March 31, 2009Almost three years ago I took a personal retreat at a Trappist monastery in the hills of Kentucky. The Abby Of Gethsemani is a 150 year old austere monastery located east of I-65 and south of the Bluegrass Highway out in the middle of nowhere. The Abby was the home of Thomas Merton, until his death in 1968. Merton is arguably the most influential American Catholic author of the twentieth century. His autobiography, The Seven Storey Mountain ..read more
March 14, 2009Our company held a business retreat yesterday with the objective to review our organization and set new goals for the next five years. What resulted was a complete makeover of our entire business model. We began with an exercise to re-write our mission statement. In view of all the recent changes in our world we were looking for a very focused statement that we could use to filter all decisions we will make in the future. ..read more
March 8, 2009For five years I have presented The Conference On Artist Management in Nashville, TN. I came up with the idea because so many people in Christian music were constantly asking me for advise on how to succeed in the business. I guess they thought I’d figured it out. Maybe it was the fact that I was still in business with a lot of gray hair. I am still around after twenty-seven years of working in this ..read more
March 2, 2009Went to the Mac store today. I’ve been a PC guy all my life. I have always heard so much about how Mac’s are superior to PC’s so I decided to see one up close. I’ll have to admit the new aluminum frames look cool and they are considerably lighter but it doesn’t stop there. The features and ease of use are remarkable! I particularly loved the feature that allows multiple windows to be open ..read more
March 1, 2009Welcome to the redesigned Michael Smith & Associates website!? We?re glad you?ve stopped by to learn about our artists, labels and conferences.? In the next few weeks, I will be starting a video blog.? I plan to talk about topics that interest me along with giving some guidance on the role of a manager.? I hope you find it informative.? Subscribe on the right to be notified of updates and follow me on Twitter.? Thanks again for stopping by and ..read more
