Daddy learning from Daughter
Matthew Hardman
Hybrid Cloud | High Performance Applications | Data Ops | Strategy | Leadership
When I am home in Singapore, I have the extreme pleasure of taking my daughter Sarah to school around 6:30 am every weekday, and while the timing is a killer, the time I get to spend with her is simply awesome. We sing, and she explains to me what's going with her friends, and how the TV show she watches is awesome because there was this girl, who was friends with another girl, but then this girl wasn't nice to the other girl... (in her mind this is incredibly detailed, I just have no idea whats going on).
Anyway... she said something really interesting to me, it was in the form of a question, but it took me a while to understand what she was referring to.
"Dad, Imagine Dragons has a new playlist, can we listen to it?"
I thought to myself, why would Imagine Dragons be releasing playlists? Maybe its their favorite songs, influences, in fact what it turned out to be was their new album that she wanted to listen to. It was at that moment that reality hit me, my daughter had no concept of an album, her music experience was based purely on playlists and a continual stream of music, she has never experienced the constraint of a single media that could contain a collection of nine to ten tracks. In fact I donated my entire CD collection to the Salvation army a couple of years ago, before Sarah had gotten in to music, so she has never even understood that concept of a music collection.
While artists will continue to release new "albums", its interesting to note that the terminology would seem to be fading away, because the experience that technology has delivered has made the terminology obsolete. Spotify, and other media services has killed the album.
We always see those video's where a child holds up a cassette tape, and looks at it wondering what it is, and our hearts crush at the fact that our childhood selves are so disconnected to what it is to be a child today.
As someone who has come from a marketing background, and let's be honest, once a marketer, always a marketer, I wonder how much of the terminology I use today, will be disconnected with the audience of tomorrow? Time to revisit my cultural dictionary.
What have you experienced?
* Release & Change Management * Improvement Specialist
6 年Nice to hear your story Mat.
Director @ Red Hat | Marketing Strategy, Partner Ecosystems Cloud | Demand Generation | Channel Enablement | Alliances Marketing | Intelligent Automation | Open Source
6 年I remember my CD collection that didn’t follow me when I moved countries (although I kept a few precious ones). But thanks for provoking that thought... I realise now too my kids telling about a ‘new playlist’.
Business Development Leader Asia-Pacific Japan & China | Startup Mentor | Board Member | Wharton MBA
6 年Thanks for sharing Matthew Hardman as another dad with daughters your story really resonated:-). Hope all’s well!
Dad, geek, accidental communications leader with 20+ years of experience building strategic narratives for global technology brands. Former tech journalist with 10+ years of expertise in content strategy for SEA markets.
6 年Just got back from a road trip up north to the sourthern parts of Thailand, and while picking up water and snacks at a PTT (one of their petrol station brands), noticed that music was still sold on CD, except that in this case, in the form of a collection of MP3 tracks on disk. Some stations also stocked MP3 tracks on flash drive. But yeah, another example of how the traditional idea of an album has been digitally transformed.
VP, Asia driving growth and digital transformation at DocuSign
6 年Really awesome. Thanks for sharing mate.