Bars, bands, money and promotion

Love to use analogies to try and figure out other things, so still thinking about promotion, and web radio, as well as who pays whom for what, and got to thinking about bars, and bands.

So yeah, you can pay at the door of a bar, with a cover, to see some band. Or you may just walk into the bar, and have a drink while watching them play.

What decides? It can be about the bar and the band. A very popular band with a big fanbase playing at certain bars might have a cover charge, I'd guess.

For me when I hung out in bars, usually didn't pay any cover charge. Assumed the bar made it's money, yup, from people buying drinks.

So why bother with a band then?

See what I mean, as we switch to web radio? The band facilitates people drinking in the bar. So the bar does not need to force people to pay directly for the band. While web radio is like a cover charge if you don't want ads--with those that will let you pay not to have ads--where you pay for the music directly.

That's like a bar where they don't have drinks but you just listen to music, by yourself.

Community from what I've seen as I use web radio is amazingly absent from it. It seems to be for the most part single person focused. That's very unappealing to me.

Ok, back to the bar, where this naive band, by social media standards, may be up on the stage, *gasp*, making no money for their appearance! Are they fools? No. They're performers, who may be building their audience.

Doing things to promote your band may involve doing things where you do not get paid, or so I've heard. Never had a band. Did spend some time once trying to come up with band names though, just for the fun of it, as I like to write.

But bands don't have to demand payment just because they're performing for an audience.

It's their option. Or maybe it isn't. Maybe they either play at that bar for nothing, or maybe drinks, just to be heard, or they go home and make a video for YouTube. Which you know, may be kind of the same thing, in a way, without the drunks. Ok, you still may have the drunks, commenting away!

So this analogy seems to kind of work ok to me. And I think one problem with people in tech is they may not hang out in enough bars. I spent twenty years hanging out in a LOT of bars, which may be why I'm so puzzled by web radio.

Some tech people--clearly not all as I qualify as one myself--seem to come from a different kind of world, where some seem to think people should pay every time somebody plays.

That kind of world would shutdown entertainment completely.

Like, MOST people would NOT pay a cover every single time they might be entertained by like just wandering into a bar that has a band, you know?

Or am I wrong here, would you? Think about it, every time you just walked into a bar you had to pay a fee. And every time you heard a song anywhere you got charged.

That was the world that some thought they could force on us.

And I don't blame artists, as if you have some guy in an expensive suit telling you that someone should pay every time you strum a guitar, who wouldn't want to believe that?

So, in my opinion, web radio should let people just listen, where ads are the established default, so we know it. And not get excited if they do nothing else. It should maybe pay artists who can demonstrate a loyal fanbase willing to pay, and get money from them, while not bugging anyone else. And people should be able to buy directly from the artists the songs they really love.

Whatever the web does, bars will still do their thing, as you know?

They've been doing it for thousands of years.


James Harris

Considering money flows

A key idea of mine is that money is an abstraction enumerating a favor, which allows for limited social trust, versus the deep trust of close community, like family.

These are opinions. Plenty of people have lots of ideas about money, and it's a very important area which touches the lives of all human beings in our modern world. Not claiming expertise, but am curious, and talking out my own ideas. And there are plenty of money experts out there for someone looking for help with money matters. If you came here looking for that, sorry, as here I'm speculating.

Looking at how money flows legally I've found my theorizing focusing on three areas:

1. In contract flows.

2. Out of contract flows.

3. Taxation

And with out of contract flows would include community flows, which covers family, like parents paying for college, and also charity. And charity would cover where anyone gives money to someone else just to help. And that's it for out of contract flows.

Almost everything else is in contract flows I'm theorizing, where importantly contracts limit obligation, which goes back to limited social trust.

Will state without proof that money, according to this theory, for the most part flows around the globe in contract, where the most basic is the general social purchase: Someone has something you want for sale, and you pay some monetary amount in exchange for it.

With the general social purchase, you can have a very limited nonverbal social contract, all the way to a voluminous written out contract signed by both parties.

And that's it for the general social purchase.

The other basic type is the general employment, where you agree to exchange effort and time for money which may be paid on various terms, like an hourly rate, or a salary, or a set amount, or a set amount with a bonus, or a potential bonus.

And that's it for general employment.

Taxes flow money from citizens to governments.

Loans can be out of contract or in contract flows, and I think are already covered, but felt I should specifically mention them, to note I did think of them.

That covers what I find to be the most relevant variations of money flows for the purposes of this post.


James Harris

Web radio, regions and promotion

Was listening to web radio and found myself pondering what made it different from traditional radio, and realized you get information from traditional radio about what people around you in your own region are hearing.

To me radio has great promotional value, and is great for discovery as I think of so many songs I would never have known I could like them if I hadn't heard them repeatedly on radio. While web radio seems to want to personalize my experience and gives me no clue what other people in my area prefer. But why not?

Seems to me tech executives who control web radio think their software can pick songs I prefer. Um, I find I tend to pick songs I prefer almost perfectly! It's amazing, except of course, it's not. Of course I'm best at picking songs I prefer. Radio at its best lets me hear other music.

We humans are communal creatures, and part of the value of radio is giving us a communal experience, so that when you are at the dance club you all can know the same songs. If everyone has a personalized experience then you could have weirdness in such communal areas as no one hears what they like the most.

Maybe these tech executives see a future where people wear headphones at clubs so they can all dance to their own music, and you could have weird clusterings of people glassy eyed looking at each other, gyrating to different songs, desperate for some kind of connection so they're there, anyway.

No idea about the regulatory framework in this area, so don't know what the FCC allows, but why can't web radio have regional flavors, like South Georgia region, where you can hear what people around you like? Maybe even vote on your favorite tunes for that region, so it could be like a weekly thing, say? And local radio could be piped through with a share of advertising, which could help support local radio?

And wouldn't local advertisers line up for such a thing? Knowing they could get to the audience that might come in and buy stuff?

And the federal government should focus on helping to promote and sustain local radio. So at the national level the way should be clear for partnerships that help all concerned: radio listeners, local radio stations, and web radio providers and stations as well.

Recently posted about traveling to the region where I grew up, so may as well take yet another opportunity to promote it!

Now I can move from speculations about web radio, to my own ideas about figuring out ethical promotion, and oh yeah, so like NOT even thinking about ever getting paid for community promotion. That's a cool one to me, so no matter how far I might go, community promotion, like for the region where I grew up, or even for my favorite nation, my own USA, will always just be about feeling it.

Not currently getting paid to promote anything. But let's say, hypothetically some tech company wanted me to advise them on implementing ideas in this area, sounds good, hypothetically. But I'm talking this out to see how it feels if it's out there even just as a far-fetched notion.

So like there would be some temporary consultation contract with some upfront amount, and some success metric, where there would be a certain additional. And then I help out, and then there's a roll out, and I'd promote it here on my blog, where it would be noted I was a paid consultant. Hmmm....pondering.

So that's a hypothetical example of a promotional thing and I'll admit a lot of why I'm doing this post is to talk out such a thing, as I puzzle over what kind of paid promotional things I might consider. Sounded good hypothetically and then it didn't.

The entire arena gives me a queasy feeling. Maybe there is nothing.

Interesting. Will ponder. Oh, so no clue if any of those ideas will have an impact. Don't know why things weren't done that way before anyway, but it's easy for me to put up some ideas, and use the opportunity to puzzle through things.


James Harris

Collecting my definitions so far

Turns out I've decided at various times through the years to figure out my own functional definitions, by which I mean they work for me. That is, I need these definitions to DO things, and found existing ones were insufficient. I know, sounds weird.

Oh well, in any event, occurred to me that it would be useful to have the ones I have so far collected into one blog post for ready reference:

science (noun): the art of prediction using methodologies and tools to expand zones of certainty by discovery of a predictive framework.

scientific theory (noun): predictive framework found by using science.

scientist (person): practitioner of science.

All found on my Lost in Comment blog in post: Predictive Certainty

First two are also on my math blog, in post: For mathematical scientists

First one first posted on G+ though. So things are the most scattered around here. Don't like it that way. Guess it just happened.

Progressive (noun):  a person with a political position valuing intelligent governance with the belief that in an intelligently governed world people's lives tend to get better, not worse.

Also found on Lost in Comment, in post: Government that enables

mathematical proof (noun): a mathematical argument that begins with a truth and proceeds by logical steps to a conclusion which then must be true.

Is on my math blog Some Math, in post: Definition of mathematical proof

These are the fully formalized ones. I have other working definitions for things, where I haven't bothered. Putting them here would be a waste as eventually I'll probably formalize them, and want that to be in one place.

I keep these definitions in as few places as possible in case I decide to change them, or remove them. Easier to do if I don't have them scattered all over the place.

So like if I wish to delete any of them, it's fairly easy, as I keep down how often I mention them.

The exception here is that this post is helping me keep up with them.

The goal is to have as few as possible. I'm shocked I needed this many! As this effort is about necessity. If I need a functional definition for something, then I'm kind of stuck until I have one.

Each of these have been used quite a bit by me. They're massive workhorses. 

And with their help, I've crafted quite a few things.

James Harris

My take: contracts, agreement and money

Presenting opinions on my blog where I should note that I'm not pretending to be an expert on money matters, nor am I a legal expert. Simply musing about some things as I work through how I wish to do certain things. I find that talking things out on my blogs helps me figure things out.

And in various posts I've mentioned contracts, but haven't tried to define them, and will not here. Easy enough for someone to look them up and do research from plenty of sources I'm sure. Yet I do need to focus on one aspect of them which is agreement.

To me when you have a valid contract between two parties one can assume they agreed upon it, and that's a huge issue in and of itself, so will move on to consider my view that in contracts that matter to me, you have agreement upfront from both parties.

If that seems like a lot of words for nothing, consider a squeegee man. And I think it so AWESOME that I can link to a Wikipedia article on the subject, but plenty of people probably know about people who in major cities may go up to cars to clean their windows, and ask for money in return.

And my point of view is that if money is to change hands it should be primarily on a contractual basis with prior agreement. That lets both parties outline the boundaries of an agreement and allows for an equal exchange.

An area of relevance here is that if I put out ideas, where others may see value, like on this blog, there is no contract as far as I'm concerned at all, as those conditions are not met.

The other way to look at it is, say someone does you a favor, without asking, and then asks you to pay for it. My default answer is, no. There are limited instances say with a close friend or family member who helps you out by paying for something, like you ran out of milk or something and just pay them back, but otherwise, no way.

That some people will do you a "favor" and expect payment when you didn't ask for it, is the issue addressed here. I don't do it, and I don't recognize it.

And that's it. Fascinating to me how I can go from simple description to complex in talking this out and feel like I need every bit of it. And again, NOT an expert, nor am I pretending to be one. Just expressing some opinions.


James Harris