I guess Bob Dylan was on to something. Change of all types is not only inevitable, if it’s managed correctly, it can even be healthy. In this issue, I am writing about the difference between culture and climate, the importance of culture, and how to change a culture if a change is needed. It’s a bit longer than our usual articles but I hope you’ll take the time to read it.
Look at the roster of once-dominant corporations or technologies that are no longer in existence (been to Blockbuster or Radio Shack lately?) to see how common it is for even “industry titans” to fail to look over the horizon and try to evolve to meet not just today’s challenges, but future ones as well. Why don’t people and organizations embrace change, even when (in hindsight, of course) it seems inevitable? CHANGE IS HARD, that’s why. Familiar things are comfortable and new things can seem threatening. And change is especially hard when it involves culture.
The organizations that navigate change wisely have a core set of beliefs or values that can guide them even though the environment, the market, genres of music, and student needs are changing. If your core value is “making students’ lives better through the teaching of music,” that can keep you on course no matter what comes your way. If your core value is “I insist on conducting Grade 5/6 music even if my students can’t play it well and audiences hate it,” then I suggest you’re in for a lot of frustration.
For more than a quarter of a century of existence, SBO+ has developed a set of core values. (1) Provide music educators with a variety of relevant and helpful content every month, and (2) Do it at no cost to the reader.
With those core values in mind, we are in the process of making some significant changes to the way we serve you. We will soon (maybe by the time you’re reading this!) unveil a completely revitalized website. We will continue to publish a “digital magazine,” but you’ll also be able to easily browse and search for individual articles. Starting with our December issue, our online articles will contain lots more hyperlinks and perhaps in the future, embedded video, to enable you to easily navigate according to your interests. In other words, more and more of you consume your information digitally and we are going to beef up the product we’ve been giving you. I hope you have noticed there’s no mention of a paywall, because one of our core values is to give you SBO+ for free.
The world is moving away from print, but we want to continue sending it to those who request it. In the next few months, subscribers will be asked to “re-validate” their subscriptions, and we encourage many of you to request the digital edition if you find yourself reading it online more than on paper, helping us reduce our environmental footprint. Now, I love getting my SBO+ in the mail (OK, boomer), but by choosing digital, we can save trees and lessen the resources used in paper, printing, and mailing—small steps that contribute to a greener planet while keeping SBO+ accessible to all.
You know what else is changing? It’s snowing outside my window!
