Notes from Marketing Tailormade seminar

Today I attended Marketing Tailormade, a seminar where you can choose your own program depending on your interests and needs. I love the idea and warmly recommend attending, despite one of the sessions being an absolute waste of time today (you can just pick another session if this happens, capisce?)

Random ideabytes aka notes to self:

Do I sound like a bloody marketer?

Tallinn Music Week and how do we market Estonia

Yesterday I was invited to a panel at Tallinn Music Week along with the Estonian composer Erkki-Sven Tüür, director of London Jazz Festival John Cumming and others to discuss whether it matters where a band is from or not. The discussion turned out to cover more, with topics ranging from the birth of reggae to specifics of Nordic jazz.

I was surprised how many times the word infrastructure was mentioned when talking about something as creative as the music industry. You need to have the systems in place to grow and spot talent and promote it the home country and abroad before you can expect to see truly big stars. Anna Hildur from Iceland Music Export said Björk would probably not have made it so far so fast had Sugarcubes not woken up the Icelandic music scene first. Tallinn Music Week will definitely become part of such platform for Estonian artists. The festival rocked, even based on the little I saw of it. Kudos to the Helen and the rest of the team that made this happen, and kudos for Skype for supporting it.

The panel briefly touched upon marketing countries, too. One thought that occurred to me only after the panel was that the concept of Estonia as a technology country is losing steam. True, we've had the government meeting room with very pretty computer screens, mobile parking, Skype and some other cool things going on. Is that enough to claim us to be technologically advanced or does it come across as a "one hit wonder" if I may borrow the music analogy here? We may need another technology chart topper before continuing to talk about e-stonia. If this doesn't materialize in the next couple of years maybe we're better off defining Estonia through events like song festivals and TMW instead. Or perhaps a compromise: the country with hi-tech folks that can sing in tune.

Google Street View found me

When I walked out our office door one lay last summer I spotted the Google Street View car driving up Tottenham Court Road. It seems they spotted me, too.

I'm not giving Google any points for photography, but they sure can make useful map and location-related applications. See what the front of our office looks like on Street View or wonder virtually to other places in London.

Pohmelliga ilmast ei räägita

Mõne nädala tagune Economist pakkus Londonile, mis veel kümmekond aastat tagasi, investeerimispankade mühinal kasvamise aegu, uhkustas hüüdnimega Manhattan upon Thames, välja uue hüüdnime. Reykjavik upon Thames, ja mõistagi ei ole selle taga mõnest pargist avastatud kuumaveegeisrid.


Seda, et linnast on haihtunud rongide kaupa raha, tänavatel jalutades veel aru ei saa, kuigi inimesi peaks olema vähemaks jäänud. Lehed kirjutavad, et poolakad on nurka visanud köögipõlled ja ehituskiivrid ning tagasi kodumaale suunduma hakanud. Tööta jäänud City pankurid kordavad paremaid aegu oodates erinevates troopilistes randades Peeter Oja kehastatud Kreisiraadio kangelase sõnu, et nemad ei tea, kuhu 800 miljonit kadusid. Inimesi on silmnähtavalt vähem ainult ehk ostutänavatel, näiteks Oxford Street on kohati peaaegu et jalutamiskõlbulik.


Märke keerulistest aegadest leiab igalt poolt. Ajalehte kätte võttes on ainult tutvumiskuulutuste külg selline, kus ei esine sõnapaar credit crunch. Kõikvõimalikud muud rubriigid: kokandus-, suhte-, reisi-, sisepoliitika- ja mõistagi majandusküljed muust justnagu ei kirjutakski.


Iga päev paneb Inglismaal uksed kinni kolm-neli pubi, sest inimesed on hakanud kodus jooma. (Vähem joomine ei tule siin riigis vist kõne alla). Mõni aeg tagasi hakkas pubide kett Weatherspoons müüma 99-pennist õlut, et kliente kohale meelitada. 18-kroonist õlut ei saa baaris vist isegi mitte "odavas" Eestis.


90. aastate keskpaigast alates muusikalis Cool Britannia üsna hästi peaosa mänginud mänginud London on nüüd pohmellis. Kümmekond aastat kestnud pidu on läbi, aftekat kuskil ei toimu ja peaparanduseks pole raha.


Positiivne külg asja juures on, et inglastel on nüüd ka muu üle nuriseda peale halva ilma. Kui mind miski esimese Inglismaal elatud aasta jooksul tüütas, siis oli see just kliima süvaanalüüs nii neli-viis korda päevas.


Linnale, mis on üle elanud katku ja suure tulekahju, ei tee üks pohmelus mõistagi midagi. Hea päevitusega pankurid tulevad varsti tagasi ja hakkavad uusi fonde kokku panema, poolakate poolt tühjaks jäetud korteritesse kolivad sisse rumeenlased ja pea siis ka esimesi kannusid välja ei valata. Ka tuumapohmell läheb kord üle. Küsimus on ainult selles, kui kaua see praegune veel kestab.


Kirjutatud Ekspressile

In defense of U2 and in praise of magnificent sound systems

Prologue*. A colleague that had bought 700-euro headphones about four years ago said this was his only way to really listen to music because he couldn't afford proper speakers. Coming from someone driving a brand new Audi A6 and living in a design apartment in the centre of Tallinn, that felt like showing off to me.


I'm writing this post as I'm listening to the new U2 album through the 25-euro Sennheiser headphones. It sounds exactly like the 6 out of 10 review I just finished reading gave it. And yet the new album may actually be worthy of a 8 or 9 out of 10 review, if listened right.


By "listening right" I don't mean opening the right kind of wine before putting on the CD nor staring out the window expressionless in a semi-trance state while listening. You have to have the necessary short circuits, lamps and kilowatts for something like U2.


I learned that about a month ago when listening to music at a friend's place through his state-of-the-art sound system that probably costs about as much as a German family car. A vinyl player that weights 70 kilos to ensure smooth rotation of the disc, voltage stabilizer, three amplifiers and speakers the size of an overweight 12-year old kid surely look impressive. But it's the sound these boxes are capable of producing that blew my mind. I put on a CD and was surprised to learn this was the first time I heard these tunes, though I had listened to a disc with exactly the same name and album art before. Music sounded completely different, especially U2 (which I have never really been a huge fan of, by the way). I've rarely felt more out of words than I am now, trying to explain how exactly this sounded. Maybe 3D soundstream that filled the room with armor-penetrating waves of pleasure sounds about right. Or that "Sunday Bloody Sunday" was the closest manifestation of flames expressed through music I have ever felt.


Anyway, you don't really have to have a sound system that costs the price of a car to listen to No Line On The Horizon. But if it costs less than a Vespa scooter you have every right to believe the critics and not buy it. And if you are one of the unfortunate with a stereo that costs less than a bicycle (as is the case in the rental flat of yours truly) I recommend sticking to electronic music and in addition turning down every offer to comment on music.


I have no idea what the music critic mentioned in the beginning of this post used to listen to U2. He was perhaps using the bestest audioporn technology out there and he just didn't like the album. I am merely recommending here to give it ago on a Vespa- or BMW-class sound system before declaring an album average.


* Thanks for pointing the mistake out, Jaanus. Copied this from the end to the beginning and didn't change the word.