The 8th habit of highly effective people is: “Find your voice and inspire others to do likewise”.

This latest habit is not an add-on to the original seven habits, but represents another dimension of effectiveness which will enhance the performance of each of the other seven habits.

engage in work that genuinely taps your talents and fuels your passion. It means to do something significant with your career – to sense an unmet need and then to fully harness all your talents and passion to meet that need. To find your voice means to take the path to greatness rather than settling for mediocrity.

The 7 Habits of Highly Effective A&R’s

7. Sharpen the saw

6. Synergize

5. Seek first to understand the artist needs, Then to be understood by the artist

4. Think win/win

3. Put first things first

2. Begin with the end in mind

1. Be proactive

The 8th Habit

Find your voice...and inspire others to do likewise

Find your voice Inspire others to find their voices

FIND YOUR VOICE

Discover your own voice

Express your voice

FOCUS

Expand your influence

Be trustworthy

Build trust

Blend other’s voices

Create a common vision

EXECUTIONFocus Execution

Align goals and systems

Empower

1. Find your voice . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

To find your voice means to engage in work that genuinely taps your talents and fuels your passion. It means to do something significant with your career – to sense an unmet need and then to fully harness all your talents and passion to meet that need. To find your voice means to take the path to greatness rather than settling for mediocrity.

One of the most frustrating things for the majority of people is the fact they rarely have the opportunity to realize a life of greatness and contribution. Instead, people spend the majority of their careers operating at a much lower level. They are aware of the tremendous challenges and problems which exist, but most people have not developed the internal power nor the moral

authority to become a force in solving those problems. To address this challenge, you need to find your own voice. When this happens, a fire will light inside you which will fuel tremendous drive and commitment. To be able to actually find your voice, however, you first need to understand a simple thinking about life.

A whole person has four basic components:

1. A physical body.

2. A mind capable of independent thought and analysis.

3. A heart which can feel emotion.

4. A spirit – your soul or philosophical center.

Each of these components has a corresponding basic need or

motivation:

1. Physical body – “To live”.

2. Mind – “To learn”.

3. Heart – “To love”.

4. Spirit – “To leave a legacy”.

The highest manifestations of these capacities are:

1. Physical body – Discipline

2. Mind – Vision

3. Heart – Passion

4. Spirit – Conscience

As you begin to understand, respect and ultimately balance these highest manifestations for yourself, synergy is created. You become energized as you begin to understand what you’re actually capable of achieving. When you engage in work that taps your talents and fuels your passions, and which fills the need your conscience has drawn you towards, you find your

voice. This is often described as “finding your true calling in life” or “unlocking your soul’s code”.

The human voice is unique and significant because it lies at the

intersection of your own unique:

1. Talents – your natural gifts and strengths.

2. Passion – those things that excite and enthuse you.

3. Needs – the necessity that you earn a living by providing what people are willing to pay for.

4. Conscience – that still, small internal voice or compass which confirms what is right and when you’re doing it.

The challenge of life is to discover your own quite unique voice, which will lie in the potential that was bequeathed to you at birth. When you discover that, no longer will you feel like a victim of your circumstances. Instead, you’ll be in a position of power to move forward with confidence into the future.

2. Inspire others to find their voices . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

Once you’ve found your own voice, the way you can continue to increase your feelings of achievement is by helping others to find their own unique voices as well. Most likely, this will be done through an organization of some kind because most of the world’s work is done by organizations rather than by individuals. To inspire others means to recognize, respect and create meaningful opportunities for others to express their voices. The word inspire is derived from the Latin inspirare which literally means to breath life into another. This is exactly what you do when you encourage and positively influence others within

your own organization to actually find their voices.

How To Manage Your Social Media Campaign

Social Media is on the tip of nearly all marketer's tongues at the moment, and with Google increasingly focusing on real-time content from Twitter, Facebook and other social media, it's set to get talked about even more over the coming months.

But how can your business benefit? Maybe you're on facebook or twitter yourself, or you're an early adopter of Google Wave. Chances are though that it's all about your social and personal life. The old saying about keeping business and pleasure separate applies to social media, for both your privacy and professionalism.

It's pretty easy to set up a twitter account or facebook page for your company, to post youtube video clips, contribute to or set up discussion boards and run a blog. The hard part is finding ways for them to help your business grow. The whole point of social media is that it's immediate and up to date, so if you're not regularly adding content and info, or commenting on current issues, you're not likely to achieve much.

The trick is to treat these media like any other channel. Get over that feeling that they're gimmicks, or for teenagers. The research tells a different story. The average age of twitter and facebook users tends to be late 30s. These days, most consumers and professionals are technology savvy to some degree and share the expectation of having info right at their fingertips whenever they want it, and being able to get in touch in the most convenient way at that moment.

So, don't skimp on skill or planning. Handling your social media is like any campaign: you need to keep your key messages in mind and have interesting angles and approaches to attract attention. Come up with topics to tweet about so you have something new to focus on each day or week, have a programme of info, pictures and updates for your facebook page, and get input from all around your business - from the MD to product developers. It's all about building and cementing your reputation and brand: showing that you're knowledgeable and up to speed with key topics, being responsive to customers and building up goodwill with current and future customers.

A great way to attract fans and followers is to run competitions or giveaways through your social media channel. Offer to donate a small sum to charity on behalf of the writer of the best caption on a picture, ask for tips in an area of expertise. If there's an incentive, however small, your followers are more likely to let their associates know about you, so you'll gain more interest. Make sure you can handle a large response if you do this - take-up rates are not as predictable in social media, and sometimes things can take off in a way you'd never have expected.

Seek views as well as pushing out your own. You can learn about new developments, hear how customers react to your products and take the opportunity to correct misconceptions or turn dissatisfied customers around. On twitter, set up searches so you'll know whenever your business or product is mentioned, so you can respond to or join in with relevant discussions. Carry out some research amongst your customers and suppliers to find out which discussion boards or forums they use and contribute helpfully to queries and debates.

Take a look at our top social media tips below:

- Set up one or more twitter accounts for your business separately from any personal twitter activity

- Keep a steady but useful flow of comments and info going out through your social media

- Add interest and currency to your website with feeds of your business tweets or status updates

- Seek input as well as putting out your messages

- you are part of a community and the communication is two way

- Competitions and freebies are a great way to attract followers and fans

- Keep an eye out for the next big thing, social media-wise

Promoting Your RSS Feeds on Your Website

The 7 Steps to Promoting Your RSS Feeds on Your Website

RSS gets 100% of your content delivered, but it’s no good if no one subscribes to your feeds.

So your first order of business after planning and creating your feeds has to be promoting them to your visitors.

The only problem is that most internet users still don’t know what RSS is, so you do have your work cut out for. But using the system outlined below you shouldn’t have any problems. Actually, after implementing this system, you should be achieving better results than the majority of publishers out there.

1. HOW RSS FEEDS ARE GENERALLY PROMOTED

RSS feeds are generally promoted using the orange XML or RSS buttons, and often also with buttons that enable visitors to subscribe directly to the feed with their RSS reader.

Usually, if clicking on the RSS button, the visitor only sees a lot of confusing XML code. They in fact need to copy & paste the link in to their RSS reader. But since most still don’t know what RSS is, using this approach will only waste potential subscribers.

To achieve success, you’ll need a different approach.

A] Create an RSS presentation page, on which you explain:

- What RSS is

- How the visitor will benefit from using RSS

- Where they can get a free RSS aggregator (recommend one yourself!)

- How they can install it (provide step-by-step instructions)

- How they can subscribe to your RSS feeds

- Why they should subscribe to your own RSS feeds

Then, on this same page, include the links to all of your RSS feeds.

In addition to the standard orange RSS button, also include direct links for subscriptions via MyYahoo! (get it herehttp://my.yahoo.com/s/button.html) and other relevant services, such as Bloglines (http://www.bloglines.com). There are about 5 RSS readers you should cover with these buttons.

B] Now promote this RSS presentation page as much as you can using all of your available channels.

2. LOCATION AND CONTENT

It’s all about location, just like with the subscription box for your e-zine. If they don’t see it, they won’t subscribe. And if you don’t motivate them enough to check-it out, they’ll just ignore it.

A] Promote your RSS feeds directly below your e-zine subscription box, and always 'above the fold'. Promote your RSS presentation page (telling your visitors that’s where they can subscribe to your feeds) on the most prominent locations of your site.

B] If you’re publishing more than one RSS feed, but rather a couple of focused topic feeds, promote each of them next to their topics. For instance, if you’re publishing an RSS feed on E-mail Marketing, promote the RSS feed at the top of the topic home page, and in every E-mail Marketing article you publish. These links should actually be direct subscriptions links to the feeds.

Use this service to cover all of the important readers using just one simple button: http://www.methodize.org/quicksub/

C] Promote your RSS feeds in all of your e-mail messages and e-zine issues.

D] As for the content, don’t just say 'Subscribe to receive news from my site', but rather prepare compelling copy to specifically show your visitors why they need to subscribe to your content in the first place and why they should subscribe specifically to your RSS feeds.

3. ENABLE AUTO-DISCOVERY

Some internet browsers, such as Firefox, make it easy for their users to subscribe to RSS feeds. The browser actually asks the user if he wants to subscribe to the feeds the browser finds on the site the user is currently on.

Yes, this is even more powerful than your e-mail subscription form, since the browser in a way 'pushes' the user with your RSS feed subscription.

But in order for the browser to do this, you need to help it out to find your RSS feed.

Just include the following piece of HTML code in the section of your webpages and you’ll be all set:

<link rel="alternate" type="application/rss+xml" title="RSS" href="ENTER_RSS_URL">

There are many more techniques and opportunities available to you, from 'direct subscribe' links to actually using opt-in forms, but these 7 steps should get you started in the shortest time possible, and help you achieve a better visitor-to-RSS-subscriber conversion rate than the huge majority of sites are achieving today.

Engage Your Fans

In today’s ultra-competitive and sometimes oversaturated music industry, it is important for independent bands and artists to not only go out and perform in order to gain fans, but to also understand and relate with these people. Knowing who your audience is and what they are all about can help you connect with them on a deeper level in order to gain truly devoted followers of you and your music. These things are necessary in order to independently take your act to the next level!

As an independent musician, your fans are your greatest asset. Learning about them any way possible can turn them from a casual fan to someone who buys your merchandise and attends all of your shows. One of the first things you should ask yourself is “Where do my fans (or potential fans) hang out? What is their ‘scene’? What other bands do they listen to and where do those bands play?” Knowing this will enable you to book shows and events in the right parts of town. This can also work in the digital world too. Do your fans use Facebook or Twitter more often? How active are they on YouTube? Or Reverbnation? Or Myspace (ha!)? If you know these things, you’ll know which online platforms will be important for you to have a strong presence on.

Your fans play a huge part in the success of your merchandise, and understanding these fans can potentially maximize your revenue from sales. You should be aware of how your fans dress, and provide merchandise accordingly. Do they wear makeup frequently? Do they usually wear hats or jewelry? These are things that you can tap into if you remain aware. It’s also important to recognize your average fan’s income level. This will help you to price your merchandise in favor of the fans so they will be able to realistic purchase more merch.

These few tips, combined with many other things, can really help you tap into your core potential audience. Pay attention to how your fans dress, how old they are, and which songs they really got into when performing them live. All these things will create a more fan-friendly environment at your shows, and ultimately increase your casual listeners into die-hard followers.

L.A. Reid to Keynote at Billboard/Hollywood Reporter Film & TV Conference

Epic Records chairman and "X Factor" judge Antonio "L.A." Reid will deliver a keynote Q&As at the Billboard/Hollywood Reporter Film & TV Music Conference, presented by First Entertainment Credit Union, taking place Oct. 24-25 at the W Hotel in Hollywood.

Billboard Power 100: Antonio "L.A." Reid

Reid, winner of three Grammy Awards, will discuss his career as a producer, songwriter and label executive at Epic, where he has been building the label concurrently with his stint on Fox's "X Factor."

Register today for the Billboard Hollywood Reporter Film & TV Music Conference, presented by First Entertainment Credit Union Oct, 24 and 25 at the W Hotel in Hollywood. Use Promo Code BIZ12 to save $50.

He joins already announced two-time Academy Award winner Gustavo Santaolalla as a keynote. Santaolalla will discuss his award-winning work on "Brokeback Mountain," "Motorcycle Diaries" and "Babel" in addition to his latest film score, "On the Road." He has two releases ready for Sony Classical-a new album with his nuevo tango group Bajofondo and a solo album that will be released in 2013. The conversation will also explore his first venture into writing music for a videogame.

Gustavo Santaolalla, Award-Winning Composer, To Speak At Billboard Hollywood Reporter Film And TV Music

For the first time, the conference will provide an opportunity for musicians to get their music heard and evaluated by 10 music representatives actively pitching music for placement in film, TV and commercials. The conference will also include panels on composing, music supervision, advertising, publishing and career-building plus case studies on hit TV shows and films, live performances, one-on-one sessions and networking opportunities.

Pizza Hut, Home Depot Deny Copying Black Keys Work

Attorneys for Pizza Hut and The Home Depot are denying that a pair of ads improperly used music by The Black Keys.

The Grammy-winning band sued the companies in June, claiming they used the band's music to sell pizza and power tools. The companies separately denied the band's allegations in court documents filed Thursday and Friday in Los Angeles.

Each company is asking a judge to have the band pay their attorneys' fees if they win the case.

Black Keys Sue Pizza Hut, Home Depot Over Copyright Infringement In Ads

 

The Black Keys claim The Home Depot Inc. used elements of its hit "Lonely Boy" in an ad for power tools. The band accuses Pizza Hut Inc. of using elements of the song "Gold On the Ceiling" to sell a cheesy crust pizza.

Both songs appeared on the rock group's seventh album, "El Camino."

Summer Sonic, Japan's Biggest Int'l Fest, Kicks Off This Weekend With Rihanna, Green Day, Gotye, Mac Miller

Summer Sonic, Japan's biggest summer music fest that features international repertoire, is set to rock Tokyo bay once again. This year's line-up features first-timer Rihanna, regulars Green Day as well as Gotye, Mac Miller, Pitbull, Franz Ferdinand, Ke$ha, Sigur Ros and Azealia Banks.

The festival is held simultaneously in Tokyo and Osaka, drawing some 120,000 over two days in Tokyo and 80,000 in Osaka, for a total of 200,000. The line-ups alternate in each city.

Summer Sonic Fest Expands

 

The tickets in Tokyo cost 15,000 yen ($189) for one day and 27,000 yen ($340) while in Osaka you can squeeze in for 12,500 yen ($157) for one day and 22,50 yen ($283) for two.

Other big attractions on the bill include  Passion Pit, Adam Lambert, The Vaccines, Garbage, Death Cab for Cutie, Jamiroquai and Tears for Fears.

Frank Takeshita the Executive Director of Creativeman Productions, the company that puts on Summer Sonic, notes the importance of having both old and new acts. "This year's mixture is typical of Summer Sonic. Headliners like Green Day and Rihanna are absolutely what Summer Sonic is about."

In Tokyo Rihanna and Green Day will lead on the Marine stage, which is the 50,000- seat Chiba Lotte Marine stadium, and Sigur Ros and New Order will headline the Mountain stage, the second stage, which is in the Makuhari Messe convention center and can hold 5,000-7,000. In Osaka the event is held at the Maishima Summer Sonic Osaka site, where the Ocean stage, the main stage, holds about 25,000. Osaka also has a Mountain stage of similar size to Tokyo.

This year one special feature of the fest will be the Island stage, which will focus on high-powered rock bands from across Asia. The venue has a lot of mainland Chinese acts performing but Takeshita notes, "Not only Chinese, Korean and Taiwanese too. This stage is called 'Island stage -Asian Calling- (it) is dedicated to Asian bands as we feel that Asia is closer than ever now and while the idols groups have their presence we feel it's important to support the (rock) bands." The stage will feature Ashura from China, Guckkasten from Korea, and Mercy & Sorrow from China, as well as Yu-Huan DMDM from Taiwan and Pee Wee Gaskins from Indonesia, among others.

There will also be a host of attractions for patrons to peruse. The Silent Disco offers partygoers a chance to dance with their own private headphones. There will be a Sonic Art area where patrons can draw and paint on sheets provided by the fest.

Notes Takeshita, "last year we had to close down some areas due to the earthquake, but this year everything id back to normal."