Sonic Branding 2.1

This looks like the next in a series...where I am going to slowly tease and reveal how the next gen of sonic branding businesses need to structure themselves to achieve success.

Now, I am not so arrogant as to believe I know everything about everything but I do believe I have specific role in this industry - that is to make all the mistakes first, spot the patterns and help lead us all to a more mature, open and successful future as an industry.

As an aside, I am sorry I was not able to attend the first industry gathering that the IABA put together last year. I hope that the success of the event means there will be another gathering this year. Anyway...

Today's nugget of information, which will join with other nuggets in weeks to come and build into a handy model for the industry:

Composers, musicians and sound designers are all free spirits and should be treated as such. Do not try to standardise, homogenise, industrialise or centralise your relationships as a sonic branding business with the 'talent'. What you can do is use the wonders of the Internet to lower your transaction costs with 'talent' and create what my friend Ian Thomas would call a 'value web'.

It is possible to automate collaborative working among musicians, composers etc (anyone remember the YouTube Orchestra or Bowie's early experiments?) and my business is currently successfully running a globally distributed roster of 'talent' delivering single client solutions via online platforms. We do this without forcing single processes on the talent but by giving them the tools to operate iteratively, in their own time but towards a single goal.

To conclude: Talent cannot be homogenised, nor can the creative processbe standardised but it can all be targeted effectively at unified goals and deliver against the objectives of a sonic branding business.

Subtext: You may have noticed the 'commas' around 'talent'. These are here to signify that just because these people call themselves talent does not mean that they are the only talented people in the business. I value a talented accountant as much as a sound designer.

Subtext II: The implication of this view of 'talent' as an unwieldy and non-standard group of individuals is that you should never, under any circumstances, look to take on 'talent' on an employee basis. I have tried it, occasionally with success but it never works out long term for the business or the individual. Much better to leave the 'talent' freelance/contract. There you go, I have just saved the sonic branders thou$and$ and the 'talent' endless angst at being corporate slaves.

More to come...