Alexandre Perrin teaches Music Business Finance, Project Management for Artists, Economics of Global Entertainment, and Global Leadership and Management at the Valencia campus.

After eight years of teaching, researching and managing program in several European business schools, I joined Berklee’s Valencia campus to help students decode and anticipate the evolution of the Entertainment industry. When it comes to music biz, our students compete with a global workforce of young or experienced graduates. My job is to prepare them to hit this highly competitve job market or to ignite their passion for entrepreneurship or management.

1. Music biz: a Go game !
Go game is a board game originated in China whose objective is to occupy a specific territory. This business is not anymore a chess game. The objective is to control the digital playground and attract the attention of consumers. The Economics of Attention is an interesting concept related to Go game. It states that human attention is now becoming a scarce resource. When you sell music, you compete with other medias (video, video games, movies, newspapers, kindle…). As content has grown increasingly abundant and immediately available, attention becomes the limiting factor in the consumption of cultural goods.

2. Management of music biz: improvise !
Music and management has always been compared altogether. The jazz metaphor is regularly employed to talk about the future of management. Last century the metaphor was more centered on classical music: management was compared to conducting an orchestra. The manager was a conductor and the collaborators the musicians. An interesting shift has occurred in the last 20 years in management science. Management theorists like Karl Weick suggested the jazz band was a better image for organizations in a world that demanded rapid response and adaptability around some core business competencies. For maximizing learning and innovation, managers need to be ambidextrous: use the partition (process) and create new notes (innovation). This is exactly what we intend to do at Berklee in music business: know the business fundamentals to reinvent the future and create new ventures.

3. Working at Berklee’s Valencia campus: Harder Better Faster Stronger !
Daft Punk’s song depicts pretty well the expectations students have about the classes at a Masteŕs level. As a new faculty member, I can tell you that you are being pushed to innovate and find new ideas. This process is driven by the business itself, your colleagues and the students. This semester I have added an additional dynamic dimension to my Economics of Entertainment module: by using #ecotainment on Twitter I share articles, thoughts and comments on different topics covered in that module such as the macroeconomics of the music industry, the evolution of the value chain or the relationships with video game and movie industries.