Category: Blog

A Tribute to John and Steve

Kelli Richards October 9, 2012

In my newest book, The Magic and Moxie of Apple: An Insider’s View, I compared Steve Jobs and John Lennon; two iconic legends of a generation that are no longer with us today. Coincidentally, today is John’s birthday and last week marked the 1 year anniversary of Steve’s death. For that reason, I feel that it is only right for me to pay homage to two of the most inspirational men in my life.

John Lennon was a rock star in every sense of the world. He had it all; the fame, the fortune, the glory, etc but you would never guess it from his bashful demeanor on the camera. Steve Jobs was also a rock star but in a less literal sense. He attained the same iconic level of fame and fortune as Lennon, but through technology. Their success can’t be attributed to themselves alone; they both had an amazing team around them. However, both had the courage and vision to try something new and it worked.

I remember being a little girl when I was 8 years old and watching the Beatles doing a TV special (maybe it was “All You Need is Love”.) Apart from being electrified by their performance, the man behind the curtain playing with all the buttons and knobs (George Martin) lit a spark in me that set me on the career path that brought me to where I am today. As I watched Martin and the Beatles I thought to myself, “That’s what I want to do with my life,” and so I set out to make it happen. Similarly, growing up in Cupertino was the other half of my inspiration. At the time they started, no one knew how great Apple would be, but as the company started to take off I knew that working there would be a dream.

So this is my “thank you” to John & to Steve. Without these two legends, who knows if I would have ever developed personally and professionally into the person I am today. If they’re up there watching over us, I hope they know what a profoundly wonderful impact they’ve had on millions of lives.

Rdio’s New Artist Program

Kelli Richards October 4, 2012

As someone who has built their entire career around the convergence of technology and music, nothing pains me more than to see artists ripped off by advancements in technology. Whether we’re talking about the Napster days of the early 2000s or Grooveshark today, artists continue to be undercompensated (if compensated at all) for their work. While we’ve certainly taken some great strides towards fairly discovering and obtaining music, there is still a lot of work to be done. That’s why I was delighted to learn about Rdio, an ad-free music subscription service.

Rdio was founded in 2010 by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis, whom you might remember from the illegal file sharing service Kazaa which followed Napster’s demise. Similar to other services like Spotify and Rhapsody, Rdio allows users to stream an unlimited number of songs from their computer or smartphone for a monthly fee. Artists are compensated based on the number of plays their songs get per month. Unfortunately we’ve seen through these services that this model results in artists being undercompensated; often times getting fractions of a penny per play or a check for 4 dollars at the end of the month. Some artists, such as Coldplay and Adele, have kept their latest work off of subscription based streaming services because they feel it hurts album sales.

Today Rdio has announced a new program that aims to compensate artists more fairly and increase fan engagement while at the same time getting new subscribers. The Rdio Artist Program will use artists as recruiters and will compensate them $10 dollars for each subscriber they sign up. Rdio gives the artist the tools to customize their page and share their content on social media. One of my favorite features is the ability to have artists share their favorite songs and playlists that they’re listening to, a feature I always thought iTunes should have. Rdio CEO Drew Larner calls the program a “Win-win” for all parties involved.

With only about 10 million subscribers around the world, it’s hard to say whether or not this program will sink or float but a few big artists are already getting onboard such as Snoop Lion, Scissor Sisters, A-trak, and Chromeo. Could this possible be the next big thing? If it gets artists paid fairly while giving the customer a better experience, let’s hope so.

 

Reminder to REGISTER for TUESDAY’s Apple’s Best Practices Webinar

Kelli Richards September 24, 2012

Tomorrow, September 25th at 2pm PST I will offer an exclusive Webinar on incorporating Apple’s 12 best practices to enhance your business, client experiences, and personal brand.

As we know, Apple is a global leader in creating an environment around achieving powerful goals, and boiling down how they became THE company to model, after experiencing one of the most well documented crashes in history, is an absolute MUST do for anyone in business today.

To hold your space at this exclusive webinar, sign up immediately at https://www.appleinsidersecrets.com

Warmly, Kelli Richards

 

Apple’s Laughing Straight to the Bank

Kelli Richards September 18, 2012

Iphone 5 UnveilingAs an Apple insider and alum, I always have an ear to the ground for what’s going on in their world.  The past month or so for Apple has been almost as eventful as the company’s first big success back in the late 70’s – early 80’s. With a landmark legal victory over Samsung for copyright infringement, the company not only gets awarded $1.05 billion in damages (which Samsung is appealing, of course), but they will also exclusive rights over certain design and software ideas on which they own patents.

While some have slammed Apple’s case as being too broad or overzealous, the decision will surely shape the mobile software and hardware markets from this point on. For the consumer it means two things: First, Apple’s patented designs and features will most likely be cross-licensed for quite a pretty penny to competing developers and manufacturers. Second, this means that in order to competitively price their technology, companies will have to become innovative once again, rather than copy an already successful formula. So you’ll either see iPhone and iOS-esque features on high-end electronics, or innovative new designs may become the way of the future. That chapter has yet to be written.

With so much focus and attention on these two battling giants, what better time for Amazon to announce its new reader / tablet offering, the Kindle Fire. Strategically placed in the same realm as the competing iPad, Nexus, and Galaxy tablets, the Kindle Fire looks to open the floodgates of revenue for its content delivery platform. The three-way race between Apple, Amazon, and Google’s media stores appears well separated for now, but the competition is certainly heating up as the markets and technology change so rapidly. And the solid winner in ALL of this is the pro-sumer.

One would think that the competitive innovation to come from the lawsuit against Samsung, along with the introduction of the rival Kindle Fire would be cause for concern at the Apple HQ here in Cupertino, but that couldn’t be farther from the truth.

On September 12th, Apple announced the iPhone 5 in grandiose Apple fashion, after the project had been shrouded in secrecy for almost a year. (An issue I cover at length in my recent bestseller, “The Magic and Moxie of Apple – An Insider’s View”.)  Thinner, lighter, faster, and overall cooler than its predecessor, the iPhone 4s; the iPhone 5 also boasts a number of new features, such as a new charging interface and new operating system (iOS 6).

Consumers are certainly on board for the new and improved iPhone, as evidenced by the 2 million+ pre-orders within the first 24 hours of its announcement. As a result, the cost of Apple’s stock has risen to over $700 for the first time in company history.

So while rival tech giants are out there trying to copy Apple products or create competitive alternatives in hopes of dethroning them, Apple is simply laughing it’s way straight to the bank.

Kelli Richards, President and CEO
The All Access Group

PS:  On September 25th, I will offer an amazing webinar on the 12 Best Practices of Apple Inc. This webinar is offered at NO cost to you.  I will offer it at a later date for $47 per participant, but for now, I simply want to extend this webinar and my expertise around what makes Apple the global leader it is to my own audience, colleagues and friends.

To save your seat, go tohttps://appleinsidersecrets.com/webinar.php and register.

 

 

Apple’s 12 Best Practices – Training Webinar

Kelli Richards September 12, 2012

How would you like to learn the single most important mind-set shift you need to guarantee that your billion-dollar ideas don’t get taken by your competitors?

How important is it to you to leave a legacy that makes a huge difference in the world?

Join me on Tuesday, September 25, 2:00pm PT/5:00 pm ET.  I will share a detailed, insiders view into:

  • Apple’s 12 best practices to create the WOW factor that keeps your customers coming back and telling all their friends about why your product “kills” anything else on the market (my colleague Steve Jobs used every single one of these to great success)
  • How to inspire your team with an emotionally compelling cause so they become world-class superstars who are completely loyal to you and your vision.

This webinar is offered at NO cost to you.  I will offer it at a later date for $47 per participant, but for now, I simply want to extend this webinar and my expertise around what makes Apple the global leader it is to my own audience, colleagues and friends.

To save your seat, go to https://appleinsidersecrets.com/webinar.php and register.

Kelli Richards, President and CEO
The All Access Group,

Blog for Black: The Digital Agency

Kelli Richards September 7, 2012

A few weeks ago I had the great fortune of having Matt Ramey, co-founder of Black – The Digital Agency, join me on my streaming radio show (you can find his interview, alphabetically, on my website at  https://allaccessgroup.com/articles-and-resources/blog-talk-radio). Matt shared some great stories from his past, as well as some amazing insights on the music industry and his new company.

Black – The Digital Agency’s services span every aspect of digital media marketing from strategy, design, development, and everything in between. With advertising revenue for traditional media platforms on the decline, it’s no wonder that Black’s approach to digital media marketing has been met with fanfare and critical acclaim. As TV networks consolidate, newspapers go bankrupt, and radio stations get replaced, Black offers best-in-class digital media marketing solutions for the continuously blooming digital media age.

You can find out more by visiting Matt’s website at https://contactblack.com/

Kelli Richards, President and CEO
The All Access Group, LLC

Steve Jobs on Privacy and User Experience – An Apple Best Practice

Kelli Richards August 29, 2012

Even for me, as an Apple insider, seeing the Apple “Best Practices” in action is awe inspiring.  No one can deny that one of the most amazing things about Apple is how they embrace secrecy as an asset.  No entity keeps a secret better than Apple – AND the thousands and thousands of employees and alum in their tribe.  Quite simply it’s part of our Apple DNA.  And that idea translates far into how they work with their products, and especially, their users.  For Apple Inc., user experience goes far beyond what the customer can see, feel and touch.  It goes on behind the veil as well.

Steve Jobs talked about this himself when he was interviewed at the All Things D8 Conference in 2010.

“No, silicon valley is not monolithic. We’ve always had a very different view of privacy than some of our colleagues in the valley, we take privacy extremely seriously. As an example, we worry a lot about location in phones and we worry that some 14 year old is going to get stalked and something terrible is going to happen because of our phone, and so as an example, before any app can get location data we don’t make it a rule that they have to put up a panel and ask because they might not follow that rule. They call our location services, and we put up the panel saying this app wants to use your location data, is that okay with you.  Every time they want to use it and we do a lot of things like that to ensure that people understand what these apps are doing. That’s one of the reasons we have the curated app store. We have rejected a lot of apps that want to take a lot of your personal data and suck it up into the cloud, a lot. So we’re really old, a lot of people in the valley think we’re very old fashioned about this and maybe we are, but we worry about stuff like this.

No, privacy means people know what they’re signing up for in plain English and repeatedly. That’s what it means. I’m an optimist, I believe people are smart and some people want to share more data than other people do – ask them. Ask them every time. Make them tell you to stop asking them if they get tired of your asking them. Let them know precisely what you’re going to do with their data.”

Just another example of behind-the-scenes USER experiences – one of the best “best practices” that Apple does differently.

If YOU would like to learn more about Apple’s best practices and how those could work in YOUR company or work, sign up at https://AppleInsiderSecrets.com and become part of my own inner circle and get all of my insider, best practice tools and event invitations.

Kelli Richards, President and CEO
The All Access Group, LLC

Wendy Lipton-Dibner – Elite Video Mastery and Move People to Action

Kelli Richards August 22, 2012

I was joined on this week’s edition of “All Access Radio” by author, speaker, and coach  Wendy Lipton-Dibner. Wendy has done amazing work as a leader in her field. She is the president of Professional Impact Inc., which produces seminars and courses such as the wildly successful “Move People to Action for Experts and Entrepreneurs.” As an internationally recognized authority in business and personal acceleration, she brought so much knowledge and insight to the table.

Wendy and I have floated around the same circles and worked with some of the same people for years, which made talking to her an absolute treat. Right off the bat, we quickly recognized that we are “kindred spirits,” from our tastes in music, passion for working and helping with people, and drive for success. I think she and I may be among a small handful of people who knew exactly what we wanted to do when we were young, 8 year old girls. Granted, neither of us knew how that would unravel, it was great to finally talk to someone who had that same experience growing up. Not to mention, as women we both worked towards shattering stereotypes and empowering women within our respective industries.

Wendy was way ahead of her game 10 years ago when she made her first promotional video, which she says was awful even though it lead to over a million dollars in sales, and she remains ahead of her game today. Keep an eye out for more great seminars and courses from Wendy in the near future, especially her new Elite Video Mastery online course and live seminar. You can find out more about that, including free training, at https://www. EliteVideoMasteryFreeTraining.com.

Kelli Richards, President and CEO
The All Access Group, LLC

One Thing RIGHT in the Music World: CD Baby

Kelli Richards August 15, 2012

CD Baby is an online distributor of independent music. But they’re not just any online distributor they’re actually the largest online distributor of independent music in the world. Since their start-up in 1998 and mega distribution giant success, CD Baby has paid out over $200 million to artists. That’s not bad considering everyone else in the music industry is claiming that no one is buying music (and everyone is stealing it). One of the most interesting aspects of CD Baby is the fact that the artist, not the label or the retailer, sets the price of their albums and discounts. Perhaps that’s why there are over 300,000 artists on CD Baby today.

CD Baby’s greatness continues to shine through and impact every part of music and the music industry. By supporting artists, doing ethical business in the music industry, and helping new musicians emerge. With all that is wrong in the music industry today, it’s nice to see a company of great people doing great things.

Kelli Richards, President and CEO
The All Access Group, LLC

 

EventFinda – A New Way to Find Events, Concerts, Gigs, Tours…

Kelli Richards August 8, 2012

EventFinda is an amazing new way to market and promote events as well as purchase tickets. EventFinda goes above and beyond today’s standards for event marketing and ticketing. EventFinda distinguishes itself from the competition by not only being a place to buy and sell tickets to events but also syndicates and shares content, as well as offering a path to discover more events and interesting entertainment coming to your area. EventFinda makes the lives of everyone involved with a single event much easier; from the artist, to the promoter, to the PR teams, and ultimately, to the fans and spectators.

As something that started from a kitchen table in 2005 in New Zealand (not exactly Silicon Valley) and spread across the globe to land in the USA this year, there’s no doubt that EventFinda will continue to grow and amaze fans and entertainers alike. Sure, there will always be other websites that you can go to to buy and sell tickets, discover new music or entertainment, learn more about your favorite artist or venue; but none of them will be able to package all of that together like EventFinda.

Kelli Richards, President and CEO
The All Access Group, LLC

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