Howdy peeps!  Been a long time!  This week, I’m shutting down the hellomarko blog.  I’ve found my FLO, and am focusing all my energy on that new adventure going forward.  Posts from myself, and other FLO thought leaders can be found here after this week…

I have finally recovered from G4E, and am now reflecting (over a strong cup of coffee!) on how it went, and how we can make it even better next time.  The Google event was the first public manifestation of FLO {thinkery} in the market (and no, we are NOT an event marketing company), and one hell of a way to say “hello” to the marketplace…

The vision for FLO is simple.  Building a business doing smart things with cool people, or doing cool things with smart people.  Simple. And we are on a mission.  That mission is to make Nashville one of THE places to launch a new company in the world, with a focus on making our city the epicenter of the new music business.  We hope to play a big part in the emerging ecosystem that is Nashville, along with great partners like the EC, Jumpstart, the new TTDC, business leaders, politicians (when we have to), investors, and most importantly - young entrepreneurs!

So, how are we going to accomplish that goal?  Our approach will be multi-facetted, aggressive, irreverent in spots, cooperative, disruptive, and most importantly, FUN!  We are going to try to apply Rule 62 to everything we do. If you are standing where your cheese use to be, wondering where it went (and whining about it), you can either starve and stay where you are, or follow us to where the cheese has moved.

Much of this work will be uncomfortable to some of the establishment.  And while we hope to have their wisdom and experience in the room, their voice can no longer dominate the conversation.  We need to have reverence for those titans who have come before us, folks like Clayton McWhorter, John Ingram, Joe Galante, the Frists, and a host of others.  Without their work, we would not have such an incredibly solid foundation to build on. I’ve come to know many of these guys well, and very much value their individual and collective wisdom. (more…)

(for my friend Charles Alexander who encouraged me to write this a long time ago…)

I refuse to be put in a box, and I would encourage you to refuse as well.  We are all creative creatures, and in all my experience, I have yet to meet a human being that does not have some spark of creativity.  It can manifest itself in many forms, all you have to do is look for it.  Granted, sometimes its less apparent, but look – it’s there.

Rockin the strat

I have had some reasonable success in business, and hope to have quite a bit more before it’s all over.  Building a great company takes an enormous amount of creativity, and the “creative requirements” evolve over the life of the business.  As much as numbers are uninteresting to me in the form of a spreadsheet, I understand and appreciate the creativity it takes to do that work (I’m leaving out the Enron version of “creative accounting” from this example… being a weasel with creativity is an entirely different blog!) and recognize their value to the overall process.

When I embarked on my new adventures in 2009, I had a lot to consider and a few loose ends to tie up.  There was one thing I was sure that I would not be doing again, and that was building my life around my career going forward.  In fact, I intended (and have so far succeeded) on doing quite the opposite.  Don’t get me wrong, I LOVE to work.  But what I worked on, and how I approached that work would be entirely different.

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Howdy peeps…! Man, it’s been quite the ride the last 60 days! My blogging patterns have faltered, and for those of you who read the blog, I apologize for my lack of posts as of late. Along with getting hitched, I’ve been a busy boy on the investing and advising fronts, and on the music front as well. I’ve managed to get a couple great new commercial country songs in the hopper, and am part of a new rock n roll band, Punching Clowns! Add to that a building project, a bun in the oven, and the impending launch of the operationalized version of FLO {thinkery}, and you can color me overcommitted… and LOVING it! Now, onward to the subject at hand…

Today is PSA day. The Future of Music Coalition has launched a large scale research project; and if you are an artist/songwriter/musician, PLEASE watch this video and participate in the survey. It will help people who support the creative class have a better understanding of the current state, and chart a course for the future state.

How Do You Make Money from Music? survey introduction from Future of Music Coalition on Vimeo.

Interestingly, in the presentation we were shown, there is evidence that while the overall musical pie is shrinking, there are more opportunities for more creatives than ever before. The web has shifted the power center in a way that we are just beginning to understand. If you believe that out of all this “moving of the cheese” will come a better day for all creatives, help set the baseline by taking the time to participate in the survey.

Thanks….more to come!

Greetings from headed to the beach.  The occasional blog will definitely be off this week and next, as my bride and I head to the beach.  Thank you for all your warm wishes, we were pleased to have so many of our friends around us for what was a surprise to many (several of our peeps were correctly suspicious).

As my pal Joe Ebel said to me while we were eating, “I fell into a bucket of shit and came out smelling like a rose”, which could not be more true for either him or I.  Along with great friends, two of our favorite artists (who are part of the soundtrack of our lives) performed that evening.  Robby Hecht and David Mead are musicians that need to be heard more…please check them out.

Off to put my toes in the sand with my babe (and baby), have a great couple weeks!

There is an incredible excitement and focus around entrepreneurs and the entrepreneurial community in Nashville as a result of commitment and focus from the private sector, the Chamber of Commerce and metro and state offices over the past several years.  Today, a group of successful enterpreneurs are doubling down on that commitment.  A year ago, Stuart McWhorter and John Ingram decided to rekindle a flame that was originally lit 15 years ago inside of Clayton and Associates.  Clayton McWhorter had a “bullpen” dedicated to nurturing young, aspiring entrepreneurs – giving them tools, access and advice – as well as a place to “be” and belong.

In February, Stuart and John announced the formation of Bullpen Ventures, to reignite some of the spirit that Clayton created in the bullpen – a spirit you see everywhere you turn at the Nashville Entrepreneur Center.  Soon after the announcement, a group of us began a discussion around adding several other investors into the mix, both for their passion around entrepreneurship in the city as well as their domain experience.  Adding additional skill sets, personal rolodexes and deal flow to the fund seemed like a good idea; and after a bit of back and forth, a deal was consummated to expand Bullpen.  At that point Steve Turner, Joe Galante, and myself added our collective passion, experience and dollars to the Bullpen.  We all agreed that it was not only a great business opportunity, but a way to give back to Nashville, and add more fuel to the fire that is entrepreneurship in our city.

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