One of the biggest problems of integrating internet strategies into your already busy music industry life is the problem of becoming overwhelmed with information. Now that you’re using the internet, there are all these sites to maintain, update, and provide content for… and a whole lot of others to read.

There are online references, mailing lists, MySpace pages, blogs, social networks, photography sites, music communities and recommendation engines to contend with.

How do you even start to cope with all that, hang onto the other important stuff you were already doing, and yet not have some sort of nervous breakdown in the process?

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Now that you have a catalogue of activities, here’s the important question: why?

When you do all of these things that you do, what is it you are trying to ultimately achieve? Why do you do what you do?

So you’re working on an album? You’re writing songs? You’re mailing out CDs? You’re planning a tour? To what end?

Most people don’t have any idea of what it is they’re working towards. They generally have a pretty clear idea that they need to get from the rung of the ladder that they’re currently on to the next rung up, but very few stop to think about how tall that ladder is, and which wall it’s leaned against.

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Okay. Let’s start with what should be a very simple question:
What do you do?

“We’re a record label” or “I’m a distributor” or “I’m a singer/songwriter” or any similar kind of variation on that theme is The Wrong Answer. I didn’t ask what you are, or how you describe your job. I asked what you do.

Let’s not even think about the question “how do you make money?” yet. That’s not step one. Step one is just, very simply, “what is it that you do?”

Get out a piece of paper or open a new text document and just see what you come up with.

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Need to Get Things Done? Go hang out on your Thinking Rock for a bit.

Strategies for promoting and selling online are not the only things that technology can help independent music businesses with. Efficiencies, workflow and time management are often just as critical.

I’ve been using David Allen’s Getting Things Done system for - well - getting things done. I fall off the wagon from time to time, but it’s amazing how well the system works when you actually use it.

But I’ve struggled to find the piece of software or online tool that does the trick for me. Sure, it’s designed as a paper-based system, but it really appeals to my inner geek — who, as it happens, shares a lot of interests with my outer geek. I may actually be geek all the way through.

Cue Thinking Rock - a fabulous bit of open-source software from Australia. Huge thanks to UK DJ & promoter Marc Reck of Mr Elephant Presents for recommending it to me.

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