024 – 2016 in Review

2016 is over. Whenever another year comes to an end, I like to take some time to process it. In this episode of The New Music Industry Podcast, I review the year, what I accomplished, and where I fell short. Download the PDF Transcription Podcast Highlights: 00:14 – I’m going to be looking back at 2016 00:21 – I want you to reflect on this last year 00:43 – Take what I’ve learned to make your life better 01:01 – I will be sharing about many of the projects I’m involved in 01:17 – Blog post and article tallies 01:48 – New blog posts on The Music Entrepreneur 02:02 – New articles on Music Industry How To 02:24 – New guest posts on JTV Digital 02:37 – Podcast episode tallies 03:05 –  New podcast episodes on TME 03:25 – Guest interview on Music2020 03:41 – New TME products 04:36 – Speaking engagements 04:50 – Creative Conversations – From Idea to Impact 05:21 – WordCamp Calgary 05:52 – Community involvement 06:22 – The Question 06:57 – Listening Room YYC 07:29 – The books I read in 2016 08:29 – Side projects 08:42 – Using Your Power 09:15 – Outsource Blog Content 09:41 – Compuxor 10:09 – Goals 11:08 – Goals accomplished 13:15 – Goals not accomplished 15:13 – Goals abandoned 16:15 – Goals for 2017 16:42 – Final thoughts Transcription: In this post, I’m going to be looking back at 2016. And yes, it will likely be a longer post. But know that this isn’t just for me. This is for you. I want you to think about what went well in 2016, and what didn’t. I want you to take the time to process the year. I want you to formulate and write down new goals for 2017. Seriously. And if there’s anything I can do to usher that process along, let me know. Most of all, I want you to take what I’ve learned, and use it to improve your career and life. You can fast-track your progress substantially if you study my accomplishments and mistakes. And I hope that you’ll share yours as well, so we can all learn from them. You can fast-track your progress significantly if you study the wins and losses of others.Share on X Just so you know, I will be sharing about many of the projects I’m involved in, not just what I’ve done here at The Music Entrepreneur. If you find value in this post, don’t forget to share it on your favorite social media site. Here’s 2016 in review. Blog Posts & Articles Published I’ve experimented with various publishing schedules. Somewhere along the line, the schedule for TME became Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday, and that’s what I’ve been working to maintain ever since. But I did quite a bit of publishing elsewhere too, and I’ll also share about that. Note: The following numbers may not be exact, because the year isn’t over as I write this, but you get the idea. The Music Entrepreneur In 2016, I published over 70 posts on TME, not including weekly digests. There were a lot of great guest posters that helped fill the gaps along the way. Thanks guys! Music Industry How To In 2016, 96 of my articles were published on Music Industry How To, where I’m a staff writer. Thanks Shaun! If you’d like to gain access to full length guides at MIHT, you’ll want to go to: davidandrewwiebe.com/miht. JTV Digital I did a bit of guest posting over at music distribution company JTV Digital in 2016, and had 12 articles published over there. Podcast Episodes Published 2016 saw the return of the podcast at TME. I may not have even thought to bring it back if not for some of the business resources I’ve been exploring. It’s much easier and faster for me to communicate by writing, but TME has gone full-on multimedia with audio and video in this last year. Here is what I’ve accomplished with podcasting in 2016. The Music Entrepreneur It looks like I will be ending the year with 24 podcast episodes for The New Music Industry Podcast. Special thanks to my guests, Bob, James, Ross, Dave, and Helen. If you aren’t a subscriber yet, get onboard, because I have many interesting features on the way. Music2020 The good folks at Music2020 had me on their show recently to discuss blockchain technology. Always happy to share my thoughts on emerging technology and what its impact on the future of music might be. Products There were a few breakthroughs with TME products this year. One in particular is the launch of physical copies of The New Music Industry: Adapting, Growing, and Thriving in The Information Age. It wasn’t necessarily easy to design and format the book, but I’m glad I found CreateSpace. Writing the My Top 10 Tips for Creatives eBook was also a significant accomplishment, especially since I was on a tight deadline for a speaking engagement, and wanted to make sure it was done in time for it. Also, work officially began on my upcoming book, Flashes of Elation: Navigating the World as a Sensitive, Creative Soul. So, even though I would have loved to get more products out into the world in 2016, I must acknowledge that the three projects just mentioned weren’t small undertakings by any means. Speaking 2016 feels like the first year I’ve really dug into speaking, though I have had the chance to share at different events prior to that. This year, I was presented with a couple of great opportunities. Creative Conversations – From Idea to Impact This event is the reason why I ended up writing the eBook My Top 10 Tips for Creatives. I wanted to have a relevant offer to share with the people I was speaking to (instead of just my music industry book). I was invited to share at Creative Conversations twice, and both times I talked about the same 10 tips I wrote about in the eBook. Overall, the response was good. Thanks to Lisa for having me out to share! WordCamp I’d only heard a little bit about WordCamp until Mr. John Smiley invited me to speak. Since 2016 was declared the “year of music” by Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi, they wanted to carry that theme over into this year’s WordCamp. I don’t think that’s how things worked out, but fortunately they kept me on their speaker roster and I got to share about content marketing. It was a thrill sharing my ideas for those in attendance, and I hope I get to do it again! Community Involvement I’ve been a casual Audio Visual theatre tech at Mount Royal University for several years. Up until June I still worked there regularly, but things have been changing quite a bit with the department, and they haven’t needed me as much. I’d made the decision last year that I wanted to focus more on writing and less on teaching and tech work beginning in September, so it kind of worked out. But in a way, that has been replaced by my involvement in a couple of communities. The Question The Question is a disruptive, non-religious community that provides an organic gathering place for those who wonder about our complex selves, world, and universe. Though I am not responsible for creating all the content there, I am the one posting it. I’m also responsible for the website, social media, videography, as well as setup and teardown at each monthly event. In addition, I’ve had the opportunity to present at The Question on a couple of occasions, most recently in November. Listening Room YYC Deanne Matley shared her vision about The Listening Room Series here on TME in April. Having wrapped up a season, she was evaluating what her next move would be. Long story short, I ended up joining the collective along with Frederick Tamagi. We rebranded and launched two listening room concepts – The Circle and The Classics – in September. The Listening Room YYC will be going dark in January, but we’re looking forward to another season in February. Books Read I’ve been keeping track of the books I’ve been reading in 2016 on DavidAndrewWiebe.com. As I write this, I’ve finished reading 48 books, and I’m still driving towards 52 for the end of the year. Looking back, I ended up engaging in a lot of longer books. Not that there’s anything wrong with that, because I took a lot away from books like Joe Pulizzi’s Content Inc. and Tim Ferriss’ The 4-Hour Workweek, but I could have planned a little better to stay on schedule. My initial reading list consisted of other titles, but I ended up moving them to the Books I Want to Read page on my personal blog. There’s also the reality that I didn’t own every book on the list, and buying all of them would have been more expensive. Not that I’m fearful of investing in my self-education or anything. I’m still going to be doing a lot of reading in 2017, but I’m thinking about whether to refocus my reading on music industry news and content instead of books. Side Projects I used to have a lot of projects on the side. But these days I don’t take any on unless I can collaborate with others on them. Here are the main side projects I’ve been working on this year. Using Your Power Maveen Kaura and I launched Using Your Power in October. Him and I have been talking about the ways in which we could collaborate on a project for a while, and I think we finally found a fit with this business. We’ve published 12 podcast episodes to date, covering a wide range of topics like personal development, buying a house, community, entitlement, building a network, and so on. Our podcast is for people who aren’t satisfied with shallow answers and want to go deeper into life’s big questions. Outsource Blog Content Outsource Blog Content was initially launched in 2014. It’s gone through some changes in the last two years, but I will just sum up by saying that it’s back to being more than just a blog – it’s a business again. The site still requires some work before we can start taking clients. Still, quite a bit of content went up this year, and I also gave the site a needed facelift. Compuxor Compuxor is a fun project I also started about two years ago, and I’m now collaborating with Karlo Keet from Catstar Imag