HMV. Photo by yoppy on Flickr
An article came across my desk this morning which has been passing around my friends on Facebook, and I think it is interesting enough to share. Written by Kelvin Holdsworth, Provost of St Mary’s Cathedral, Glasgow, it looks at the collapse of the HMV music shop chain and 8 lessons we can learn from it.
Provocative stuff about how the world changed around an institution that did not change, and the fall-out from this inability to change, and the lessons for us.
What do you think? What do we have to learn from how organizations around us change (or not)?
By Kyle Norman January 17, 2013 - 9:16 pm
I wrote a similar article for our diocesan paper when my local Blockbuster folded up. I would say however that what this article misses in some semblence of Good news. The fact of the matter is when society changes the manner in which they buy music and movies, places like HMV and Blockbuster become obsolete. And while we may have to think critically about what mistakes we do NOT want to make, we are also given the assurance that there will always be a need and call for the Body of christ.
By Brian January 17, 2013 - 9:30 pm
@Kyle: Indeed! The challenge we face (as did Blockbuster and HMV) is to ignore the shifts in some of the mechanics of what we do. I wonder what we could add to this list…
By Jesse Dymond January 18, 2013 - 2:41 pm
Brian and Kyle, when I first read this blog, I couldn’t help but thinking about Sam the Record Man, and I wonder if it adds something to our lessons to be learned. For those who don’t know it, STRM was an iconic record store on Toronto’s Yonge Street, with a universally recognizable sign. When Sam Sniderman died, the business had already been struggling with changes in the industry and market. The store was closed–but a public outcry about the sign being taken down led to petitions and protests. The sign still stands. It seems people were more attached to the neon sign than they were to a business that needed financial support, and that demanded a particular style of musical consumption.
What questions does that raise for us about value? How often are we more willing to put energy into maintain a structure (whether institutional, liturgical, or architectural) while ignoring what the structure was built to facilitate?