Leadership Music Hosts Digital Summit In Nashville Next Week

If you’re in Nashville next week and in need of a pick-me-up after a hectic SXSW, then head to the Digital Summit, produced by Leadership Music. We’re one of the sponsors of the Summit and look forward to all of the speakers and panels. There’s still time to sign up.

“LMDS is an intellectual oasis, one of the only conferences where both the speakers and the attendees come with no pre-conceived notions, only the desire to achieve positive outcomes.” Ted Cohen, Managing Partner, TAG Strategic LLC

Abby White Plachy interviews Leadership Music’s executive director Kira Florita about the upcoming Digital Summit, to be held March 23-25 at Belmont University’s Curb Event Center in Nashville, Tennessee.

For those who aren’t aware, give us a brief history of Leadership Music and what it does within the music business.
Established in 1989, our mission is to nurture a knowledgeable, issue-oriented community of music industry professionals. We do this through our annual selection-based Program: 10 days in 8 sessions, 50 people spend 144 hours together over 8 months. 736 people have graduated from our Program over the past 19 years. The goal of the Program is to create knowledge, understanding and communications, build relationships and create active connections, foster inspiration and facilitate empathy, and prompt new ideas and solutions. Each year’s class is composed of all sectors of the music community, creative and business. These categories shift continually to reflect the evolving industry. Criteria for selection is established leaders, nominated and recruited by their peers. The Program begins and ends with overnight retreats, and six themed days focus on areas of the industry — it features worldwide experts, and is structured to always be relevant, looking towards the future while gaining perspective from the past.

How was the Digital Summit born?
Originally conceived by the board in 2005 as an educational program for our alumni, they recognized that it would benefit the entire music community. Fletcher Foster and Lori Badgett were the first co-chairs, and Fletcher brought Ted Cohen (then at EMI and now TAG Strategic) in to help us. Now programmed for the broader music industry, it has grown to 1 1/2 days and over 700 total attendees. Like our core Program, the agenda is decided by a team of alumni and specialists, and we strive to bring in the best experts in their fields, the futurists, the most informed speakers. This year, because our high-level volunteers are all incredibly busy, we did it mostly through conference calls while viewing planning materials in Google docs. One reason we expanded was we recognize the need for networking opportunities to foster the exchange of ideas, and to create relationships and business connections.

Who should attend the Summit?
Anyone trying to sell or make a profit from music or catalogs, and/or the artists which they represent. The programming will appeal to CEOs, all types of music creators, and everyone in between. Topics range from high level, such as what is on the legislative horizon for music copyrights, to the emergence of “music like water” that will be coming soon via ISPs, how the metrics of measuring success have drastically changed in the industry, down to how to monetize the artist/fan relationship through fan clubs, social networks, touring, mobile, and all the companies and platforms that provide ways to do that.

What are some ideas you see coming out of this year’s Summit?
Probably one of the most exciting topics will be covered in the two convergence segments, when it becomes clear how close we are to achieving a regular flow of income for artists, songwriters, and all rights holders through ISPs at universities and reaching all consumers. The incentives and acceptance, as well as the infrastructure that didn’t exist — hardware, software, legal, and financial — has finally evolved to a point where this will soon become a reality. The state of the industry segments are always essential because things change so fast, including legislative progress to simplify and standardize revenue streams, and how consumer trends and perceptions are shifting. Beyond that, there are just so many speakers who each represent new ideas, technologies, platforms, analytics, social networks, etc. that everyone will hear something that can help them to be more successful.

What are you most excited about on the digital music front in 2009?
Besides the emerging reality of true convergence, which has been talked about for so long and is now so close to reality, probably just the many opportunities that continue to materialize, and how the business models are improving to actually generate more revenue, so that creators of music can keep doing what they do. Our keynote address by Rio Caraeff is going to be very good as well; UMG’s eLabs are looking far into the future. For every “doom and gloom” statistic or reality you hear about, it seems that each year at the LMDS you hear so much more about promising trends, ideas turning potential into certainty, and awesome successes in the digital music landscape. While it’s true that some successes come and go, there’s a real excitement in seeing how fast things change, and knowing how many major successes are becoming apparent every day. The word “hope” has been overused this past year, but it’s the right word to use when trying to explain what to expect at LMDS.

Head to the Registration page while there is still’s time! We’ll be there.