Creating identity dynamics: How the major music labels failed to make sense of future insights while new entrants set the pace
Carsten Claus, University of Lueneburg
Observing the decline of the music industry one can find all parts of "the four last things": death, judgment, heaven and hell. In "Death is not so bad: the future of the music industry", Tim Renner writes about a young troop of Universal Music managers fleshing out future scenarios in the early 90s. Scenarios typically point to heaven, to hell and aim to stimulate wise judgment through anticipating alternative and possible futures step by step. As the recent decade has shown, the decision makers of the major labels have failed to deal with the future stories in a way that allowed their organizations to adapt in time. Instead they locked themselves in an even more myopic definition of music selling. They had condemned a change in the meaning of relevant consumption practices that have evolved, while new entrants have drawn on them and re-invented the business.
Napster, Gnutella and iPod/iTunes are lesser technical devices rather than subsequent artifacts of changes in consumer culture. They are meaning carriers (“stuff”), communicating about being cool, contemporary yet timeless - or not. In a reciprocal manner stuff gets loaded with meanings through certain kinds of contextualization. People often make symbolic statements when choosing brands as part of their daily life and brand meanings can mirror different attitudes or changes in meanings of consumptions. Identity is a central element when it comes to drive the meaning message. Napster and Apple were cool and fast, Universal, Warner, Sony and BMG were not. These surface snap-shots have their rooting in the identity of the organizations.
Identity addresses aspects such as “where do we come from” and “who we are” but also the question about “where do we want to go?” This implicates that it is not of a stable rather than a dynamic nature, changing and adapting over time. Identity needs to be steered by a clear understanding of “what is relevant next and even farther?” Foresight with its various methods set such as storytelling and scenario planning can help to answer these prospective questions by creating future understanding, knowledge and pointing to future relevance.
This paper deals with the process from spotting the weak and critical signals, how technology, culture and other environmental realms interact, how new meanings of consumption evolve and how a myopic and too narrow business definition can stall early adaptation. Two levels have to be considered when dealing with the future: level one is gaining insights into technology and consumer culture. They provide the ground for fleshing out e.g. future scenarios by anticipating alternative developments of critical paths. The other level is translating this knowledge in a way that helps to spot possible identity threats and that leads to a revised identity understanding. Often enough future insights collide with messianism about copyright and outdated business definitions instead of "strategic conversation" about the future purpose of the organization. The paper will thus highlight how organizational identity can drive what might be called "identity dynamics" through employing foresight.