I was an early Spotify listener as I simply paid the full boat $9.99 package. I’ve been using it about 50% of the time vs. my usual listening to last.fm on the Sonos.
The good:
- I love being able to hear an entire album of new music start to finish without buying the album. Then typically I find myself buying the tracks I want. I travel too much to not have music loaded on my ipad for those flights where you are stuck in a middle seat for 2 hours on the ramp at o’hare. Plus, it is important to support the artists I like.
- The ability to send music like email is fantastic. I need to use it more. I see a lot of possibilities with this over time.
- Browsing others playlists on facebook is nice but can also be scary to see what your co-workers are listen to.
The bad:
- Hard to manage music. It loads your playlists from iTunes but it does not really work. You need the ability to buy a track and add to iTunes playlist/library directly. Ie set one master library rather than having two.
- They don’t have all the music you want to hear.
- Their new music area can be shallow with the same set of albums coming up. I’m sure they will improve the music discovery. It needs to learn like Last.fm or itunes what you listen to and like. If they merged with turntable.fm and 8tracks I’d be in heaven.
In the end I would recommend Spotify. It remains to be seen if I’ll be paying for it in six months with Apple’s cloud service coming out or drop down to the free level and lose the ability to play Spotify on the Sonos.
Sriram had this wonderful quote come across my Twitter stream, “You’re not Steve Jobs and your organization is not Apple. And your well-thought out strategy is probably terrible.”
I could not agree more. We all fall in love with our ideas, especially if your in a power point filled offsite. I find this all even more amusing as I’m the Chief Strategy Officer at 125 person SaaS company. I think a better title is Chief Trouble Maker as my role is really to push us to execute on the new while driving more of what is already working. Drive little experiments and kill the failures. One of those little experiments four years ago provides 55% of our revenue today.
It will always be about execution. Not the fancy strategy deck some agency/consultancy/CSO put together. I find the hardest point is to get your team use to the fact that it is ok to skin their knees. Regularly. Weekly. We all stumble. Just do it faster. Do more of it. Do it more often so you get use to it. Get promoted for it. Nose to the grind stone, capacity to execute your roll on the team, and a little blatant disregard for what can’t be done will take you much farther. As von Moltke said, “No battle plan survives contact with the enemy.” Which does not mean don’t have a plan just be ready to adapt it to the reality on the ground and not the J curve someone analysts put on a chart.
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My best man speech…
It is great to see this tent filled with Cory and Thomas’ family and friends from down the road, and those who have crossed half the world to be here; Tushar from Nepal, Lindsay and Nie from England. There is nothing that means more to Thomas and Cory then being surrounded by a sea of smiling faces of people they love.
A deep thank you to Cory’s family for hosting this spectacular event at their lovely VT home. As Cory’s Mom said earlier all the preparation was a great team building exercise that brought both families even closer together. Plus, I learned a lot of embarrassing Simon-Knowles family stories.
As to Stories, I could regale you with the tale of how Thomas and Cory met at a Bar here in VT, or the hike where they went swimming with the naked yoga guy. But I won’t. Instead I’d like to say more personal words…
First to Cory. You are a wonderful addition to the Newcomb family and we all feel very lucky that we get to share you. I appreciate that I now have an ally in giving my father a hard time around the dinner table. More importantly you have been an amazing partner to my brother. You helped him grow and mature and even better got him to shave… Welcome… I can say for all the Newcomb’s thank you for putting up with us and loving Thomas so brightly as you do.
Now to Thomas. I must admit that I was a little bummed when Thomas left VT to head west to San Francisco. But Wow! What wings you grew while you were gone. My little brother all grown up, with a masters degree, a great job, a cool dog, and now marrying the love of his life.
So, Raise your glasses and let us toast; to Thomas and Cory. For all that they have accomplished together, as they entwined their roots and fell in love, and for all that they will yet inspire us to, as we support them in their marriage.
With Love…Cheers!
