'It's great to be here.

It's great to be anywhere.' (Keith Richards, quoted by Eric Nicoli, chairman of EMI)

One of the great things at London Business School is the great speakers that come onto campus (see various earlier posts for my reports of earlier speakers)(sorry, I'm too lazy to link right now, it's been a long day). Today we had the opportunity to hear Eric Nicoli speak, the chairman of EMI, the record producing and publishing company. And he was cool! He started of with the above quote, and then went on to give a great presentation detailing his background (he's the guy that developed the Lion bar... my hero!), EMI (they're 109 years old and own brands such as Blue Note and Virgin Music), and the challenges in the music industry (piracy (99% of all cds sold in Paraguay are pirated) and new technologies). What I found surprising, and that sort of shows how little I'm up to speed with the music business, is that apparently there is less piracy now than in 2003 when piracy was at its height. And even in the US only 15% of the population has an iPod (I sometimes feel they're everywhere), so the market for online music is set to boom in the next few years, something EMI will try and profit from by setting up new channels for the distribution of their music. The big thing for the future will be the opportunity to download and listen to music at any time of day, any place you are and any music that takes your fancy. All in all a very interesting guy with a great sense of humor, and in my top 3 of speakers that came onto campus so far.

Next week sees a bunch more on-campus-appearances: on Monday Bill Griffin, CEO of Kiss100 radio station here in London is going to come, followed by Sir Peter Hall (big theatre mogul) on Wednesday and on Friday Dean Tyson will talk to us about her recent trip to the World Economic Forum in Davos. As always, expect reports after the show.

[edit 1: added 'be' in the quote... guess I was too tired last night to do a proper spell check.]
[edit 2: the Marketing course has really sparked my interest in creative marketing ploys, one of which I saw earlier this week. Topshop's paper bags are replaced by paper bags advertising an Anna Piaggi exhibit called Fashion-ology at the Victoria and Albert. If you've ever been shopping on Oxford Street, you know how popular Topshop is. These bags were everywhere! Here's a report.]