When you’re angry do you listen?

20 year-old NPR intern Emily White recently wrote a post about her experiences purchasing music, or more precisely of not purchasing music in the digital age.  She shared that she had 11,000 songs on iTunes, but had only paid for about 15 albums.  The purpose of the post was to give an insight into the perception of the music industry from the vantage point of a young adult.  It provoked a proverbial ess-storm.

Consider these comments:

“Emily, you are stealing. Stealing is dishonest. And it is a crime. As a musician, a singer and an actor who works hard for the money, reading this makes me sick.”

“…will you stop stealing?  Doubt it.”

“A self-confessed felon working for NPR.”

“If I can’t afford all the items I want, then I go without. It’s called integrity.”

“Emily – You are guilty of theft!”

On and on to the tune of nearly 800 comments.  As I read them I wondered if it was lost on them that the value and perception of music to an entire generation shifted.  She wasn’t confessing to a crime or trying to draw the ire of an audience distraught over the ending of Prairie Home Companion and Click and Clack.  She was giving a valuable insight into what she had experienced and was expecting for the digital future.  Coincidentally, it’s an insight that has ramifications beyond music into everything digital including social media.  Many people read the article, but few listened to what she was telling them.

I worked with a funeral home for awhile, and the second highest margin item (next to their “fees”) are caskets.  In the Northwest, cremation rates are high and retailers like Costco and Wal-Mart sell less expensive caskets – so I casually made the observation that overhead costs should be adjusted so that the firm wasn’t reliant on casket profits to stay afloat.  You’d have thought I kicked them in the shin.  All of a sudden, it became relevant that I didn’t have a background in funeral homes, and I was assured that their sales staff would simply have to “upsell.”  It was as comical to listen to as it was sad, because my observation was spot-on.  Yet I became the harbinger for their frustration with the change of consumer preference.  And that’s what Emily White became because of her blog post.

Though our preferences and proclivities change throughout time, a large part of our relevance and our capability is enabled by our capacity to listen.  The biggest test to our listening is when people say things that run counter to our beliefs.  It’s easy to be the politician that listens attentively for points to refute but never agrees with their opponent on anything.  It’s easy to be the old man that ends each sentence with a dramatically delivered “whippersnapper” (or worse).  I’ve seen a lot of businesses fail with this “something’s got to change but nothing can change” mantra.

One of my favorite professors in college was Dr. Raymond Reyes.  He began the semester by introducing himself this way: “I am a lifelong learner.”  It didn’t seem like such a radical statement when I was 19 years old.  However as I see the chilly reception that greets change and dissenting viewpoints as I get older, I wonder if listening without prejudice is one of the most radical things that someone can do.
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