Henriette Weber wrote this post about the idea of rockband’ism in business over at 24.org. It’s built around her wishful imagination of what it is about to be in a rock band, which is a very important point and I was impressed she mentioned it: all to often people assume that their imagination of something is universally shared.
I associate rock bands with either bunch of my partially anorexic university friends of whom 85% and their dogs are in bands of some sort (there is probably more bands than inhabitants in London, since any civilian seems to belong to at least 2 or 3 of them) or rock stars – you know, these bands we all know about, even if we can’t recall their music, because we heard that their demolished some hotel rooms and spent some ridiculous amounts of money on incrusted watches. But Henriette Weber explained her idea and I know what she means.
Having thought about it for a bit, just long enough bit, I came to think that I liked all the artistic decisions made by Thom Yorke ever – that I heard of that is. Except for when he went for that Andy Warhol look. Still if I had a business I’d like it to be like Radiohead, savvy, independent, innovative and not too worried, because every one who does wrong will be sooner or later taken by karma police. I do not, however, own a business other than the business of myself. So I decided from now on the question I will ask myself when in trouble making creative or – oh dear – business decisions is: What Would Thom Yorke Do?
The reason why I’m writing all this is that I’m recently getting closer and closer to nailing that issue of self and brand. Or so it seems to me, which is not always the right idea (see paragraph one). On-line presence turns us all into brands (yeah, you too, don’t kid yourself). The business of me (obviously any one for that matter) does indeed need a lot of integrity, especially when there’s no economic entity, no brand, no property other than intellectual and no PR people to rely on.
If you have any information in regards to Thom Yorke’s decisions making process please let me know.
Radiohead – Karma Police from Jorenob on Vimeo.
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Comments ( 1 Comment )
Interesting idea, I think the question I’ll be asking myself is “what would James Brown do? …with his bad self, huh!” ;) All kidding aside it’s a good point though, I suppose I should consider myself as an online brand these days with podcasts, blogs and so on. Time to call a board meeting (sigh)
Dan added these pithy words on
Dec 18 08 at
6:28 pm