One of the most fascinating chapters in Daniel Levitin’s book “This is Your Brain on Music” is about how musical tastes are often set early in life and become quite hard to change later on.

It has been a while since I read the book but Levitin goes into much more detail on why we like what we like. The question I was looking to answer though was “Is there a Way to flip people back into music Explorer mode?

It turns out that short answer is “no- not really”. The music that we like is very much connected to our own culture and identity and often from a particular time like our teenage years. I’m over simplifying here but we develop our own schemas which are like a musical map or filter that becomes part of our music processing brain.

Levitin also has this idea that we might be able to tune our music systems like tuning to a new radio station. In real life though many people go with what they are comfortable with and this extends to our expectations about new music from our favourite bands.

I’d say that Elvis Costello fans will be on the high adventure end of the scale since Elvis is clearly an explorer and new styles, sounds, ideas and reinvention is part of his brief.

OTH many bands almost get trapped into a particular “sound signature” where new songs often reference their earlier work. The art is to make new music but take your listeners with you on that journey.

I was struck by this when local faves ELEMNO P released a new song “Slow Down” which sounds very much like an old song (not a bad thing at all), much more like their 1st and second albums than their 3rd album. Listen for yourself as you can download it for a tweet from http://weareelemenop.tumblr.com/ But I digress

In the same chapter about musical likes Daniel muses about the possibility of an

“adventuresomeness knob …that will control the mix of old and new etc.”

In this time of sharing and socialising our likes and activities it is no surprise that Spotify is launching in NZ soonish. Spotify socialises the sharing of musical playlists with your friends. It is very closely tied to facebook as there are some common shareholders.

For more background read – Spotify’s Daniel Ek: The Most Important Man In Music – Forbes

For a alternative service check out LetsListen and their site is http://letslisten.com/

However I tend to think that most people know someone in their extended group who is a tastemaker of sorts and for those who like to explore new music there are many that are very well established now.

The Hype Machine is one of the better ones and as the PBS video below shows there are many other great “tastemaker” sites out there. Maybe this is the real “adventuresome” music button?

Off Book: The Evolution of Music Online from PBS Arts on Vimeo.

As in many countries, New Zealand has had several prime city locations occupied in recent weeks as part of the Occupy Wall St OWS movement.

OWS is an ongoing movement which aims to reset the economic agendas and local debates about equality of citizens and to try and re-balance some of the competing corporate and government agendas towards more balanced outcomes.

As in many protest movements there are other opportunists who seek to tilt the activities in a certain way but on the whole OWS is a consciousness raising exercise that everyone (especially corporates and government) would do well to take note of.

Like many I have been intrigued as to what this is all about in the local context and what (if any) connections there are to the Arab Spring protests and other consciousness raising movements around the world.

In my view there are definite connections between these movements and the rise of the NGO sector globally. Since the anti-globalisation protests in 1999 at the Seattle WTO conference there has been growing disquiet at the very far reaching implications of economic and political change around the world being driven by small elites at the expence of local and humanitarian interests.

The Canadian documentary The Corporation from 2003 captures some of the debate from many perspectives. Apparently there were 33 hours of video made and so the main documentary is a relative snapshot of expert views.

I was most impressed by CEO  Ray Anderson (from the Interface carpet & fabric company) who had his own wake up call towards developing his company along more sustainable lines. Ray mentioned an author called Paul Hawken and an earlier book by Paul called The Ecology of Commerce. Even more interesting to me is a more recent book by Hawken called

“Blessed Unrest, How the Largest Movement in the World Came into Being and Why No One Saw It Coming published by Viking Press (New York) in May 2007, argues that a vast world-changing “movement with no name” is now forming, which Hawken believes will prevail. He conceives of this “movement” as developing not by ideology but rather through the identification of what is and is not humane, like an immune system. ”

I haven’t been able to get a copy of the book to read yet but the hypothesis sounds very plausible and it does fit in what we see around us in the politics and economic debates of many nations.

Last year I saw the documentary Inside Job which among many arguments makes the depressing point that President Obama has not fixed any of the broken financial systems and structures in the U.S. In fact he has re-appointed the very people responsible for causing many of the financial meltdowns back into new roles where they can continue abusing the trust of voters despite having blood on their hands.

And so we know for sure now that US politics is completely corrupt and broken to the point that a reforming president elect has been so completely dominated by the commercial interests he said he wanted to fix.

The other key point in the that documentary was an observation that many of the high profile economists and academics had their viewpoints deeply compromised by their own commercial conflicts. That is – they were part of the problem where financial sector lobbyists have / had around 5 lobbyists for every single congress person. Never mind the lobbyists for other sectors.

How and Where does this Affect Us?

New Zealand like many other countries is being pressured by huge corporate interests mostly from the US to accept commercially driven laws designed to protect globalisation and to undermine local sovereignty.

One example of this is that the debate over Pharmac and US TPP negotiations or should that be stand-over tactics.

Back in May this year the PM said of TPP and Pharmac

“Let’s wait and see – there are a lot of component parts here. We’re talking about access, through a free trade agreement, to arguably the largest economy in the world. That’s the prize if you can complete a US FTA, which is what TPP is,” he said.

More obviously though when the US sneezes we still tend to catch the cold. The US despite its downward spiral still dominates world trade thinking and any changes to such rules impacts greatly on smaller nations like New Zealand.

I’m with Kennedy Graham of the Greens on this issue.

“Graham said the Greens rejected the assertion a free trade deal was a massive prize for New Zealand, saying the massive prize would be the predation of New Zealand’s iconic agencies by American corporations.

If the US walked away from the negotiations because Pharmac was taken off the table “so be it”, he said.”

While looking for the Paul Hawken book  mentioned above I found and bought a copy of The Price of Civilization, Economics and Ethics after the Fall by Jeffrey Sachs. That is my holdiday reading. More on that next post when I finish it for now here is a video clip from him.

As Jeffrey says “The US is in a structural crisis”…

Since the global financial crisis (GFC) started in 2008 (or was it ’07) it has become more obvious that business as usual is one of the first casualties.

Some of us have been working on more sustainable business ideas as it has been clear for a long time that the “growth at all costs” mantra has run out of room. Looking back over this blog it has become a recurring topic as various economic, social and cultural indicators have started to redline.

However it takes a long time to change the culture around many of these driving ideas and so the GFC in many respects is now acting as a kind of circuit breaker to make businesses and consumers rethink out attitudes to all kinds of resources and business activities.

It is pleasing to see more sustainability projects gaining momentum. In the words of the Sustainable Future Institute project 2058

“The world is changing and, as New Zealanders, we need to think about what this means for us and our future.

Often strategic thinking only occurs in terms of the three-year election cycle, but this does not prepare us well for the opportunities and challenges that lie ahead.

Promoting long-term thinking, leadership and capacity-building to manage an uncertain future is critical.

To help address these challenges and opportunities the Sustainable Future Institute is developing a vision of what a sustainable New Zealand may look like in the year 2058 and an overarching strategy to reach this vision – this is known as Project 2058.”

The italics and bolding above are mine but I certainly agree that we need to take a longer term view on all kinds of projects. In my neighbourhood I’d like to give a great big hat tip to GreyLynn 2030 which is part of the transition towns movement.

Some of you know that from August this year I have been lecturing part time on digital marketing at Unitec. It has been a great pleasure to be part of a 50 person cohort of students from NZ and many from overseas who are looking at business futures with fresh eyes.

In reading essays and assignments on future business from the students it has become apparent that many of us are unclear on where NZ makes its money and where our economic future lies.

We also just had an election campaign that was knee deep in platitudes and backslapping from a presidential style beauty contest. No surprise to see that the best looking pony won but the prime Minister is in lala land is he thinks an increase of 2-3% of votes is really a mandate for asset stripping and idealogy driven changes to education.

The Greens have won 14 seats and in some electorates got more than 20% of the vote. The National Party will ignore that at their peril. The rise of the Green party and what it represents is far more significant that any other demographic changes in the last election.

From the official results it is also clear that voter disillusionment with the parliamentary process is at an all time high for something like 1m voters not bothering to vote at all.

• The number of seats in Parliament will be 121.
• The National Party has lost one list seat compared to election night, and now has 59 seats in total.
• The Green Party has gained one list seat compared to election night, and now has 14 seats in total.

What we need now is for citizens to really examine some of the myths around the NZ economic and business future from a factual basis.

New Zealand is in a global economy and we need to rethink where our investments of time and resources go in the future. We need to build a more sustaining business culture that recognises that the same old, same old isn’t going to work.

The presentation by Sir Paul Callaghan offers some ideas for a way forward -(see video above) or link here if that embed doesn’t work  We need more innovation and smarter use of technology in business. We also need to stop perpetuating some of the old myths about NZ business and stop throwing good $ after bad.

It is time to look part the political posturing of yesterdays men ( politicians that is you) who are still thinking short term for the most part. Last week I was delighted to have a look around Fisher & Paykel Healthcare which is a $500m company that New Zealand needs more of.

It is time to reframe the debate and understand where NZ has real competitive advantage come from. Lets go there instead of leaving it to commodities markets and bankers who really are still stuck in a zero sum game. Time to remap and reinvent the future.

Here is what all the 10 year olds will be doing next. Thomas makes some other good points during his presentation – like most of the kids know way more about the technology than their teachers which is a real challenge for educators.

‘Thomas Suarez is a 6th grade student at a middle school in the South Bay of Los Angeles. When Apple released the Software Development Kit (SDK), he began to create and sell his own applications. “My parents, my friends and even the people at the Apple store all supported me,” he says, “and Steve Jobs inspired me”.

Thomas points out that it’s hard to learn how to make an app.

“For soccer you could go to a soccer team … but what if you want to make an app?” He’s started a club for fellow students at school, where he shares his knowledge of programming. Thomas articulates his vision that students are a valuable new technology resource to teachers, and should be empowered to offer assistance in developing the technology curriculum and also assist in delivering the lessons.

Thomas has been fascinated by computers and technology since before kindergarten. Recently, he’s been focused on the development of applications for the iPhone, and has established his own company, CarrotCorp’

Click here to view the embedded video.

from TEDxManhattanBeach

For more examples see SMH last week

The other example I liked was - iSpoke Flash Cards

‘Another student from NSW, Conner Brendish, 18, helped create the $4.49 iSpoke Flash Cards, an interactive flash cards app which gives users the ability to create their own flash cards, store them in albums and record or overdub their own voice.

It was designed as an educational tool for children with special needs. Anthony Toben, a parent frustrated with the technology available to assist and treat autism for his son Joshua, got Brendish to make it. From the proceeds, 50 cents of each sale is donated to Autism Spectrum Australia.’

As a music fan, I love it when I get to work with musicians on their websites.

I like it even better when I find a service that really helps musicians in practical ways. Bandcamp is that service.

The music industry business model which was really a distribution service has now been displaced by a huge increase in digital media and social technologies.

Musicians still need marketing and promotion but it is now possible to do much of this at a more of a grass roots organic level.

Most everyone knows about iTunes and if you are a musician I think you still need to be there. The real value of iTunes though is really that it is linked to a payment system that most people have access to so that is very convenient for music consumers.

However if you are an artist – it takes quite a while for payments and sales data to come through, pricing is locked and this doesn’t suit everyone.

So how does Bandcamp help with some of this?

” On Bandcamp, albums outsell tracks 5 to 1 (in the rest of the music buying world, tracks outsell albums 16 to 1).

On name-your-price albums, fans pay an average of 50% more than whatever you set as your minimum.”

I recently uploaded up 6 albums on Bandcamp for Luke Hurley and here is what we found out.

Bandcamp has a variable pricing system that is easy to use. The very first album that sold on Bandcamp sold for more than double the minimum price which is a big win if you are the musician.

For example you can still buy individual tracks at $US1 or equivalent but for an album we have set most prices at $USD8 or the equivalent of $NZ10. You may also choose to pay more. This makes it less expensive to buy albums when that suits.

1. Bandcamp also makes it easier to offer special pricing as it is more direct to the artist.
2. The share / social media embedded players are easy to use.
3. Another advantage of bandcamp is that it allows you to download other higher quality sound file types such as 320k Mp3′s, FLAC, AAC, MP3 VBR (VO), Ogg Vorbis and ALAC (so far.)  I don’t expect many people want those file types but it is a nice to have feature.

Bandcamp is very good for  sharing the music on facebook and your own websites.The Facebook share allows you to play a song in that page without taking you away from thre stream you are viewing.

Best of all though listening to the whole song before you buy beats 30 or 90 second previews on other sites.

Listen to the live Luke Hurley album Limited Liability

The stats off Bandcamp are also very useful for musicicans. There is even a stat for partial plays where the full track is not played.

And perhaps best of all – when there is a sale that $ is transferred directly to the musicians PayPal ( at the time of sale) and this makes them very happy.

There are also other complementary musiciaian services that you may use and I’d be happy to compare notes if you are looking for help.

One of the nicer things about getting older is being able to take a longer term perspective on the future.

More specifically; how our lives and those of our friends turn out based on decisions and actions in time past. It is a truism that we often don’t know or fully understand the significance of key events until much later.

The trigger for some of these thoughts was a long term wedding anniversary which is great achievement in itself but the what I really enjoyed was the opportunity to compare notes across a very wide sample of people ranging from 3 to 70+ .

In some case I talked with people I hadn’t seen in 30 years. With so many people it was a series of quick snapshots on what they or I had been up to and the results were often fascinating.

Marshall McLuhan famously said that “Predicting the present” was more difficult that trying to guess the future.

In answer to the question What Are You Optimistic About? Howard Rhinegold started his answer in this way (in a 2007 series.)

“The tools for cultural production and distribution are in the pockets of 14 year olds.

This does not guarantee that they will do the hard work of democratic self-governance: the tools that enable the free circulation of information and communication of opinion are necessary but not sufficient for the formation of public opinion.

Ask yourself this question: Which kind of population seems more likely to become actively engaged in civic affairs

— a population of passive consumers, sitting slackjawed in their darkened rooms, soaking in mass-manufactured culture that is broadcast by a few to an audience of many,

or a world of creators who might be misinformed or ill-intentioned, but in any case are actively engaged in producing as well as consuming cultural products?

Recent polls indicate that a majority of today’s youth — the “digital natives” for whom laptops and wireless Internet connections are part of the environment, like electricity and running water — have created as well as consumed online content.

I think this bodes well for the possibility that they will take the repair of the world into their own hands, instead of turning away from civic issues, or turning to nihilistic destruction.

In my life I’ve been far more motivated by causes and big ideas than anything else.

My Dad always used to say he wouldn’t know how he’d done till he sees how our children turn out. How is that for a longer term view? My daughter keeps me on my toes  and we are enjoying the journey of being engaged with the world around us and beyond.

I agree with Rhinegold and the idea that we can choose to repair the present and engage with optimism.

With recent events in Egypt still unfolding we can take heart that it is largely the youth of that nation who have called time on the tired old ideas of the past. (Linda Herrera)

“Some characteristics of this global generation are excessive communication, involving many people in decision making, multitasking, group work, blurring of public and private, sharing, individual expression, and collective identification.

Another important distinction between the generations is that the digital generation take what media theorist Clay Shirky calls “symmetrical participation” for granted.

In other words, they are not passive recipients of media and messages, as in the days when television and print media ruled, but take for granted that they can play a role in the simultaneous production, consumption, interaction with, and dissemination of on-line content.”

There is no doubt that the social connections and amplification of these ideas online has made a huge contribution to a far more optimistic future.

Got some sad new today. An young friend has passed away. He had been sick for a long time and it wasn’t unexpected but still a shock when it happens.

I had been looking at this video of Bruce Feiler who had a cancer and wanted to pass on some fatherly advice from his council of fathers.

The video is below. One of those pieces of advice was along the lines of.

“Everyone dies – but not every one lives. Live”

It sounds like a bit of a cliche but slowing down and smelling the roses, walking the turtle, soaking up every piece of enjoyment in the now – is a big deal; precisely because we don’t do that.

Having cancer and recovering is a very big deal and it brings life sharply into focus. I encourage you to watch the video. By the way my buddy who died this week – he lived well.

It is still very sad for his family and friends but he made the most of each day which is as it should be.

“Diagnosed with cancer, Bruce Feiler worried first about his young family. So — as he shares in this funny, rambling and ultimately thoughtful talk — he asked his closest friends to become a “council of dads,” bringing their own lifetimes of wisdom to advise his twin daughters as they grow.”

The other event of the day was a visit to a music recording studio in the country.  I’ve been meaning to visit the owner for a while and today was that day.

We used to work together 25 years ago and about 20 years back he realised his dream of having a creative space for musicians to record their songs and their stories.

The studio had been in the city for a few years and when the lease on that space came up the opportunity to move to the country was too good to pass up.

However  moving a whole range of handcrafted fixtures and fittings is not simple and when it is a recording studio it is more like a never ending puzzle.

Relocating has meant a huge amount of work and in that process the owner has come to value life even more.  It has been a labour of love where everything has been recycled, reused and re-instated.

Without going into details that rebirth of the studio is a triumph for him and his family and now a fantastic music recording space for musicians from around the world.

This was a reminder to me that you can have all the toys but there is no substitute for slowing down and taking stock of what we have.  Revolver Studios is a creative space in the country where time and relationships are valued beyond measure.

I reckon we will hear that in the music that is recorded and created there.  More than  ever when I reflect on these two lives I want to make every moment count and really live each moment in a way that counts.

Both National and Labour are obviously thinking about the next election as battle lines are being drawn up.  On one hand National is signalling a sell-down of profitable SOE’s to ostensibly to reduce debt.  Labour has flagged the idea of no tax on the first $5k of income.

Both of these approaches are blatant vote buying gimmicks and at last National is reverting to type. Many of us have expected asset stripping and a hollowing out of government.

There is merit in taking stock of what a government should do but really both National and Labour must think they are dealing with a bunch of idiot voters.

In very simple terms a partial sell-down of SOE’s would be a way to reduce government debt but it would also lose dividend income from those assets. On the face of it, encouraging NZ investors to own shares in local utilities seems like a good idea.

But hang on – don’t we already own those companies as they are tax payer funded. If the National government wants NZ families to own NZ assets more directly why not set up something like the Consumers Trust that owns most of Vector . (worth approx $1.5 billion)

“The AECT’s key asset is a 75.4% shareholding in Vector. As the major shareholder in Vector and through our two Trustee directors on the Vector board, we make sure we fulfil our responsibilities to beneficiaries by maintaining proper oversight of Vector’s operations.”

That is not going to work though because John Key has obviously done deals in the back room to sell down to the usual suspects – that is the usual practice for right wing parties.

And – more to the point. There is a large tax cut to fund for National voters (mostly.)

Reducing debt is also makes a certain amount of sense but both National and Labour have been stung by this before. And as Bernard Hickey calculates

“The theory is that for the sale to make immediate sense then the dividends given up would have to be less than the interest costs of the debt not incurred by selling the asset.”

…In total, the four SOEs potentially up for sale generated total dividends last financial year of NZ$732.5 million and shareholder (government) equity stood at NZ$9.642 billion. This implies a combined (and very raw) dividend yield of 7.6% last year.

Does this compute?

Yet the government is currently having to pay around 5.5% for the new debt it is selling, mostly offshore…

So on the face of it the government is a net loser by selling half of these state assets and avoiding having to raise new debt.

The Treasury will no doubt do a much more sophisticated analysis, but this is a question the government and voters will have to ask in a very hard way before deciding to go ahead with asset sales.”

OK so the government really does think voter are just another mark waiting to be fleeced. John Key has a chance here to show real leadership instead relying on yet another shell game.

The rough calculation on National’s tax cut was reported as something like $15b (over 4 years) and the Labour no tax on first $5k is $1.4b (per year?) so those amounts are hugely different in scale and $15b is a monkey on Key’s back.

There is probably a case to be made for selling down Air New Zealand but I won’t be buying any shares. Prices of aviation fuel will increase much faster than they can get smarter planes into service so a sell down there is better now than later.

I’m not sure what 24% of Air New Zealand is worth. A quick look at their share price says market cap is $1,551,284,628 and so even if it could be done there is only $300 -$360m there which is loose change on an annual government spend of $70b. (leaving aside that share prices change.)

And Phil Goff. Its time for him to step aside and let Cunliffe have a go. The party would explode but as as the cliche goes “its better to burn out than to rust”.

Bring back the Values Party. And I’m only half joking. If Labour doesn’t wake up we will need a revived Green party or something new in case Winston does his Rip van Winkle act one more time.

Both Labour and National need to rethink the green issues because we all need to do that.

Update: On Feb 2 – the PM announced that NZ election is on November 26 after the Rugby world cup – when everyone would be feeling good about that event and would hopefully vote for him. Actually he didn’t quite say that but this is clearly an afterglow election with a long lead time.

As a parent – I’m always interested in ways that children can get more engaged with learning about everything. Touch screens like those used by the iPad are clearly of interest and as a music fan I liked this one.  The featured app here is a curated history of jazz that costs $US9.95.

It offers more content that most books on Jazz and a much richer experience with different video and other content all collated together. That also means that content can be updated online within the limits of technology and pricing models.

One aspect of the application that I like is the keyboard style navigation at the bottom of the screen. The keyboard “look” is an interactive timeline.

It is great to see application designers rethinking the intersection of reading, listening, touching, looking.

The UX designer calls this a collision of media.

Scobelizer says.

“I look at a lot of iPad apps and there are very few that get to a really great interface. http://www.955dreams.com/ History of Jazz’ app is one of those examples. Really nice all the way around. What did it take? I sit down with the team to learn more. Their app is currently rated five stars and is high on the best selling list.” (35 mins)

What is also very interesting about this video is the discussion around the design process and especially about how to bring a concept to life for the iPad.

Here is what the application looks like on an iPad.

There is an old myth that Eskimo have a very large number of words for snow.

At first that seems like it could be true given the apparent lack of change in the Northern landscape. Its a nice idea though.

For me I like the idea of precision and being able to cut through to the core significance of whatever the subject matter is. And yet..

sometimes we find we just have no words to describe what is happening around us.

Truth is we interpret everything based on out own frameworks and vocabulary : yet shared experiences can be richer when there are no words or when words fail to capture that depth of experience.

Not so long ago I went for a walk with a friend who was very sick. We’d already talked that one out and walking was just a simple pleasure and enough by itself.

I never saw him again (as it happened -RIP) but there was a kind of shared communion in that walk.

Just recently I made time to be with a friend and to consciously just sit and watch the sunset together.

We talked about everything and nothing and yet there is a kind of alignment that comes with being present and making to time to share. Not easy to timetable but important to do.

Technology has exploded the natural limits of friendship and how we can be together.

When you also work in a technology sector that means tuning into both physical and virtual spaces which can be very different but rewarding when you do.

Chris Brogan wrote back in 2007

“I need more words for “friend.” What do you call that person you really like a lot, but have only met in person once? What do you call that person you wish you spent more time with, but who you connect with every time you’re together?”

He was talking about the kind of new connection that is more easily possible in a world of twitter, skype and facebook where the context between us has changed in new and interesting ways.

The Bogardus Social Distance Scale asks people the extent to which they would be accepting of each group and attempts to measure the context.

The scale starts at close relatives by marriage ( would you marry this person, live next door or work with them etc.) ranging down via close personal friends, neighbours, co-workers, citizens, visitors and eventually to a group of people you would want to exclude from your country.

As a scale it has been around since 1925 and as you might expect more recent measurements show closer relationship patterns than when the theory was first proposed.

What I’ve been thinking about is – how different my world is to my parents and how it is possible to have close friends who may start as colleagues and friends but mean much, much more.

This is due to the frequency and ease of communications may even rate above the top tier (or pretty close to it) somewhere between close friends and family.

I call this the “who do I most want to share Christmas with test”.

This year has been another exciting year of journey and discovery. I got to work on a project in Africa (small beginnings but big plans – FirstSpaceFiber) a number of non-profits I like ( Cycle Action , TEDxAuckland, WordcampNZ , Arts Therapy et ors.) and some pathfinding ( OperationHQ) with clever, clever people just to name a few.

I also got to spend more time with people I like, love and want to spend my Christmas with.

In the words of the song

” I once lived for the future, every day was one day closer..greener on the other side.. I can give you the present… “

Stuff & Nonsense – Split Enz. (love the version by Missy Higgins)

Happy Christmas people. Love & affection.