Going Mobile

By Chris Oconnor

I’ve been reading Wired since Issue 1 in 1993 and while that may date me, I’m not ashamed to say it since it also means I’ve been around long enough to witness many IT trends in the workplace.  The most significant is today’s surge in mobile and social adoption in the enterprise.

In my time at Genentech, we deployed over thirty internal productivity apps. Over nearly a decade, I watched as an employee’s mobile device became an integral part of their workflows and as a result deals closed and business grew. Today, as the mobile workforce grows to staggering numbers (1/3 of the total global workforce by 2015 according to IDC), the enterprise is struggling with strategy, control, education, security and more.

As Gartner said in their enterprise apps report last summer, “Given that user attention is a scarce commodity, businesses can capitalize on the additional time the tablet screen can offer.” The same is true across devices — these mobile solutions can be drivers of increased business and a baked-in social layer can transform their use cases as well.

Here are a few common Qs I get while talking to CMOs, CIOs, and others about integrating social and mobile strategies into every facet of their stack:

Do we build or buy?

This question plagues many enterprise execs that want to use consumer-inspired apps internally. If off-the-shelf apps are available and affordable, why undertake a massive project internally? We find ourselves talking speed to implementation, cost, expertise, and maintenance when asked this question.

Buying seems to win out as the recent vendor consolidation is making it possible to offer customers advantageous new pricing models with bundled packages. Partnering with a person or group with domain expertise also allows you to deploy solutions faster (read: faster than your competition). As the goal is gaining a competitive advantage it’s arguably smarter to hire vendors who have tackled the unique challenges of mobility before they can also maintain their products more effectively.

If you think about it, development of a native app in-house can take say six months to a year, while using a vendor to build it can reduce that cycle to say two months for a cross-platform version. With off-the-shelf apps that time can be further reduced to about a two-week implementation cycle post-approvals. We’ve seen cases where the internal review process takes longer than implementation!

With more sophisticated apps hitting the market all the time and millions available across platforms already – the real question is what existing mobile solutions already are in the market that fit your needs (and can be customized if need be)?

What platforms do we really need to support?

We’re happy to talk device support – it’s a good sign we’re moving away from the BYOD anxiety of even just a year ago. So your employees want to bring their own devices – many people have come to terms with that fact – but you still want to offer them solutions that benefit you even on their own devices.

It’s critical to support iOS first, in my opinion. As Vanity Fair writer Kurt Eichenwald put it in his article, “Microsoft’s Lost Decade,” in the current issue, “Cool is what tech consumers want. Exhibit A: today the iPhone brings in more revenue than the entirety of Microsoft. No really.” That staggering fact alone is reason enough to make sure your support for the iOS platform is at the ready. Android is important as well, especially as its own app market matures, however, it’s particularly critical for large-scale companies that have operations in emerging markets as Android sees higher adoption in those areas. As Kevin Kelleher over at Fortune said just last month in his piece, “Has Google’s Android Peaked,” “According to app-analytics firm Flurry, developers build two iOS apps for every Android app they create. In return, they make four times as much revenue from iPhone users than from Android users.” Many analysts and pundits speculate about where the smartphone market will be in 5 or 10 years (and the potential rise of Windows in the market) but as IDC and Appcelerator reported in their recent Q2 Mobile Developer Report, “Apple opened a dramatic lead over Android as far as which OS will win in the enterprise with 53.2% of developers say iOS will win vs. 37.5% saying Android will win.” Favoring iOS with a healthy dose of Android is a good prescription.

Are apps safe for my data and my employees’ information?

The elephant in the room is often security. These issues can sometimes be expedited when a company has a designated mobility team with a separate budget that has a use it or lose it amount to spend on solutions but oftentimes security reviews slows a process down. Apps that don’t connect with popular cloud-based solutions like Salesforce are not able to quickly navigate the security issues. They should be (and are) tested vigorously so as to prevent a public gaffe with lost information.

Many companies are shifting to direct authentication approaches so that the same credentials that are used on their other enterprise solutions allow them access to advanced mobile and social tools as well. This approach allows for faster approvals, more internal comfort with the decision overall as well as quicker time to market.

Is mobile/social a distraction?

Many senior level executives we talk to are still worried about incorporating social and mobile technologies into workflows as the productivity and bottom-line benefits have yet to be truly measured and reported. We encourage listening to end-users as they are the best judge of their own attention spans, interests and needs, however, it’s also important to self-educate. KPMG recently issued a very interesting report called, “Mobilizing Innovation: The changing landscape of disruptive technologies”and it found that, in the enterprise market, cloud and mobile adoption benefits over the next three years will include improved business efficiencies, cost reductions and faster innovation cycles leading to new business opportunities and revenue streams not to mention increased profitability and accelerated time to market.

These are good things, don’t wait. The important thing to keep in mind is that these tools are ones that you can track the adoption of and get a general feel for the ROI around – as they can be quick, inexpensive and easy to deploy (see point 1) the risk is lower then to adjust, limit or turn off their use if you aren’t seeing the value you expected.

Hard numbers seem to carry the most weight with executives who are putting a toe or a whole foot in the water of integrating social and mobile technologies into their enterprise. Perhaps understandably then, we are seeing the greatest adoption with businesses over $1B in revenues and between 15-50K employees. This to us evidences that the employee demand is high – perhaps so high it can’t be ignored. As a result larger companies are becoming some of the first to move in this space. This first mover status will only serve to increase their marketshare.

The Geography of America's Music Scenes

Major summer music festivals — like this past weekend's Lollapalooza in Chicago, as well as Bonnaroo in Manchester, Tennessee; Coachella near Palm Springs, California; Summerfest in Milwaukee; and the Newport Folk Festival, to mention just a few — bring fans together to specific locales to listen to bands from all over the world. 

But where are America's leading centers for musicians and the music industry? It's an intriguing question since musicians are mobile with little to tie them down, even compared to high-tech industries and workers which tend to grow up around universities, advanced industries and centers of venture capital.  

Numerous U.S. cities have staked claims as leading music centers. Seattle had its grunge, Chicago has electric blues, and Nashville its twang. Detroit was the birthplace of both Motown and the hard-edge distorted indie rock of The White Stripes. Austin has Stevie Ray Vaughn, Willie Nelson, and a host of legendary singer-songwriters. Then there's of course New Orleans jazz, brass, and funk; San Francisco’s psychedelic sound; and the reverb-soaked rockabilly that is inextricably associated with Memphis’s Sun Records.

To better understand the geography of music in America, my Martin Prosperity Institutecolleague Charlotta Mellander analyzed Bureau of Labor Statistics figures on the concentration of musicians and U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis stats on music and recording industry business establishments, and combined the results into a Metro Music Index. It is important to point out that we are measuring the concentration of musicians and music-related businesses, not the vibrancy or impact or quality of artists to emerge from a regional scene. Ongoing MPIresearch is utilizing other unique data sources, including a huge amount of data culled fromMySpace, to measure the diversity and richness of music scenes (more on that in future posts).

The map above by MPI’S Zara Matheson charts the results for U.S. metros. 

Topping the list is Nashville. Its concentration of music, musicians, and recording and music publishing businesses is nothing short of astounding — America’s one-time capital of country music is now its music leader across the board, and the home base of superstars from Taylor Swift to Jack White and his Third Man Studios, as I have written about here. 

The rest of the top 20 includes: Orlando (home to Disney World, which gave rise to boy bands); Austin, with its legendary singer-songwriter and blues scenes (Willie Nelson, Stevie Ray Vaughn, Spoon); San Diego, Pittsburgh (Billy Eckstine, drummer Kenny Clarke, Donnie Iris, Rusted Root, GirlTalk, Wiz Khalifa); Milwaukee (which spawned Woody Herman and Liberace in decades past and The Violent Femmes and Rico Love more recently); Miami (everything from Gloria Estefan to Rick Ross, Flo Rida, and Pit Bull, not to mention the jazz program at the Frost School of Music which launched such alums as Ben Folds and Pat Metheny); Chicago, with its rich legacy of blues and rock 'n' roll; Indianapolis (home to jazz’s legendary Montgomery brothers and R&B’s Babyface); Dallas (the home town of both Meat Loaf and T-Bone Walker); and Denver (a folk and classical music powerhouse).

Atlanta, a major center for hip-hop and R&B, ranks 22nd among large metros. Greater Washington, D.C., which gave us go-go and the post-hardcore punk of Fugazi, is 26th. Despite Boston's two conservatories, a notable symphony, and having been the launching pad for countless major label artists (J. Geils Band, Boston, Aerosmith, the Cars, New Kids on the Block), the metro ranks just 31st among its larger peers. Detroit, Memphis, and Philly rank 37th, 35th and 45th among large metros — a sign of how much the music scenes there have shifted to other centers.

Cities with vibrant music scenes mimic the process of innovation.

A variety of small metros do surprisingly well, such as Kingston, NY, which ranks sixth overall when small metros are included in the index. It most likely owes its high standing to nearby Woodstock, home to innumerable well-known musicians including jazz’s Carla Bley, the late rock-legend Levon Helm, and studio stalwart (and ex-King Crimson) bassist Tony Levin. Honolulu, another major tourist destination, ranks seventh overall.

Several college towns stand out. Eugene, Oregon — the hometown of Tim Hardin, Robert Cray, and Mason Williams — ranks 5th among all metros. Boulder, with its lively jam band and bluegrass scene, is 25th. Madison, Wisconsin is 27th, Ann Arbor 40th.  Unfortunately, data are not available for college scenes like Athens, Georgia, legendary home to R.E.M., the B-52s, Widespread Panic, and The Drive-By Truckers, or Charlottesville, Virginia, birthplace of Dave Matthews Band.

Other smaller metros that do better than expected are Kalamazoo, Michigan (the former home of the Gibson guitar factory, founded in 1902, and the site of some major classical music festivals) at 8th overall, and Albany, New York, at 14th. California's Santa Barbara, Santa Cruz, and Salinas all rank highly. Asheville, North Carolina — a sophisticated vacation and arts center — is 23rd overall.

While radio and the recording business have become much more corporate and standardized, musicians still cluster more in some places than others. This is interesting because musicians are mobile, and do not require a lot of capital, access to raw materials, or even proximity to anchor institutions like universities. They come to some places because there are lots of venues, clubs, conservatories, and recording studios, and they can make a living and stake out a career. Bigger metros like New York and L.A. do well because of their larger markets and scope of their talent and firms. And not just in music: Related MPI research finds that the "entertainment sector as a whole and its key subsectors are significantly concentrated in these two superstar cities ... far beyond what their population size (or scale effects) can account for, while the pattern falls off dramatically in other large regions" like Chicago.

But size is not everything, as Nashville's dominance and the performance of other smaller metros show. Smaller places can develop significant clusters of musicians and the music industry. The key here, as it is in so many other fields, is the clustering of talent, as talented musicians are drawn to and cluster around other talented musicians. Doing so, they generate a human capital externality of a musical kind — competing against each other for new sounds and audiences, combining and recombining with each other into new bands — a Darwinian process out of which successful acts rise to the top and achieve broad success.

In this way, through the clustering of talent and combination and recombination, cities with vibrant music scenes mimic the process of innovation more broadly. Cities with flourishing music scenes often have underlying creative economic systems that are also supportive of technology and entrepreneurialism. Music clustering can provide a powerful lens not only into popular culture, but into the mechanisms that power our increasingly idea-based and talent-driven economy.

Rank	Metro	Metro Music Index
1	Nashville-Davidson--Murfreesboro--Franklin, TN	1.00
2	New York-Northern New Jersey-Long Island, NY-NJ-PA	0.97
3	Los Angeles-Long Beach-Santa Ana, CA	0.96
4	San Francisco-Oakland-Fremont, CA	0.93
5	Seattle-Tacoma-Bellevue, WA	0.80
6	Las Vegas-Paradise, NV	0.79
6	Portland-Vancouver-Beaverton, OR-WA	0.79
8	New Orleans-Metairie-Kenner, LA	0.78
9	Rochester, NY	0.76
10	Minneapolis-St. Paul-Bloomington, MN-WI	0.72
11	Orlando-Kissimmee, FL	0.70
12	Austin-Round Rock, TX	0.67
13	San Diego-Carlsbad-San Marcos, CA	0.66
14	Pittsburgh, PA	0.65
14	Milwaukee-Waukesha-West Allis, WI	0.65
16	Miami-Fort Lauderdale-Pompano Beach, FL	0.63
16	Chicago-Naperville-Joliet, IL-IN-WI	0.63
18	Indianapolis-Carmel, IN	0.57
19	Dallas-Fort Worth-Arlington, TX	0.53
20	Denver-Aurora, CO	0.52
21	Charlotte-Gastonia-Concord, NC-SC	0.50
22	Louisville-Jefferson County, KY-IN	0.49
22	Atlanta-Sandy Springs-Marietta, GA	0.49
22	Tampa-St. Petersburg-Clearwater, FL	0.49
25	San Antonio, TX	0.48

Keywords: Music, Music Scenes