Hanson is a great case study for the music business and the business business. They’re a group of guys — brothers, no less — who love what they do and don’t care what you think. They’ve built a deeply loyal fan base, they’ve built a great business, and they’ve been able to mobilize their fans to support causes that the band — and their fans — believe in.
And they’ve done all this after being written off and largely ignored.
What I found most impressive about the story is how dedicated they are to their community. They are part of the community, not just facilitators of the community. For example, to promote charity, and their “Walk Around the World” tour, they are walking a mile with their fans before each show. For each mile walked, the band donates one dollar on the walker’s behalf to one of five causes the walker can choose from. That’s just cool.
I think the whole Hanson story is simple one of dedication, product, and patience. They’re dedicated to their music, they put out a solid product, and their patience has allowed them to sustain long-term success. They’ve made it on their own terms on their own schedule.
Sidenote: In a strange set of circumstances involving Ryan Singer and his former employer, I happened to go see a Hanson show at the House of Blues in Chicago a few years ago. I was impressed and thoroughly entertained. I also got a chance to meet the guys and was impressed by their down to earth nature and genuine love for what they get to do every night. They love their music, they love their fans, their fans love them, and their fans love their music. It’s the perfect loop.
This crisis is as much about values, trust, and business integrity as it is about declining stock prices and limited credit. Be sure to remind your colleagues, your customers, and the world at large why what you do matters, why you started the company in the first place, and what kind of impact you’re trying to have on the world. Here’s a question I always ask CEOs to think about: “If your company went out of business tomorrow, who would miss you and why?” Well, since plenty of companies may go out of business, remind everyone around you why staying in business matters.
I just got back from RubyConf 2008, in Orlando, Florida. It was really a fantastic conference. It came off really well, and everything was top-notch. What I loved most was reconnecting with the community, just sitting, chatting and hacking with people from all over the world with whom I normally interact only online.
It made me realize that what I really want to attend is an “unconference”, where people pay to come and listen to one (or maybe two) keynotes by prominent community members, but then the rest of the time is spent in unstructured hacking sessions, where people cluster and work together on any number of different projects. If people want to stand up at a mic and talk about something that interests them, that’s fine, but the focus would not be on presentation, but on working on interesting projects.
Barcamp sounds kind of like this, but the emphasis still seems to be on presentations. Has anyone ever attended something like this?
A lot of musician interviews wind up with a pulling-teeth vibe where you can sense the artist would rather just let the music do the talking. “Dion Pays Homage To Guitar-Rock Giants,” an audio interview with the singer-songwriter on NPR, is the opposite of that. You can sense he can’t wait to tell stories about his music and his peers.
You might think you don’t give a shit what Dion has to say, but take a listen. You’ll be fascinated. In fact, it’s a great example of promotion through education. Instead of just some old fogey plugging his latest record, he really gives ya something. He bring his guitar along and weaves in bits of songs, anecdotes about the greats he came up with, musical lessons, etc.
He covers “Summertime Blues” and explains how he loves the sense of humor displayed in the third verse. He talks about the song “Ruby Ruby” which led to the greatest compliment of his life: Little Richard’s mother telling him he’s got soul. He mentions how Johnny Cash’s “I Walk the Line” changes keys six times. He tells the story of writing “Born to Cry” as a 16-year old after he walked past a synagogue and heard the cantor singing. And he breezes through all of that in just a few minutes.
It’s a great lesson for anyone who’s trying to promote something. If you just show up to plug something, it’s easy to tune out. But if you give your audience a story they want to hear and/or teach them something interesting, they’ll eagerly pay attention.
The US Holidays iCal is great but I wish there was an iCal for things that aren’t really holidays but that everyone stops to “celebrate.” Like the Super Bowl, the Oscars, presidential debates, etc. Basically, a calendar that will tell you “if you’re planning on scheduling an event, avoid this night.”
What happens when you treat every customer as if they might be a reporter? Occasionally, one of them is a reporter: “Last spring, I called Zappos.com about a pair of shoes I wanted to buy for my upcoming wedding that they did not have in my size. The representative said Zappos.com would e-mail me when the right-sized shoes arrived back in stock. But she didn’t stop there. While I was on the phone, she searched for the shoes on the Web sites of Piperlime and Endless, two of Zappos.com’s major competitors. When she didn’t find them there in my size, she gave me the customer service phone numbers for those sites so I could call them, in case they got the shoes in stock first.”
Basecamp Versatility Skateboards: “Basecamp is the body of our business’s communications and Campfire is our brain”
“Basecamp is the body of our business’s communications. Every project, from designing a new skateboard to planning a contest sponsorship, is tracked in Basecamp. Campfire is our brain. All three of us leave it up and running all day, which allows us the ability to brainstorm at the drop of a hat. The best feature of Campfire is that it’s logged and we can revisit the ideas we discussed 10 minutes, 10 days or 10 weeks later. Without Campfire, a lot of ideas would be lost!”
Campfire How Beanstalk uses Campfire when things go wrong
“We just had a short outage on Beanstalk, which required a quick reboot on our slices at Engine Yard. While this situation really sucks, it happens. The best thing you can do is let people know you’re working on it and update them on the progress. By using Campfire, we’re able to give people an extra sense of comfort that real people are hard at work on the problem. In the end, a negative thing becomes a positive experience.”
Backpack Plotters use Backpack to create “the greatest birthday scavenger hunt of all time!”
Tim Sullivan plotted out an elaborate alternate reality birthday game for his girlfriend using Backpack. He writes, “I don’t think we’d have been able to even conceive of organizing this without Backpack. It’s keeping us completely organized and allowing us to pull off what could be the greatest birthday scavenger hunt of all time!”
Multiple products Video: Setting up 37signals Open Bar
If you use more than one 37signals product (or have multiple accounts within a product), you can make your life a lot easier with 37signals Open Bar. In this video, Jason and Jamie show how easy it is to set up Open Bar so you can switch quickly between your accounts.
In the past, historic front-page moments have made certain newspapers collector’s items. With newspapers and their influence on the downslide, will historic moments in print still have the same cachet for collectors? Will people still say “I have the newspaper from the day…” ?
I like to dream that somewhere out there is a person who only carries Diner’s Club and Carte Blanche credit cards exclusively. “Really, I’d love to pick up the check but…”
“North Dakota is a rural state and its communities maintain
close ties and networks. North Dakota’s system of voting, and
lack of voter registration, is rooted in its rural character by
providing small precincts. Establishing relatively small
precincts is intended to ensure that election boards know the
voters who come to the polls to vote on Election Day and can
easily detect those who should not be voting in the precinct.
This network of small precincts reduces the need for voter
registration.”
A lot of musician interviews wind up with a pulling-teeth vibe where you can sense the artist would rather just let the music do the talking. 
