This is a comment I posted in response to an article highlighting my friend and colleague Rick Cherwitz’s excellent work in Intellectual Entrepreneurship at UT Austin:
Texas Tribune Article

Here is my reply:

Dr. Cherwitz was been a standard-bearer of the very reforms that our universities badly need. For too long, most areas of our universities have been the maintainers of the status quo rather than being the font of knowledge and innovation that was their original mandate.

In my area of specialization – music higher education – most colleges of music have been paralyzed by an accrediting process by the National Association of Schools of Music (NASM) that is pretty good at training our students to play well, but do little or nothing to address what they will do when they graduate or how they will add to our culture. Ironically, the problem with most university schools of music is in the faculty themselves – who live off of their self-aggrandizement as the producers of more unemployed musicians and crowing about the 1 or 2 students across their careers who actually achieve full-time employment in the field for which their curriculum is fashioned: to supply symphony orchestras with trained musicians, and sadly our students are asked to perform excerpts of symphony music in front of faculty juries for which they will never get to perform in their lifetime.

Dr. Cherwitz’s role at breaking down the barriers to much more meaningful education is breathtaking, although, again, at his University of Texas at Austin, their school of music received a sizable donation from the Butlers, promptly renamed their school for them, and then used it to hire more clarinet teachers to supply more clarinet students to perform in their concert bands rather than using that funding to do something innovative and substantive to help the moribund classical music world they are apparently supplying. I say “apparently ” because the only meaningful employment that concert band training can supply can only be found in U.S. military bands. If Douglas Dempster, Dean of the UT Austin College of FIne Arts, was asked whether the role of his school of music was to supply musicians to the nation’s military bands, what would he say?

So while the work that Dr. Cherwitz is doing is groundbreaking, we have a long way to go, even in Dr. Cherwitz’s own backyard. People fear what they don’t understand, and that starts with faculty understanding of the notion of entrepreneurship, whether is it business, social or intellectual entrepreneurship. Several years ago, not long after we decided to move to Austin, I arranged with a major bank thousands of dollars to underwrite an entrepreneurship symposium at UT’s school of music, and they never even returned my calls or messages.

Yesterday, I attended a recital/master class of a friend from a major symphony that was held at UT’s school of music. While I enjoyed the excellent performances and the masterful teaching that took place in a public forum, it wasn’t lost on me that this was attended by students that were wholly unprepared to use their applied field in the marketplace, and I lamented the parents of these students who were making huge financial sacrifices in order to send their student to a program that can’t even prepare them in any way to earn a living in the field that dominates their dreams; the irony is not lost on me that the garbageman that just came by my home has a full time full year job 52 weeks a year with benefits and earns more than the vast majority of applied music students from our colleges of music will every hope to attain as performers.

How badly we need Rick Cherwitz’s agenda and leadership!

Michael Drapkin
Founder and Dean
The Drapkin Institute for Music Entrepreneurship

A few years ago, I led a discussion on leadership in academic institutions for a major national organization. I actually found it somewhat disappointing, even though I was the moderator and the audience (and panelists) said that they found that session remarkable. I had a panel of deans, directors and chairs of colleges, and they all mostly learned on the job, could not clearly express concepts of leadership, and did very little or no mentoring to train future leaders. I probably learned the most of anyone in the room! I think what was really remarkable was that none of these panelists was ever before asked to verbalize about leadership – how to acquire it, how to work with others and how to pass it on.

I worked on Wall St. from ’93-98 and had a boss that was a Lt. Col. in the US Army Reserves. He was a true leader, and I still am in touch and affectionately call him “boss.” But he got his leadership training from the US military, who have very in-depth and methodical training in leadership. I’ve been similarly fascinated by the concept of leadership, having worked with so so many executives in the business world. Leadership reminds me of musical expression: our initial thought is that expressiveness is derived from your ability to express emotion, until you study with a master who teaches you the mechanics of phrasing and musicality, and you realize that your ability to express yourself emotionally is tied to understanding the very mechanical concepts of tension and release, chordal resolution, change of position, etc.

“Leadership” is very similar – understanding the underlying concepts that allow one to lead effectively – understanding human motivation, balancing staff priorities with well-being, etc. A lot of it is very unromantic as are many of the underlying concepts of expressive playing. A lot of leadership is intuition, but it is implemented through the use of well-defined techniques. Then there is that fine line between leadership and management. There are lots of effective managers that are good at those things you list in your second paragraph, but poor leaders. Merely being in a position of power does not automatically make people good managers or leaders – look at conductors….so many of them are both poor managers (poor time management, for example) and poor leaders (bully the orchestra by yelling, etc.).

There have often been described as three levels of leadership (yes, this bleeds across management, too):

• Apprentices that think that leadership is the sudden acquisition of power (“my way or the highway”) until they learn that they can issue orders until they are blue in the face, because when people don’t want to do something, they aren’t going to do it, no matter what you order them to do.
• Journeymen that look for ways to manipulate their staff so that they will do the things that they want them to do. My Wall St. boss used to marvel at our CTO, and say that “he could sleep with your wife and convince you that it was your idea.” Is that leadership, or salesmanship?
• Then the masters: they look to emphasize what people are good at and strengthen their weaknesses. They empower people to work to the best of their ability while setting them up for success, not failure. They also set the example, and show that they are willing to also roll up their sleeves so that success can be collective. We usually observe that leaders can motivate people to do their best. What is the essence of that motivation? Can one deconstruct that?

My boss from Wall St. always said he had three priorities for his staff (in order):

1. Meet the objectives of the organization.
2. Promote the careers of the people that worked for him, and
3. Have fun.

He was and still is a great guy.

Joining and getting involved in community-building with Facebook has been both cathartic and unsettling, and it has taken some time to get my finger on what about Facebook is both wonderful and horrifying.

Recently I was reconnected with a cadre of terrific people that went through elementary school with me back in Encino, California – at the time (through 6th grade) we had spent half of our lives together, and dispersed – never to be in contact again until we were brought back together with Facebook. It has been a delight and still puzzling, or as my friend Lynne Annis put it in one of those long Facebook message chains (commenting on one of our class photos), “I feel like I know all of these people, yet really know nothing about them.”

A number of years ago, I had the honor of delivering the Best Man speech to my best friend John Yeh at the occasion of his marriage to Theresa Reilly, and in it, I describe a dream where everyone is happy and we are all together and I name them and of course they are all of our dear friends at the reception, and I end with a metaphorical Shehecheyanu – the traditional Jewish prayer thanking the Almighty for life, sustenance and being brought to this occasion.

Similarly, I have always had this fantasy about the end of my life, where everyone significant in my life are brought together as adults, which is not that dissimilar from Philip Jose Farmer’s brilliant series about Riverworld, where everyone in human history is resurrected on an artificially constructed planet, and he tells stories about their interaction. I’ve linked to a Wiki about that world:

Riverworld – Wikipedia

I guess it was being contacted from Laura and Lynne from my elementary school that made the circle of my Facebook complete – a complete compendium of my life – being surrounded by folks from the elementary school world I was immersed in, then we moved and the middle school/high school, college, New York City, classical music world, Austin community, technology world, ex-girlfriends, family/relatives, etc. A thrilling yet bizarre cross-section, as though I have been resurrected on the Drapkin Riverworld.

Even stranger is that this world has been constructed solely though technology, and in a way that none of us could have imagined when I was growing up through high school age – an age before the ubiquity of computers and the internetwork that ties us all together now.

Yet here it is, and Laura and Lynne from Encino Elementary have made it complete. Several times when I have gone back to Los Angeles to visit, Suzy and I have driven by our old home on Weddington Street and Encino Elementary – relatively meaningless to her, but a flood of memories to me.

So, is Facebook the Apocalypse? Has the Messiah returned, not as an air-breathing man, but as an interconnected internetwork of souls from our lives that get brought back together and force us to face ourselves as the sum of all of the relationships we have made across the vastness of our being?

It certainly bears pondering, doesn’t it? Stay tuned.

Excellent video on entrepreneurship!

Yesterday, my family and I went to see James Cameron’s blockbuster hit movie “Avatar” in full 3D IMAX. It was my second time seeing the movie, and it was even better the second time than the first, although I was pretty blown away the first time.

Yet, each time when they rolled the credits at the end, the thing that struck me the most about the movie wasn’t the amazing computer-generated characters, or the mix between real people and CG. It was the highly satisfying sense of seeing James Cameron’s vision having come to fruition in complete and total success. As an entrepreneur, I completely related to what he had achieved and also what he had risked, even though as the director of Titanic, Terminator and Aliens he certainly has a fantastic track record. But Hollywood is notoriously fickle, and he risked everything in the $400 million production of Avatar – and succeeded literally beyond our wildest imaginations.

Filmmakers are the innate entrepreneurs of the arts world. If you want to make a film, you’d better be an entrepreneur, otherwise you don’t have a film, and indeed that is what many film schools make their students do for their final projects; they have them go out and raise money and everything else needed for their final project – a film.

We can all relate to the lesson that James Cameron teaches us. We need to believe in our own vision for what we think is possible, especially when others don’t or can’t see it.

Each one of us has our own personal “Avatar” lurking in us – something that we feel passionate about and is always in the back of our thinking, no matter what else we may be doing. In James Cameron’s case, he wrote his Avatar story 15 years ago, and had to wait for technology to catch up to his story, then spent several years implementing it, even creating what technology still didn’t exist.

No matter what it takes, or how long it takes to get there, may we all pursue our own Avatars, and implement our vision for how the world should be, whatever that is. It doesn’t matter how we get there, or whether we bootstrap or dip into venture capital or even borrow from our in-laws, nor whether we use Bijoy Goswami’s model or Steve Jobs’ or Jeffrey Fry’s or our own unique way of pursuing our dreams. It also doesn’t mean that there won’t be setbacks or challenges along the way. But we can’t help but be enriched by the journey.

Thank you, Mr. Cameron. You reminded me, in a big way, why I pursue my own dreams, and, in the wake of Avatar, I will redouble my efforts!

The following is a response I just wrote to a group that is mulling coming to SXSW to participate in our showcase:

Hi Michael,

We have another question which is…do you know if there are presenters and/or booking agents who specifically be at our showcase concert? We are trying to assess the cost/benefit because of our meager funds at this point.

Response:

We will have several Austin booking agents we work with at the showcase, but not sure if that will benefit you specifically. While we expect a lot of publicity, we don’t know what other presenters and/or booking agents will be attending, who our other groups will be pulling in, and certainly not this far in advance.

There are two ways you can approach this:

1) Do it yourself. Research all of the agents and presenters and contact them ALL (email, mail, phone, social networking or whatever…) to ask if they will be coming to SXSW and if they will be coming to your showcase. Even if you know they have no intention of coming, it gets your name in front of their eyes, and as a group that is good enough to be picked for this prestigious venue.

2) Your PR firm. Have your PR firm do #1 above. This will cost you more money, and frankly I’m not sure they will do a better job than you can, plus if funds are an issue….

The real question, at the end of the day, is how you plan on promoting and building an audience for your lovely quartet? If you take the traditional “we’re going to play great and people should just recognize that and shower us with offers to pay us to perform” approach, then you get in line with the zillions of other classically-trained musicians that share the same fantasy and all do the same thing. If you really believe in what you are doing, there is no better salesperson than you, and your passion for what you do, and then it is just a matter of identifying who resonates to the music you create (I do), and the most effective ways of reaching them.

SXSW provides you with a showcase at one of the country’s biggest music festivals and an opportunity to be seen and network with an enormous number of people, but if you expect that because you are funding your own logistics to come to SXSW that magically things will happen without you taking further positive steps and preparation, then you may be disappointed.

All of our other attending groups understand that, and while we are happy to give you advice, help with info about Austin, hotels, etc., we’re not making a dime for any of the extensive work we’re doing in putting this showcase together. And we would do it all again in a heartbeat.

What do you want to be? You’ve already started down “the road less travelled” by virtue of the kind of music and group you have. Is that as far as you are willing to take it, or do you truly believe passionately in what you are doing, and are willing to find less familiar ways of getting that passion across to people that will be really moved by what you do?

We’re really excited to have you come. Let us know your intentions.

As we continue to populate the Drapkin Institute website, I just finished a new piece.

My original thought was an “About Austin, Texas” section that had tourist, housing, transportation and resource information, but although useful, it didn’t organically fit philosophically. Besides, that information can easily be found elsewhere.

Instead I wrote a piece that is my assessment of Austin (based on my 3 1/2 years of being here) from a music and entrepreneurship viewpoint. The result is as follows:

About Austin Texas

“They may forget what you said, but they will never forget how you made them feel.”

— Carl. W. Buechner

OK, marching bands and drum corps are on my mind, as I am doing a lecture on the subject tomorrow night, but this will be my last post on the subject. I end the presentation with the following video, which is excerpts from the Phantom Regiment Drum and Bugle Corps‘ 2008 world championship performance. I love the look of intensity on their faces. In the awards at the end, you can see tears and sobbing as it is announced that they are the World Champions, winning their first outright championship in their 46 year history.

Included here is the beginning and end of their show, and the awards where they are announced as the winners. Consider each member of their corps to be the equivalent of an Olympic gold medal champion – the best marching musical unit in the world, and they got there by each person individually digging down inside of themselves to a place that they previously did not know existed, and were each the best they could be and part of a cohesive whole – leading them to victory! Many people consider their 2008 performance to be the best in history.

That fanfare the herald trumpets play at the beginning is the Call to Battle from Richard Strauss’ epic symphonic tone poem Ein Heldenleben (A Hero’s Life) – my favorite composer. They play it as stunningly well as any professional orchestra I have been in.

The road to victory is a complex one composed of countless myriad steps, but it is also one where determination and complete dedication to the goal can lead you to victory. We can learn a lot from their terrific achievement. Bravo!

I love this video! Our BCOME music intellectual property and copyright expert Michael Harrington found this, and uses it in his lectures. An entire course could be built around this video, which he amazingly tells off the cuff. I love his last line:

…and that’s the reason why the system hates Dick Dale.

In case you don’t know who he it, Dick is the original beach rocker, and his rendition of Miserlou is the theme music for the movie Pulp Fiction.

As an interesting postscript, I had a brief flirtation with the Puerto Rico Conservatory of Music to run our BCOME conference there last summer, and I actually lined up Dick Dale as a keynote speaker. When we get our own facility, I’m going to name our auditorium the Dick Dale Auditorium.