my 50 cents on the whole promotions/venue atlanta scene thing...
I think that one of the current issues is that some folks seem to have difficulty separating, the "internet is serious business", joke from the reality that business really IS serious business. There are certain ways of purveying information that are never appropriate in a corporate sense, whether they are said, written, or on the web. I feel like some folks may have either forgotten that, or simply have never known it and are creating public relations nightmares for themselves and others all over the place. These individuals may not be aware that you can’t talk about business the same way that you can talk about most things. Not to people you are in business with, and/or in public, period.
When speaking to and about folks one is in business with, and/or want to be in business with it should ALWAYS be remembered that:
Snark is not a good business tone.
Ad hominem is not a good business tactic.
Presumptive tones prevent dialog.
Dialog is like, “the spice”, with no free flowing dialog all business dealings are doomed to cease.
Failing to actually provide all information that is necessary, succinctly for someone you are talking with to understand what you need, mean, have to offer, or plan for the future, will lead to a total breakdown in communication, (see “the spice”).
Amicability is never achieved with any kind of threat.
It is always better to ask then to jump to any conclusion.
If a statement goes unchallenged that does not necessarily mean that it is true or that someone “won” the conversation.
You cannot “win” a conversation. Conversation is not competition, at least not constructive business conversation. You can however loose business, future business opportunities, and money.
Competitive monolog, tone, and word choice has no place in business dealings with someone you are not engaged in business competition against. So in this case promoters should only use it against other promoters and venues against venues, no crossover.
When someone asks for something, anything in writing that is a GOOD thing. Everything possible should be in writing, and far enough in advance so that everyone can make their pass at a contract before signing, without a time crunch. In fact if someone asks you something in terms of business dealings just put the answer in writing while you are answering it, that way you can both have a “hard copy” on anything that has already been determined. This avoids confusion, back peddling, and needlessly rehashing the same issue over and over.
No matter how old or young one’s corporate structure is every attempt should be made to make sure that decisions made by one person are quickly communicated to everyone else who can make decisions or who will be affected by them. If conflict ever arises because of a failure to do this or that it simply did not happen fast enough, the correct response is to apologize.
If the true response to a concern or question is, “I don’t know”, or, “We are still coming to a decision about that”, then SAY SO. Or at least say something like “I cannot answer that at this time, but, I will get back to you”, or even nothing at all. Do not attempt to state something conclusive if you cannot at that moment. This will only cause problems.
If you change your mind about something make sure that everyone affected knows that ASAP.
When attempting to avoid confusion with the public write out information using language with as little emotion attached to it as possible, if you do not know how to speak or write in a corporate tone, then get someone else to write it for you. If you are too upset to use a corporate tone, get someone else to write it for you. If there are questions that need answered after the press release and you cannot do it in the corporate tone, get someone else to write the answers for you.
If you have difficulty controlling your tone you should not be the public face of your business. If you think you don’t have difficulty with this but you are often accused of being “mean”, a “jerk”, of “gaffing”, being “inappropriate”, or people often seem to think that you mean something that you do not, then you should not be the public face of your company.
If people often seem to think that things are important having to do with business or word choice that you think are not important, then you should not be the public face of your company.
Do not assume that people will behave as though they are under an NDA if there is no NDA.
Do not assume that people will behave as though they are under an NCA if there is no NCA.
That having been said if you choose to behave as though you are not under an implied NDA or NCA it almost certainly will damage your business relationships and possibly your corporate image.
It always helps to make sure that everyone is using the same vocabulary, so in order to avoid confusion, or to get things back on track if there is confusion. One does very well to clarify any jargon, or anything that might be interpreted in more than one way.
If you are in charge you are responsible for the actions and statements of your subordinates, (this may end up applying even to things that they do or say when not at work). If you are not in charge people should know that.
Try not to talk about business when intoxicated. If you fail to do this and say something that is incorrect, that leads to problems, etc. Apologize. If a lot of people were exposed to the statement or effect of it put the apology in a press release.
If you feel that someone you are in business with has said something against you and your business confront them privately, not publicly. Public confrontation should be avoided even if/when you are no longer in business dealings with one another unless absolutely necessary*. Otherwise you damage business relations with that person or organization and possibly other organizations. *Please note, Ze was being a jerk to me, said something first, or choose not to speak to me, does not create necessity. There are things that do create necessity but those are not they.
Escalation of conflict is BAD for business unless you are a newspaper or a weapons dealer.
When certain online personas, email addresses, or areas, (blogs, BBS, myspace announcements, etc.), are directly associated with one’s business everything said by said persona or in such area can be and will be assumed to be official and corporate sanctioned no matter what prefaces or follows them, and no matter how, “secure”, they supposedly are. This is a real biggie so let me put a few examples with it let’s pretend that Barak Obama has a blog and he feels like making a joke, it would have relatively dire consequences if he said on his blog ,“hey fuck I think I’ll nuke Russia today”, and included a cute little macro of himself pushing the button, even if later in the day he added J/K to the end of it, (and yes I am old enough to know that Reagan did something similar on television and that it did have consequences). For a direct real life example does anyone remember how far faith in Enron plummeted when that audio recording of Jeff Skilling saying "Well, thank you very much, we appreciate that . . . ASSHOLE" to Grubman came out? The company was, of course, headed for disaster anyway but very few people actually realized that yet. Skilling saying “asshole” and then hanging up on an analyst in and of itself was so intensely inappropriate that people began to consider how fucked things may be there. Now imagine that that had been the first thing some people thinking about investing money anywhere had heard about Enron do you think they would go there to buy stock? Let me be as clear as I can, anything said in this afore mentioned context will effect your corporate image, possibly for years to come and in ways that don’t even occur to you. If someone cannot handle that responsibility they are best off avoiding such situations all together by not talking about business at all so that the context does not exist.
So to sum up if you want your business to grow stay constructive if you want to damage your image and therefore your business be destructive. If you can’t handle that, then shift responsibility to someone who can.
On a separate but related note: Co-operation between venues and promoters is preferable to excessive competition. For example if there is a venue catering to a specific crowd and you open down the street from them try to cater to someone else and you will both make more money. If you are a promoter who promotes events on a specific theme try not drop them on top of the same style of event or use the other event’s image or language. In this way cross promotion is made more possible and the public are not divided, thus strengthening the standing of all involved.
I am sure, that some people will think that this is directed at one specific organization and or person, if you think that, you are incorrect. If it were I would contact that individual or organization in private as it would be information only useful to that individual or organization.
When speaking to and about folks one is in business with, and/or want to be in business with it should ALWAYS be remembered that:
Snark is not a good business tone.
Ad hominem is not a good business tactic.
Presumptive tones prevent dialog.
Dialog is like, “the spice”, with no free flowing dialog all business dealings are doomed to cease.
Failing to actually provide all information that is necessary, succinctly for someone you are talking with to understand what you need, mean, have to offer, or plan for the future, will lead to a total breakdown in communication, (see “the spice”).
Amicability is never achieved with any kind of threat.
It is always better to ask then to jump to any conclusion.
If a statement goes unchallenged that does not necessarily mean that it is true or that someone “won” the conversation.
You cannot “win” a conversation. Conversation is not competition, at least not constructive business conversation. You can however loose business, future business opportunities, and money.
Competitive monolog, tone, and word choice has no place in business dealings with someone you are not engaged in business competition against. So in this case promoters should only use it against other promoters and venues against venues, no crossover.
When someone asks for something, anything in writing that is a GOOD thing. Everything possible should be in writing, and far enough in advance so that everyone can make their pass at a contract before signing, without a time crunch. In fact if someone asks you something in terms of business dealings just put the answer in writing while you are answering it, that way you can both have a “hard copy” on anything that has already been determined. This avoids confusion, back peddling, and needlessly rehashing the same issue over and over.
No matter how old or young one’s corporate structure is every attempt should be made to make sure that decisions made by one person are quickly communicated to everyone else who can make decisions or who will be affected by them. If conflict ever arises because of a failure to do this or that it simply did not happen fast enough, the correct response is to apologize.
If the true response to a concern or question is, “I don’t know”, or, “We are still coming to a decision about that”, then SAY SO. Or at least say something like “I cannot answer that at this time, but, I will get back to you”, or even nothing at all. Do not attempt to state something conclusive if you cannot at that moment. This will only cause problems.
If you change your mind about something make sure that everyone affected knows that ASAP.
When attempting to avoid confusion with the public write out information using language with as little emotion attached to it as possible, if you do not know how to speak or write in a corporate tone, then get someone else to write it for you. If you are too upset to use a corporate tone, get someone else to write it for you. If there are questions that need answered after the press release and you cannot do it in the corporate tone, get someone else to write the answers for you.
If you have difficulty controlling your tone you should not be the public face of your business. If you think you don’t have difficulty with this but you are often accused of being “mean”, a “jerk”, of “gaffing”, being “inappropriate”, or people often seem to think that you mean something that you do not, then you should not be the public face of your company.
If people often seem to think that things are important having to do with business or word choice that you think are not important, then you should not be the public face of your company.
Do not assume that people will behave as though they are under an NDA if there is no NDA.
Do not assume that people will behave as though they are under an NCA if there is no NCA.
That having been said if you choose to behave as though you are not under an implied NDA or NCA it almost certainly will damage your business relationships and possibly your corporate image.
It always helps to make sure that everyone is using the same vocabulary, so in order to avoid confusion, or to get things back on track if there is confusion. One does very well to clarify any jargon, or anything that might be interpreted in more than one way.
If you are in charge you are responsible for the actions and statements of your subordinates, (this may end up applying even to things that they do or say when not at work). If you are not in charge people should know that.
Try not to talk about business when intoxicated. If you fail to do this and say something that is incorrect, that leads to problems, etc. Apologize. If a lot of people were exposed to the statement or effect of it put the apology in a press release.
If you feel that someone you are in business with has said something against you and your business confront them privately, not publicly. Public confrontation should be avoided even if/when you are no longer in business dealings with one another unless absolutely necessary*. Otherwise you damage business relations with that person or organization and possibly other organizations. *Please note, Ze was being a jerk to me, said something first, or choose not to speak to me, does not create necessity. There are things that do create necessity but those are not they.
Escalation of conflict is BAD for business unless you are a newspaper or a weapons dealer.
When certain online personas, email addresses, or areas, (blogs, BBS, myspace announcements, etc.), are directly associated with one’s business everything said by said persona or in such area can be and will be assumed to be official and corporate sanctioned no matter what prefaces or follows them, and no matter how, “secure”, they supposedly are. This is a real biggie so let me put a few examples with it let’s pretend that Barak Obama has a blog and he feels like making a joke, it would have relatively dire consequences if he said on his blog ,“hey fuck I think I’ll nuke Russia today”, and included a cute little macro of himself pushing the button, even if later in the day he added J/K to the end of it, (and yes I am old enough to know that Reagan did something similar on television and that it did have consequences). For a direct real life example does anyone remember how far faith in Enron plummeted when that audio recording of Jeff Skilling saying "Well, thank you very much, we appreciate that . . . ASSHOLE" to Grubman came out? The company was, of course, headed for disaster anyway but very few people actually realized that yet. Skilling saying “asshole” and then hanging up on an analyst in and of itself was so intensely inappropriate that people began to consider how fucked things may be there. Now imagine that that had been the first thing some people thinking about investing money anywhere had heard about Enron do you think they would go there to buy stock? Let me be as clear as I can, anything said in this afore mentioned context will effect your corporate image, possibly for years to come and in ways that don’t even occur to you. If someone cannot handle that responsibility they are best off avoiding such situations all together by not talking about business at all so that the context does not exist.
So to sum up if you want your business to grow stay constructive if you want to damage your image and therefore your business be destructive. If you can’t handle that, then shift responsibility to someone who can.
On a separate but related note: Co-operation between venues and promoters is preferable to excessive competition. For example if there is a venue catering to a specific crowd and you open down the street from them try to cater to someone else and you will both make more money. If you are a promoter who promotes events on a specific theme try not drop them on top of the same style of event or use the other event’s image or language. In this way cross promotion is made more possible and the public are not divided, thus strengthening the standing of all involved.
I am sure, that some people will think that this is directed at one specific organization and or person, if you think that, you are incorrect. If it were I would contact that individual or organization in private as it would be information only useful to that individual or organization.