a need, finally, to do something about my body at the ripe old age of 43. I speculate its because misery loves company. People getting healthy makes the unhealthy very uncomfortable.

As I talk to people about their mobile application needs, I’m struck by how many people are making offers in this area. There seems to be a gold rush of sorts going on. As has been said prior, it is 1994 all over again. People are over-promising and under-delivering their capabilities and time-lines that they can deliver. And it is causing a bit of distrust in the industry.

It’s not just coming from suppliers though. I also see it in the clients. Clients are seduced by promises of little work, low cost and fast time-lines. When a supplier requires more work, more money and more time, clients understandably get frustrated. Unfortunately, though, it’s never as simple as a supplier making requests of the client.

What is much more likely to happen is that the supplier simply stops taking calls. The client, still seduced by getting such a great deal, and knowing that to hire someone else would be very expensive, does everything they can to get the supplier back on track. They end up having to sacrifice in some way with scope or cost in order to get the supplier to do what he already promised to do . . . finish the job. In my experience, these type of suppliers never finish. When they do its usually been half-ass completed as a way to get the client off the suppliers back. The supplier usually doesn’t collect on the final payment because, they just don’t want to talk the client again. At that point the supplier either gives up the business or is off to bullshit another client. Sometimes the client ignores the time and energy it took to see a completed product and pats themselves on the back for not paying a lot.

Clients, if this happens to you once, it’s understandable. You’ll still have to pay the consequences. If it happens more than once, and you’re not seeing the consequences, you need to ask yourself why you invite these situations to repeat. After all, it’s your business that’s suffering. You are doing business with people who don’t care about your need or concerns. Why is that? Are you unable to notice poor ethics because you have poor ethics yourself? Fix that. Ambitious businesspeople are usually able to see ambition in others. If you don’t see it in the people offering you help, move on. Those people can’t help you. They will only hurt you.

Maybe you think you’re clever or special. Maybe you think you’re so great, people want to throw help at you. The reality is that, at best, you’re gullible. At worst, you might not have the intellect to be a business owner.

Good help costs money. Get used to that. If you are in the habit of not wanting to pay for good help, that help will never find you. You’ll then be left with what’s left over. At best, you’ll be stuck exactly where you are and at worst, you won’t have to worry about your business any longer.

Business and Technology work best when they are planned within a powerful interpretation of reality. Human beings have concerns that they cannot ignore. If these concerns are ignored (for instance: choosing not to exercise or eat healthy), you will reach a point in your life that you will suffer. Because business exists within the same reality that humans exist, the same laws apply to companies. If you neglect your concerns related to marketing or technology, your company will eventually suffer. I will call this “not taking care.”

Science is coming up with ways to explain this phenomenon. Cosmologist, Sean Carroll speaks to the University of Sydney about “Entropy” and “The Arrow of Time” to illustrate that answers can be found in physics for consequences related to those who don’t take care.

Why isn’t the universe and our concerns more static?

Part One:

Part Two:

Mobi-Strategy will still point to this location but the branding of the blog will be entirely different. As such, if you have any bookmarks to this space, you won’t need to change them.

Best,

Vince