Digg Dialogg with Trent Reznor

In Bob Marley’s words, I’ve got “So Much Things to Say” about the latest installment of Digg Dialogg.  But I’ll keep it simple, as the video really speaks for itself.

To start, the format: Digg is truly on to something with its Dialogg series.  Viewer submitted questions are really nothing new.  We’ve seen it before - as far back as MTV News 20 years ago there have been many iterations of the concept.  Recently it’s become part of mainstream news, culminating with the YouTube Presidential debates this year.  However, in all of those cases questions are filtered and picked in an arbitrary manner by the broadcaster.  The audience knows this, and it absolutely takes the thunder out of what is billed as a major advancement in giving the average person a voice.

Digg’s system brings us where we need to be.  Users submit questions and the entire Digg community gets a chance to weigh in on what the best submissions are.  The finest elements of Democracy and Capitalism are applied in the digital realm, and produce a truly personal exchange between the entire community and the interviewee.  There is no bias to be applied by the interviewer, who in this case becomes a moderator more than anything.  For once, the questions people really want to hear asked…get asked.

The second takeaway here: Trent Reznor never ceases to amaze.  What he’s done in the past 5 years to break the chains of old-world music industry thinking has been nothing short of revolutionary.  Nine Inch Nails have become more than a band, and more than a brand.  Whether he asked for it or not, NIN has grown to be a rally cry for pioneers in the digital space who refuse to be held back by the hesitations of industry leaders stuck in the past.

The interview is educational and completely entertaining. Trent cool, calm, and collectedly lays out a complete and fundamental grasp of marketing in the digital age - most pointedly in response to these questions:

• Your business model still primarily involves selling music either digitally or physically. Why haven’t you embraced advertising as a business model?
• What advice do you have for up and coming bands who chose the internet for distribution over traditional channels?

It’s not even the nuts and bolts that you want to pay attention to.  It’s great that he figured out a way to stay profitable in spite of file sharing and that releasing remix parts has brought opportunities for the band, but that’s not what is most enlightening.  The key that permeates throughout: Trent’s understanding that you need to involve your fans as much as possible, that sometimes you need to give your work away in order to grow your audience, and that he isn’t always going to be right but you have to keep trying new things.  Simple and important lessons.