TOC/G7 Related Discussion

[Stu]

Hey Brasso: chsnged (typed multiple times)???? It appears you need to reach a little farther on the keyboard to press the 'a' key! :tongue:/>

Edited March 8, 2013 by Stu

[BRASSO]

DCA's annual budget is quite literally 3% of DCI's budget. It's a lot easier to be 'stable' when the demands on your pipeline are relatively small.

But I think you'd find many people would be all in favor of part-time junior corps forming an alliance in the DCA direction, if DCA is interested in having them join. So there's really no disagreement here.

But the national touring corps' expenses are what they are, and are largely driven by expenses that the corps themselves can't control (fuel, insurance, cost of food). The fact is that the national tour, the 24/7 high-intensity experience, is what they're there to provide their members, and changing that model would more or less take away one of the big things that drives members to audition for those corps in the first place.

Ok... so DCI in you view has " to change ", but there can be " no change" in the 7 week breakneck speed of criss ctoosing the country of thousnds of miles to do 28-35 competitions in that 7 week "annual " competitive season ?

Do you realize that DCI Drum Corps is out of sight, out of mind, of the public for approx. 45 weeks out of the 52 weeks of the year ? Corps essentially go into a bear's hibernation. Secrecy becomes the norm for 90% of the year with DCI Drum Corps. Tell me a successful growing enterprise anywhere in existence where its not out with its " product " ... or even a clip to wet the appetite.... for 45 weeks out of the year. Do you think this might need some " tinkering " or some " tweeking " perhaps ?

Edited March 8, 2013 by BRASSO

[ranintothedoor]

Do you realize that DCI Drum Corps is out of sight, out of mind, of the public for approx. 45 weeks out of the 52 weeks of the year ? Corps essentially go into a bear's hibernation. Secrecy becomes the norm for 90% of the year with DCI Drum Corps. Tell me a successful growing enterprise anywhere in existence where its not out with its " product " ... or even a clip to wet the appetite.... for 45 weeks out of the year. Do you think this might need some " tinkering " or some " tweeking " perhaps ?

Something that SoundSport and DLB can help alleviate...

[BRASSO]

Hey Brasso: chsnged (typed multiple times)???? It appears you need to reach a little farther on the keyboard to press the 'a' key! :tongue:/>/>

Yup.. I need to " chsnge " that bad habit. You are indeed correct with this observation.

I'm a work in progress.

[Stu]

Something that SoundSport and DLB can help alleviate...

SS (anything, not almost anything, but anything goes) and DB (shear entertainment with the audience determining the winner more than shear chops with a drum judge determining the winner) are going to be so vastly different than the field DCI groups I cannot see those activities creating much of a cross over fan base.

[BRASSO]

Surely you're not suggesting the DCA model can fill the niche now occupied by DCI. Are you?

HH

No, glory I am not suggesting that DCA can fill the niche now occupied by DCI. This would require DCA itself to alter and change what it sees as its primary mission. I don't believe that this would even be in DCA's best interest to pursue such a niche either. DCI has focused on the high end, highly intensive, all summer long competitor that wants that all summer long experience and is willing to pay the top dollar that is required for that experience. I don't see DCA desiring to enter this market.

Edited March 8, 2013 by BRASSO

[Slingerland]

So since I mentioned the infamous "Schlitz Example" earlier, here's a side conversation that might have some benefit here.

I just hired you as a consultant to map the turnaround of an iconic American institution. I want you to fix Sears.

===

They were once the biggest retailer in the world, but now they're dead in the water. Same store sales are flat or falling, closing massive amounts of stores hasn't helped improve the bottom line, and their online business, while better than nothing, isn't taking the place of what they used to do in catalog sales.

Here's what they have that's working. Land's End. Inexplicably popular, but profitable, so a win is a win. But the Sears stores themselves? not so much.

So what's the problem? Market position? Product mix? Messaging? Locations? Store design? All of the above?

And then what are the one or two major steps that need to be taken to get people wanting to check out Sears again.

Tolstoy famously said that all happy families were alike, but unhappy families are unhappy in their own way. But I've always found that unhappy businesses are pretty much all alike. Something they're doing or saying, or NOT doing or saying, is failing to turn up prospects, and converting those prospects into customers.

So, in broad strokes, figure out what Sears has to do in order to make themselves vital again. Then see if that solution (or a similar solution) is the same thing that would put some coal in DCI's furnaces.

(Since I posed the question, I'll also pose an observation; the biggest problem, to me, is that Sears is a generalist concept in a specialized world. If I'm shopping for tools, I'll go to Home Depot. Appliances, an appliance store. Tires? NTB (originally owned by Sears, ironically enough). They're still acting as the world's biggest mid-price general store, at a time when people want to either go to a category specialzed big boxes like Dicks, or Lowes, or price leaders like W-M, or the half-step up from W-M with Target.

In this case, trying to be everything to everyone has left them without as strong a product message or attitude as they need. I'd say the same is true with DCI these days.)

Edited March 8, 2013 by Slingerland

[BRASSO]

Something that SoundSport and DLB can help alleviate...

Good observation.. and I hope you are correct that it does provide the national Drum Corps fans something beyond the annual 45 week " lockdown " in live performances that the national fan base incurs now each and every year.

Edited March 8, 2013 by BRASSO

[BRASSO]

So since I mentioned the infamous "Schlitz Example" earlier, here's a side conversation that might have some benefit here.

I just hired you as a consultant to map the turnaround of an iconic American institution. I want you to fix Sears.

===

They were once the biggest retailer in the world, but now they're dead in the water. Same store sales are flat or falling, closing massive amounts of stores hasn't helped improve the bottom line, and their online business, while better than nothing, isn't taking the place of what they used to do in catalog sales.

Here's what they have that's working. Land's End. Inexplicably popular, but profitable, so a win is a win. But the Sears stores themselves? not so much.

So what's the problem? Market position? Product mix? Messaging? Locations? Store design? All of the above?

And then what are the one or two major steps that need to be taken to get people wanting to check out Sears again.

Tolstoy famously said that all happy families were alike, but unhappy families are unhappy in their own way. But I've always found that unhappy businesses are pretty much all alike. Something they're doing or saying, or NOT doing or saying, is failing to turn up prospects, and converting those prospects into customers.

So, in broad strokes, figure out what Sears has to do in order to make themselves vital again. Then see if that solution (or a similar solution) is the same thing that would put some coal in DCI's furnaces.

While I applaud the " thinking outside of the box " here, if I want to to improve an enterprise ( like DCI ), I wouldn't look to a failing model ( ie, " Sears " ) to find out what they are doing wrong and why they are gong wrong... I would avoid them like the Plague and look instead at what successful enterprises like " Amazon ", for example, did to cut into the once successful Sears operation. I wouldn't examine unsuccessful companies for lessons learned ( although to be sure there are lessons to ber learned here), I would instead focus my energies on what successful companies did to make themselves successful. Many become a successful " me too " operation by replicating many of the things that the initial successful business did, sometimes even cutting into their market share...... The problem that DCI has however is that there really seems to be no enterprise quite like this one to model themselves after. And thats the rub, imo.

Edited March 8, 2013 by BRASSO

[Jeff Ream]

Then what should the number be, out of curiosity?

Because the moment anyone allows that there should be two different divisions in DCI (which most of you do), you're already acceded to the core of the proposition; that different divisions for drum corps makes sense.

From there, it's simply coming up with a rationale for how big or small the divisions should be, and what the criteria should be, whether it be size of organization, average age or participant, proficiency, or any other factor you want to plug in.

As the apocryphal quotation says, "we've already established what kinds of ladies you are, now we're just establishing the price.'

Come up with valid, marketable, understandable rationales as to why an organization might belong in one division or the other. There were a grand total of 35 drum corps who competed in Prelims last year; would it REALLY be such a "f___ you" to the whole of drum corps if slightly over half of all corps who competed were put into one division, and slightly less than half of them were in the other?

the number should be those corps that can afford to tour nationally for more than the last 2/3 weeks of the season