Research Seminars

How Digital Discovery Works: Deciding what to listen to next in a world of infinite choice

David Jennings
Director of DJ Alchemi Ltd

28 November 2007

Abstract:

The culture we choose to explore makes us who we are. Music fans have
more choice in their listening than ever before. The on-demand
availability of everything, and the choice it confers to step inside
anyone's cultural shoes, brings with it responsibilities and
anxieties as well as excitement. The act of discovery -- what are you
going to listen to next? -- moves to centre stage.

Many enterprises want to help with discovery: Amazon, Google,
Wikipedia, MySpace, Last.fm, radio, TV and press. But one of the most
powerful (and truly "cross-platform") media is word of mouth and the
reputation that accrues via the exchanges in blogs, recommendations
and fan sites.

My talk will seek to explain some of the dynamics of word of mouth,
and what the implications of these dynamics are for the marketing and
promotion of music. There is an influential minority of fans who are
keen to 'pioneer' in discovering new music and then spread the word
to other fans. Meanwhile a mostly silent majority takes a more casual
approach to discovery.

Artists and bands cannot control the means by which they are
discovered. They can only enable these means. It helps to understand
the dynamics of communication and influence so that you can tap into
their power.

I propose three levels to what I call the Net, Blogs and Rock'n'Roll
'architecture of discovery':

1. The Net is the data-crunching and underground plumbing that
processes massive volumes of user behaviours and spots the trends and
patterns within them
2. Blogs are the human level of conversation, not as 'clean' and
quantitative as the data level, but enriched by personality, trust
and shared history
3. Rock'n'Roll is the spirit that keeps us interested in exploring
the edges of our culture, and that challenges yesterday's consensus.

Bio

David Jennings is Director of DJ Alchemi Ltd and author of "Net, Blogs and Rock 'n' Roll". David is an independent consultant specialising in online learning and discovery. His clients have included learndirect, the Trades Union Congress and the British Standards Institute. He has written on music and technology for specialist and generalist press in the UK, and advised the (now defunct) National Centre for Popular Music. He has also created online reference resources for communities of music fans, including the wiki site for the cult album, '69 Love Songs'.

Before setting up his own business twelve years ago, David was a Principal Psychologist in what is now the Department for Work and Pensions in the UK Government. He is registered as a Chartered Psychologist with the British Psychological Society and is a Certified Member of the Association for Learning Technology (CMALT).

David was chair of the British Human-Computer Interaction Group from 1995-97, and a member of the Editorial Board of the journal Interacting with Computers for ten years. He has held board positions in arts charities and technology companies, including Wired Workplace Ltd, which he co-founded. He holds degrees from the Universities of Cambridge, Sheffield and Sheffield Hallam.