heute:pop:blog.  

The comfort zone. It’s hard to complain when your in it but you know that something is wrong. You become stagnant and you don’t seem to develop -  something that can not only be frustrating but also dangerous.

I don’t actually want to quit my job at Last.fm (I do really like it) but it’s time to set new challenges and see new things. I have been in London for about eight years and been with Last.fm for four of them and now it’s time for something new.

One of the most important things in any job is that you keep learning. It is part of your pay package and if you don’t gain any knowledge you are essentially underpaid. Applying that logic I was paid extremely well for years at Last.fm: I met a lot of great people, learned about the business (and its countless issues) and saw some amazing places. Unfortunately by definition any learning curve has to flatten out so it’s time to find something where I can start at the steep end again.

Raila and I will move to North America early next year after taking some time off and spending a few months in South America. We will live in Vancouver. My last day with Last.fm will be the 2nd October 2009 – please get in touch if there is anything you need before I’m off.

Just a quick note for everyone who is waiting for my latest shows. I’m now on holiday (first Vancouver and then Hawaii) and I’ll upload them as soon as I can. Not sure about the internet connection at these kind of beaches.

If you are in Hamburg you’ll still be able to listen to a new show next Wednesday, I’ve recorded it already.

In the meantime you can follow me on twitter where I’ll try and make people as jealous as possible. There will be some pictures as well.

I now had a few days to digest the Transmission conference that happened last week in Vancouver.

It was quite intense (and that’s a good thing) and very educational. This is something you cannot say very often for music industry events, most of the time we are discussing the same issues over and over again and when you attend these events on a regular basis there are not many new idea coming out of them.

Transmission was different, probably for two reasons: a) many of the people attending were experienced professional who would have interesting ideas and b) it was a busy two day event with various presentations, round tables and meals. Essential we were kept busy for the entire time which I enjoyed.

Thursday started with an introduction of our ‘general facilitator’ Paul Hoffert who was introducing us to the ‘bagel effect’ which deals with a 50 years cycle between “freedom and security” which explains the disintermediation in the music industry. It was an interesting start and dropped us right into the deep end.

He was followed by a presentation by Dennis Adamo who is trying to resurrect allofmp3.com. After claiming the music industry is losing $5bn per year through unlicensed music downloads and the best way of “converting pirates into customers” is to drop the price, he lost my attention. Surly p2p file-sharing is more then just about the cost for the consumer and music services will have to attach additional value to recorded music if they want people to pay for it.

Mark Holden was speaking after him about his company Hip Digital and the download store they built for Aeroplan and Nectar Card. There seems to be an opportunity for the industry to generate revenues through people redeeming their reward point for music. Seems to make sense but surly this is a niche market, right?

This was when most peoples favourite part started which were the round tables. Up to 10 people from different industries would discuss topics for about an hour and the outcome would be reported back and at the end of the conference we would have a look at the overall results of our conversations. I met plenty of people who I hadn’t met before and I would normally not meet since they might work in different ports of the music industry.

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As you might know I attend a lot of conferences. After years of doing this the excitement wears off and it often becomes just part of the job. Fortunately, I really enjoy travelling so even when the conference does not turn out to be a success you’re still in a different environment which is something you will always gain something from. If you’re not then you’re not travelling the right way.

For this one I am excited though: I just confirmed my ticket for the Transmission conference which takes place in Vancouver this year in the first week of December. This has been highly recommended to me by Sean Adams who was saying this is one of the best industry conference he’s ever been to. And he is going to a lot of those.

The Transmission guys are approaching this gathering of people from the music and technology sectors differently and I think I’m going to enjoy this as

• it’s limited to 200 people (I feel a intimate setup makes it easier to connect to people)
• there seems to be a tight schedule of interesting talks and round tables (being German a good organization is something I always appreciate
• it sounds like we will have people talking from outside our industries (I get bored by hearing the same people talking about the same topics so this could be very refreshing)
• I expect the topics to be very high level and therefore educating (again, you often hear the same things at panel around the world, I want to hear people explaining, educating and inspiring me)

As you can see I built up high expectations, I hope they will be met. And if not there is always Vancouver, not the worst place in the world to spend a few days in anyway.

Is anyone else going? Or have you been?