Being the Head of IT is a lot like juggling. About the time you get the rhythm down of keeping three balls in the air, someone comes along and throws two more into the mix. While it make be a little shaky at first the pattern settles in and life progresses. The secret to success is knowing which ball to catch next and where to toss it so it will come back at the right time and in the right order. The key is building a great support staff that can jump in and take a few of the balls off your hands. Now, add to that formula the variables of an international business, three disparate customer bases and an entrepreneurial corporate culture and now you find yourself juggling a chainsaw (running) a bowling ball (flaming) and a kitten (rabid).
Nashville is well known as the Music City. Primarily that notoriety comes from Country Music but there is a lot more here than that. On any given day you can find almost any form of music being played in a night spot not to mention the number of recording studios scattered around Music Row. Another area of notoriety is Healthcare. Nashville is home to some of the top hospitals in the world specializing in Cancer Treatment, Children’s Health and Heart Surgery. This health focus has helped Nashville become the Silicon Valley of heathcare technology. So why not combine the talents and knowledge of music with the innovation and technology of healthcare and make this the Silicon Valley of Music?
It is an exciting time at Naxos. Granted when you think of Classical Music your head may fill with visions of violins, orchestras, tuxedo garbed conductors, marble busts of Bach and large women dressed in Viking armor, but you may be surprised it is much, much more. Using the Nashville Numbering systems consider the following progression:
1/// 5/// 6/// 3/// 4/// 1/// 4/// 5///
Sound familiar? Any tunes come to mind? Aerosmith? Dylan? Blues Traveler? Green Day? Twisted Sister? Johann Pachelbel?
The point is that classical music is a lot of things. It is rich, engaging, transcendent and yes, some of it is admittedly dull, but even McCartney has some bad days. The greater vision of Naxos can be summed up as “record everything and make it available everywhere”. I will leave the job of finding and recording the music to the music people, but available everywhere is a challenge that I heartily embrace.
See, I am a geek, through and through a complete geek bordering on nerd. My vision is to grow Naxos into the geekiest record label in the world. The best part is that we are well on our way already. Here are some of our geeky accomplishments you may not know about.
- More websites than I can list here, start at Naxos.com or ClassicsOnline.com for an idea
- Almost 700,000 tracks of digital music available for download and or streaming
- Our music has appears in video games, ring tones, movies, greeting cards, TV shows and commercials
- iPhone apps to stream music from www.naxosmusiclibrary.com and www.naxosmusiclibray.com/jazz
- High definition audio on Blu-Ray
So what’s next? Well, I can’t tell you. But soon, I can show you. There are a lot of things in the works. I will tell you this, if it has speakers and can connect to the internet, we will be delivering music to it. If that device also has a screen, then look for even more. For now it is time to start the chainsaw, light the bowling ball and feed the kitten.
.cm
