The Incoherent Ramblings Of Victor M. Ruiz

I do realize that I am a small fish when it comes to the big ocean filled with plenty of small fish podcasters. And I do realize that a lot of people do a much better job than I do, some are in a much better location geographically to leverage people to secure interviews, have multiple people working on their show, etc. This is why I was close to hanging things up a few months back. It was the if a tree falls in the woods type deal. In other words if I put a podcast out, does anyone listen? It seems as if people do, and it’s funny to see how certain topics, groups, or comments can spark more visitors to my sites.

The one thing that seems odd (maybe just to me) is how the “carrot method” is still applied within the industry. Everything around the music industry is evolving, but you still have people that are steadfast to ensure that certain aspects don’t change. The carrot method is basically someone baiting you with their biggest band as a way to make you interview a much smaller band (usually only known to them or their immediate relatives, and friends). Which, hey, everyone needs to start somewhere, which is why I usually say yes. Anything to help a band whose music I enjoy. What bugs me (and you can accuse me of being a sell out, or whatever for doing the deed) is having a band forced on you, with an empty promise they’re reserving a big act for you. They never deliver that other band. I’ve even mentioned this to artists once I finally get to speak to them (usually setup through a third party, and not the person I originally dealt with), and most of them seem annoyed, or dumbfounded that someone they’re paying to help promote their band is doing this.

Now I’m not dumb, I realize that (as I mentioned above) I’m not the only fish in the water. If I pass, there are another 300 people waiting to do that very interview.

There is also you’re not big enough card that is played all of the time. Hey I’d like to interview so and so. The response varies, a lot of times it’s remind me who you are again? In fairness to the person on the other end, they probably have hundreds of people contacting them on a daily basis. You also have them asking how many visitors frequent your site, again, their trying to weed out who they want their artists to speak to. Given my relationship to a certain big name podcast, I have been allowed to use their name in the past, and I’ve even received well if you can promise that the artist ends up on their show, I’ll allow them to interview my artist. This leaves you scratching your head wondering if the old “what am I chopped liver?” statement applies? Hello, I was the person making the request after all, I’m assuming if they had interest in interviewing this person, they would have reached out to you? It can all be discouraging at times. I’ve even had someone tell me flat that I wasn’t big enough to merit speaking to her artist. “My artist only speaks to national press”, huh? So, ok, it’s cool they spend 2 minutes with someone that doesn’t know who they are, doesn’t care who they are, hates their biggest hit, but is obligated to have them on their show because someone at the corporate office says so. I don’t know, this doesn’t make sense to me. Why waste someone’s time with a station that treats you like a token artist, and only dusts off your music when you’re in town? I can honestly say most of the people I speak to say they enjoy speaking to me, and thank me for not asking them the same old, same old. Maybe an artist being happy doesn’t sell, who knows?

I realize that I’m in a very privileged position to be able to speak to a lot of the people I do, and I’m very thankful for that, but seriously 500 fiery hoops every time? I am also lucky enough to count on being associated to a bunch of cool sites, and thanks to them they’ve given me the kick in the ass that I need to get things going again.

I’ll leave you with this, Ron “Bumblefoot” Thal once told me, “I don’t get paid to play music, that I enjoy, I get paid to deal with all of the other shit!”. Which is a brilliant statement, if only I got paid!

- Victor

I just received a newsletter from a former client of mine. In it they tout how they “inspire, share, evolve, exceed, 100% Jerk Free”. This newsletter is also used to mention how a member of their organization has been promoted.

The funny thing is, after dealing with this person in question, the 100% Jerk Free didn’t really apply. The company in question sent feelers out to me mentioning how they were looking to possibly use one of my company’s solutions on a project an end client had presented to them. Sometimes these things go fast, other times, like this specific time, things proceed at a snail’s pace. So I was going back and forth with the company, and I went from one contact, to another, to another, to yet another. The contact was anything but constent, I’d write or call, and not hear anything for days, weeks, and certain stretches, months. But they kept saying it’s between your company, and a company pitching a Google Mash-up. I kept asking if the price was fine, and if they’d like us to develop a demo (which we did, and it took months to get feedback), but all they kept saying was that we were the front runners, and that the end client was happy.

Out of the blue we heard “the end client is deciding next moneth”, nothing came of it. Then “the end client is deciding in the next few weeks”, which finally seemed to be happening. Shortly thereafter I received an email asking “let’s have a conference call to make sure we’re pitching everything to the end client correctly”. As conference calls go, it wasn’t bad, had a few skeptics, but that’s the norm. All of a sudden we received word that “they’re deciding tomorrow”. How this unfolded is not uncommon in the IT business, but what I found to be a 100% Jerk move was how the project ended up, in the hands of the very company that had been stringing us along for over a year saying that they where pitching our solutions to their end client. What they failed to mention was how the competition was actually them, and they were basically using us, and leveraging our information in order to keep the project in house.

I did not come upon this information/conclusion until we were informed via email that we had been passed over for the project. So after deliberating what I was going to write back (I was furious, this project would have been huge for us), I basically asking what went wrong, and asking why after more than a year of being told that we were the front runners did we not end up with the project? We jumped through every fiery hoop that was presented, in flying colors might I add, why were we being told that the project was going to someone else? I also asked what the lesson learned was to know how to move forward with other projects? And this is when the person that the company has selected to promote for “standing behind our core values” reared her ugly head! She basically gloated about the fact that in the year the project had been discussed that she had assembled a team that could put together what the project required. She also went out of her way to basically say that she was introducing her new team that would be more than able to leave a mark on our sector. Something which never took place, not because of them anyway (we’ll get to that in a second).

This wasn’t the first time issues came up with this company; they had also reneged to pay part of the first project they ever purchased from us. This was partly my fault for being too trusting and not putting certain things in writing. In an effort to try and make up for things, they mentioned “oh don’t worry; we’ll bring you tons of more business”. This is usually the kiss of death, and a sign that the company is one and done. We built a bunch of demos for them over the years, but they never purchased anything additional. After the run-in mentioned above, it does make you wonder if they just used our ideas and resold them to their end clients.

Anyway, yeah, so that’s dealing with a company that is 100% Jerk Free!

With regards to what made a dent in the industry, one company and specific name comes to mind, Apple and Steve Jobs. Let me mention that I send my condolences to his family, I proudly own several of his devices (iPods, iPhones, AppleTVs, etc.), but I want to touch on another subject that was brushed under the rug regarding Mr. Jobs and his stance against Flash.

For the longest time we thought that Google and their maps would be what would affect us the most. It did have an effect on certain products, but we were still roping in plenty of business. That was until Jobs decided, he no longer wanted to work with Adobe, and support Flash. For years Adobe kept Apple afloat, anyone that only focuses on the last ten years of Apple is very nearsighted. Had it not been for graphic design programs like PhotoShop and Quark keeping Apple alive, the company would have faded away years ago. What saved them? It was Jobs, and his team who were smart enough to cash in on a business model that Napster had accidentally stumbled upon. The concept was, people don’t want to spend $20 on a CD to only get the single, or perhaps only listen to a few select songs off an album. They knew this was what people wanted to and took full advantage. The marriage between iTunes and the iPod pulled them back from the ledge. The music industry blames P2P sites like Napster for their demise, but look at iTunes, YouTube, Setlist.com, MySpace, Facebook, Spotify and the industry’s own greed as what tore the industry apart. This is a discussion for another day as we’re veering off course (in the meantime check out Kickstarter and Pledgemusic two of the sites that are spearheading the music industry of the future).

Getting back to Adobe and Apple, Jobs refused to allow the iPhone and ultimately the iPad to use Flash. This sent shockwaves throughout the web. What where companies supposed to do with the Flash content on their websites? How where client’s going to see this information on their smartphones and tablets? Ok wait, the next version of iOS will include Flash. No seriously, the neeeext version of iOS will include Flash, and on, and on, and on. So what option did most companies look to exercise? Switch to a nonFlash-based solution. His analogy was that Flash was bulky, and cumbersome, and old fashion, etc. and everyone ate it up. Not exactly true, but enough people where listening that people started to turn their backs on Flash. Not because of the way Flash work, but because Jobs was against it.

So for as many wonderful things that Jobs came up with, he essentially turned his back on the one company that helped keep Apple alive during all of those trying times. Adobe is also at fault here; they threw their hands in the air earlier this year and basically gave up a platform, and countless developers that had put food on the table by putting up with their bug riddled software.

No doubt that the man was a marketing genius, he did so many things that big business thought could never be done. He also brought us some cool devices (and a crap load of things that were just that, crap). He left us way too young, and has left the IT industry with a lot of questions regarding what will happen with Apple as a brand and company. What they will do with their highly inflated prices. Folks you have to bring the PC vs. Mac argument into the now, they’ve both been using the same architecture for the last 10 years so why does one cost three times more if a software update is only $30? And so on and so forth, guess we’ll have to all wait and see.

One thing I’ve come to hate when trying to secure guest for my podcasts/radio shows is the lack of professionalism with some musicians, their PR people or label. Would it kill some of these people to respond something to the effect of “got your e-mail, sorry I’m not interested” or “so and so is on the road, hit us up in a few months?” Maybe I’m just used to doing business in a different way, and making sure I cover all bases, cause you never know! Sure I understand that I’m small potatoes, and that they probably receive thousands of requests a day, but I don’t know, just a bit annoying being left out in limbo like that. A lot of times the artist have no clue that you’ve tried reaching out to them in the past. Their label or PR person “shields” them, and only sends a long what they want. I’ve been turned down plenty of times being told that unless I can guarantee “national exposure” that there was no way in hell that I would have access to someone. Since no one is selling a whole lot of albums these days, wouldn’t you want to take care of, or at least be cordial with those that are spending their money to promote you on their shows?

This is probably one of the reasons why other industries are still thriving, and the music industry is not.