Category: Blog

An Intimate Fireside Chat with Video Music Director and Producer, Robby Starbuck

Kelli Richards September 15, 2011

This month’s Fireside Chat is an informal Q&A with Music Video Director and Producer, Robby Starbuck.

Robby Starbuck is an artist who’s willing to take huge risks to walk the walk and paint his unique voice on his own private canvas — film. He’s directed music videos for such amazing artists as: Snoop Dogg, Smashing Pumpkins, Escape The Fate, Metric The Sounds, Pierce The Veil and dozens of others and has, to date, almost 28 million views on his YouTube channel.  CEO, Producer, Video and film director, Robby Starbuck is pioneering a new interpersonal relationship between music, video, artist and film. He is first an artist, but constantly raises the bar on himself as a CEO — and on the industry in which he operates.

Kelli:  Let’s switch gears a little bit and talk about the industry itself. Video’s been given new life by social media, and especially through YouTube. Videos by Vevo alone were seen by almost 40% of the unique US videos last year. Do you think video will continue its new popularity after being on the decline for so long?  AND if so, do you think mainstream media, like MTV, could jump back on board?

Robby Starbuck:  Well there’s two answers there, I think absolutely yes, as far as video continuing its rise… if you look at the numbers and the statistics … and combine it all, it’s staggering.  Now is the time when we see the most music videos ever watched in the history of television and the modern era.  One thing that we have in the palm of our hands is that people are watching from third world countries, tiny cities in Africa.  Do they have TV with MTV on it?  I think not.  But they’re watching on YouTube.  As far as MTV goes, from what I know about production at MTV, I doubt there’s going to be a huge resurgence.

Kelli:  Would you share, in broad strokes, what your social media campaign looks like and how you’ve used it (quite brilliantly, I might add) to embrace the fan tribe around your work? 

Robby Starbuck:  I really feel like such a huge part of me getting to do what I do was building a social network and a following, and my approach to it has always been wanting to know people. Still to this day you can access me any day.  Some people would argue that it’s a bad thing, but I love it.  I love having that connectivity with my audience.  Yeah, I’m very accessible, you can contact me pretty much on any social network…. That’s been my approach, to just be me.  I’ve had a lot of relationships grow just mentoring kids, where I’ve exchanged emails to try to keep them up. Kids need that.  A lot of them don’t have a system or foundation to be confident.  That’s what I’m trying to do, to give people something to believe in themselves about.  Just loving people is what it’s about for me.  Genuinely wanting to be a piece of the puzzle.

Click here to hear the entire interview…

Kelli Richards,
CEO of The All Access Group, LLC

An Intimate Fireside Chat with Thomas Dolby and Kelli Richards

Kelli Richards September 14, 2011

[audio:https://allaccessgroup.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/Thomas-Dolby-QA-with-Kelli-Richards.mp3|titles=Thomas Dolby Q&A with Kelli Richards]

This week’s “Fireside Chat“ was with the Iconic ’80s electronic music and MTV pioneer, Thomas Dolby. I’m very fortunate to know Thomas personally and professionally, for almost 20 years. Best known for his hit, “She Blinded Me with Science,” Thomas Dolby is much more than a recording artist, he’s also a Producer and the Music Director for TED. In fact, he’s STILL leading the tech revolution with his interactive game, Floating City, which reacts to player contributions, eventually granting access to Thomas’ newest music.

This is digital technology meeting music at its best!

Kelli Richards,
CEO of The All Access Group, LLC

The Gifts of the Digital Age – Remember 9/11

Kelli Richards September 11, 2011

Like so many, I have my own story about 9/11, one which remains especially poignant for me.  I was scheduled to be on Flight 93 from Newark to San Francisco, returning from a trip to New York to see two-day concert that Michael Jackson did there to celebrate his 35th anniversary in the business. I had a terrible feeling about going to New York though — and didn’t wind up making the trip at all.  I listened to that inner voice, and every day since, I feel that in some not so small way, I’m one of the lucky ones who survived.

Today’s article will be short. It reflects upon one of the most powerful testaments to the age of digital technology. Because of the advances in digital technology, we are able to keep alive the memories of those who lost loved ones on this day, ten years ago – and even more, to broadcast those memories to our nation and to our world. They do not remain locked in a vault somewhere, for eternity, they are instead broadcast to the far corners of the universe through social media.

https://storycorps.org/listen/stories/category/september-11/

For the past five years, StoryCorps and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum have worked to record at least one story to honor each life lost on September 11, 2001, ten years ago today. To date, families and friends have memorialized nearly 600 individual victims of the attacks through the StoryCorps interview process. When the 9/11 Memorial opened this morning, excerpts from 10 of these StoryCorps interviews will be featured at the site.

The gifts of digital technology go one step further. Gratefully, the 9/11 Memorial Guide is available through a new iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone app, which visitors to the Memorial will download before visiting the site. This app will allow visitors to search the names arrangement of the Memorial and present select StoryCorps interviews, which help illustrate the enormity of the loss on 9/11 through the personal remembrances of families who lost loved ones on that day. The app will feature StoryCorps stories from each of the nine groups of victims memorialized at the site:  WorldTradeCenter(North), WorldTradeCenter(South), the Pentagon, Flight 93, Flight 77, Flight 175, Flight 11.

May the memories of those lost be preserved and shared.

Kelli Richards,
CEO of The All Access Group, LLC

https://storycorps.org/listen/stories/category/september-11/

VizLingo – The Newest Gadget for Gen Z

Kelli Richards August 30, 2011

Yes, the tech revolution has produced an endless stream of new gizmos, gadgets and tools. Some of these are vital to our day-to-day existence, like email, and some are simply a fun and entertaining distraction (Angry Birds anyone?)…

Not long ago, entrepreneurs Todd Younggren and Azeo Fables created hatched the idea to use the latest revolution in tech, mobile, to create a new way to communicate, and  VizLingo was born.  Simply put, VizLingo is a messaging tool that translates your words into video. The UI is exactly what the new generation of users demands, fun and easy! Just type, see and send. The user simply types any message into VizLingo to see each word of their message illustrated by a 1-2 second video clip. Streamed together (with subtitles at the bottom for the less creative), it’s a visual puzzle that can be sent anywhere – directly to Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, mobile phones and email addresses.

If you’re thinking “I don’t get it” – that’s actually a good thing.  It’s one of those subtle mechanisms that has to be experienced, like poetry for instance.  VizLingo is definitely a sort of “beauty is in the eye of the beholder” medium – a new form of visual poetry, if you will. It’s not only who it plays TO, but also what the “writer” puts into their work. My favorite part of  VizLingo is that, soon, the creator can customize their own Lingo by uploading video clips right from a mobile phone or digital camera. It’s fun and easy, and in the hands of a user who has the time to be super creative, it could definitely go big and go viral.

VizLingo’s Global Lingo is communal, created by and for the VizLingo community, boasting tens of thousands of user-generated clips shared from all over the world. And in today’s world of “new normal” social marketing,  VizLingo could be a BIG deal.  In fact, I think Ford and the Hershey Chocolate company and Virgin Airlines, etc., should engage their younger clientele and create a promotion where anyone using their products in a VizLingo video and pushing it out to their own friends and fans, wins a [fill in the blank].

In the immortal words of one of my favorite ads, “This is not your father’s Oldsmobile.” And if VizLingo finds the creative joint ventures that FourSquare embarked on when everyone first stood there saying, “I don’t get it,” well, we may end up wishing we did.

Kelli Richards,
CEO of The All Access Group, LLC

Big Brother has Landed, and his name is Foursquare

Kelli Richards August 23, 2011

It’s hard to know just how big social media is going to get – and even harder to remember that there was once a world without an internet.  We’ve all just accepted this “new normal” in our day-to-day lives – along with digital music, eBooks, iPads and a long list of other tech advances that were barely even imagined a mere thirty years ago.  (Some of which I actually had the privilege to work on at their inception – like Music at Apple.)

In my recent interview with the CEO of BookBaby and CDBaby, Brian Felsen, Brian shared that 80% of people under the age of 30 have never even bought a CD.  (To hear that interview, go to https://bit.ly/BrianFelsen).

So where does this go next?  It’s more than viral and mobile, in my humble opinion, Social is very quickly becoming Big Brother. Take Foursquare, the king of Geolocated Social Media platforms.  Foursquare made its debut in 2009, popularizing the idea of “checking in,” or using a cell phone application to tell friends that you are at a particular restaurant, bar or park. It’s definitely a cool idea – so cool that Facebook and Google developed their own geolocated check in apps. Everyone wondered if the web giants would squash Foursquare like a bug, but so far Foursquare is definitely more than holding its ground, with over 10 million registered users.

Dennis Crowley, the chief executive and one of the founders of Foursquare, attributed its continued momentum to its singular focus on location. “When people think about Facebook, they think about it as a place to send their friends messages or post updates, not necessarily as a place to check in,” he said. “We’re associated with one thing, location, and that really helps.”

Most recently, Foursquare teamed up with Groupon.  Groupon is actually Foursquare’s sixth and latest daily deals partner, but by no means their last.  Along with Groupon deals, app users also will be able to see deals offered by Foursquare’s five other partners: BuyWithMe, Zozi, Gilt City, Living Social and AT&T Interactive.

In June, they also created an alliance with finance giant, American Express to offer discounts to cardholders when they check in on their cell phone at certain shops and restaurants. (Although Foursquare will not be receiving any revenue from the American Express deal, it says the promotion will help legitimize the company’s approach and will help attract other, more lucrative partnerships.)

How does all of this affect the consumer?  It means real-time, by-location deals will be created through users’ apps.  A simpler explanation:  You’ll soon walk by a Gap and get a Gap deal sent to your device, simply because geolocated Foursquare knows where you are.  Yes, Big Brother is here, and we have invited him into our lives, kimono wide open and location checked in.

Kelli Richards,
CEO of All Access Group

CEO of All Access Group Invited to be in Alan’s Gang

Kelli Richards August 22, 2011

Expert in Music, Technology and Digital Distribution and CEO of All Access Group Invited to be in Alan’s Gang

 

Kelli Richards, a thought leader in digital music and entertainment, and one of only a few select members of Alan Weiss’ Master Mentor Program and Thought Leadership Summit, has recently been invited to participate both Weiss’ new Summit Global Network and also in the collaborative “Alan & the Gang.”

Alan & the Gang is an online destination where both aspiring and veteran entrepreneurs and business people can access thought leaders from around the globe. Kelli Richards joins a limited group of elite international experts in both process and content who contribute their intellectual property and expertise. Gang members are a unique group of consultants and industry thought leaders who offer forward-thinking content to one another and to the world at large, including 320 videos, 426 audios and over 60 articles. These experts are recognized leaders and experts in their fields, offering impressive track records of success to their clients. The Summit Global Network is a network of top boutique consulting and advisory firms. Members are invited only after careful criteria have been met and existing members become familiar with the quality of the candidate firm’s work and client base.  Members share resources, best practices, personnel, and expertise. It’s not unusual for a firm in Australia to provide expertise to a firm in Canada, or one in Maine to one in the United Kingdom. The current membership resides in seven countries and four continents. The combined intellectual property of the member firms comprises over 70 commercially published books, a thousand published articles, and thousands of audio, video, and public speaking appearances.

Alan Weiss is an Inductee in the Professional Speaking Hall of Fame®, a Recipient of the American Press Institute Lifetime Achievement Award and the New England Institute of Management Consultants Lifetime Contribution Award, and is one of the most highly respected independent consultants in the country, according to The New York Post.

Kelli Richards is a true trailblazer in the digital music, entertainment and technology worlds with more than twenty years of senior-level leadership experience.  With a unique talent for connecting innovators in technology with creative leaders in entertainment, Richards is a highly sought-after consultant, mentor, speaker, producer, coach and author, As the CEO of The All Access Group, Richards and her team facilitate powerful strategic business opportunities in digital distribution between technology companies, established artists and celebrities, film studios, record labels, and consumer brand companies to foster new revenue streams and deliver compelling consumer experiences.

Prior to founding The All Access Group, Kelli served in senior roles at Fortune 100 entertainment and technology companies, including Apple Inc., where she launched Apple’s earliest focus on music and drove all music initiatives during her 10 years with the market leader. She also served in senior-level leadership capacities at EMI Music as an A&R exec, and at Silicon Graphics (SGI) where she helped launch Silicon Studio, the company’s entertainment division. She developed PatroNet, the first Internet-based artist subscription service with rocker partner Todd Rundgren in the mid-90s – and helped to launch the entire digital music revolution.

A frequent speaker and panel moderator at digital music and entertainment industry conferences globally, Kelli has also been an acclaimed talent producer of a wide range of award shows, epic concerts, and celebrity fundraiser events for over 25 years.  She co-produced a celebrity fundraiser event to support the UN’s “Adopt-A-Minefield” initiative featuring Paul McCartney, Brian Wilson, Stephen Stills and hosted by Jay Leno. Additionally, she was a 20-year talent producer behind the BAMMIES, and remains a long-time talent executive and co-producer of the annual Pollstar Concert Industry Awards.

***

Kelli Richards has co-authored two books, including the critically acclaimed “The Art of Digital Music:  56 Artists, Visionaries & Insiders Reveal Their Creative Secrets.”  And her next book, “You Say You Want a Revolution – An Artist’s Manifesto for Success in the Digital Age,” is due out 11-11-11. A true renaissance woman, Kelli is also a Certified Integrative Life Coach trained under best-selling authors and coaches Debbie Ford and Alan Cohen.  She lives in Cupertino, CA in the heart of the Silicon Valley.

 

 


 

 

 

Chatting with Brenden Mulligan, Founder of OneSheet, the One Stop Solution for Artists

Kelli Richards August 17, 2011


A few weeks ago, I was very fortunate to interview creative disruptor, Brenden Mulligan, the CEO of OneSheet. For those of you who don’t know, OneSheet is a completely free website which allows musicians to connect their existing social networks and services, creating a basic and graphically exciting site that includes music, videos, photos, concert dates, social streams, mailing list signups and online stores.  Although it literally JUST moved out of beta, Onesheet already has more than 10,000 recording artists signed up, including major label artists like Paramore , Mat Kearny and Owl City.

OneSheet has the added feature of working with many of the most-used musician’s online services, including Tunes, Beatport, Topspin, Bandcamp, YouTube, Tumblr, Songkick, FanBridge and SoundCloud.  It’s also compatible with ArtistData, a popular syndication tool for musicians to post information across the web, which was also started by founder Brenden Mulligan.

Brenden Mulligan:  For a long time now, artists have been asked to create profiles on all of these different services, and one problem I felt was there was that there wasn’t necessarily an easy way to weave these together.  What I wanted to do was make it incredibly easy for an artist to create a maintenance free web presence, something that would take them only a few minutes to do and be totally affordable. 

OneSheet isn’t only a one-stop-shop solution for artists, it’s also been very collaborative. Founder Brenden Mulligan has made many adjustments based on the feedback of artists.  For instance, users can remove the Onesheet header, customize the navigation bar and rename concerts to tour, live, appearances, events or shows, etc. Most importantly, Onesheets can be assigned a custom domain name, which is a great asset in today’s world of uber branding.

Brenden Mulligan plans to add a premium paid service will add additional features and customization. “Mobile optimization is another feature we may charge for. What kind of artists use Onesheet and how they use it, will drive what we do next.”

To hear my entire interview with entrepreneur and CEO, Brenden Mulligan, go to https://bit.ly/BrendenMulligan  

Legacy and Celebrity Wrangling

Kelli Richards August 14, 2011

One of the most important aspects of my career has been creating high impact collaborations between artists, celebrities and corporations, and sometimes between artists and charities. I call this celebrity wrangling.

There’s no shortage of passion in the world surrounding celebrities and musicians; in fact, it’s rare to find one that doesn’t crave the opportunity to create lasting change and global/societal impact. Connecting the right artist for the right purpose – or simply being part of event production as a talent producer for award shows & charity events involving great artist/celeb talent, well, those are definitely career high points. Whether for corporations who want to have a celebrity appear in an ad campaign or established artists perform at employee events or at corporate industry conferences & special events. I’ve had the chance to work on some pretty amazing projects over the years, including great global causes with a broad range of artists, celebrities, and big companies. To learn more about celebrity wrangling, please visit my website: https://allaccessgroup.com/services/celebrity-wrangling

One of my favorite charity event projects was the “Open Hearts – Clear Mines: Adopt-a-Minefield” benefit concert hosted by the United Nations featuring performances by Sir Paul McCartney and Brian Wilson, where they joined together and sang, “God Only Knows“ & “Let it Be”. The concert and the song definitely live in my mind as one of the most moving and inspiring events that I ever participated in. Unfortunately only the attendees in that room got to experience the magic of that union. Though there isn’t any video from the event to really speak of, there is a snippet of it in an Access Hollywood interview, speaking with Sir Paul and host, Jay Leno, about the event. (See below.)

Another example is when I was asked by John Chambers & his team to bring Jerry Seinfeld to Cisco to participate in a 25th anniversary employee thank-you event.

As a veteran Talent Producer and Celebrity Wrangler, it’s events like these that become knots in the thread of one’s life. I’m proud to have been a part of creating these special events and experiences that if executed well tend to leave a lasting impact.

Kelli Richards, CEO, The All Access Group, LLC

Kelli Richards Hosts a VIP Breakfast at the Bandwidth Music | Technology Conference

Kelli Richards August 10, 2011

On Tuesday, August 16th, at 8am, industry thought-leaders, Kelli Richards, CEO of the All Access Group, will host an intimate breakfast and discussion to kick off day two of the annual Bandwidth Music | Technology Conference.  The focus of this “breakfast club” will be Kelli Richards’ newest eBook “Taking the Crowd to the Cloud – Social Media for the Music Industry.” VIP Breakfast and a printed copy of the eBook (valued at $37) will be available to the first 20 people who respond. Please RVSP to reserve your VIP seat at the event.  sandy@allaccessgroup.com

The Bandwidth Music | Technology Conference is for music and technology professionals and focuses on the evolving musical experience. Topics focus on marketing, fan behavior, trends and future forecasts, and an examination of the ways people discover, purchase, interact with, and are exposed to music.


Please RVSP to reserve your VIP seat at the event. sandy@allaccessgroup.com

Taking the Crowd to the Cloud – Social Media for the Music Industry

Kelli Richards August 2, 2011

After 25+ years in the digital space, it’s hard to ignore that the music industry has turned into a very complicated space — and believe me, marketing was NEVER easy to begin with.

My new eBook, Taking the Crowd to the Cloud – Social Media for the Music Industry, is an insider’s view on how it all comes together.  It raises the bar and demystifies social media marketing, helping musicians, agents and anyone in our industry THRIVE – it empowers and transforms the marketing mindset.

Featuring TEN top social networks for musicians, this eBook maximizes your social media to build (and keep) your audience. It holds the key to eMail Marketing, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and several hot secrets in Social Media. (It even covers how to port your MySpace contents to Facebook Music.) For $37 this is easily the million dollar choice.

Go to https://allaccessgroup.com/products/taking-the-crowd-to-the-cloud to get your copy and find out more.

To your success!

Kelli Richards,
CEO of All Access Group

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