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Song Writing and Team Building

Song Writing and Team Building

The Song Team

This was the best team building and leadership event we've ever had. Our team is still on fire! — Delta Airlines

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Jeff@TheSongTeam.com
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team development

Local Band Review: Rockin’ the Pub with “Celtic Bridge”

February 24, 2019 by Jeff 1 Comment

Ever been to a good, authentic Irish Pub? You’d know it if you had. Dark wood, soft lighting, dark humor, darker beer, bright smiles. You know the place right? Oh, also a good Irish Pub will almost always have an acoustic duo or trio in a corner playing a combination of foot-stompin, Celtic drinking songs, and cry me a river Irish ballads.

At The Field, on Griffin Road every Thursday, Friday and Saturday night a trio called “Celtic Bridge” takes the stage. And as I experienced last night, the regulars at THIS Irish Pub, love their string-band music. Man, do they!

Celtic Bridge is comprised of John Schreiber – bass, guitar, vocals, Roisin Dillon – fiddle, and Ade Peever -guitar, vocals.

The band plays a mixture of traditional Irish jigs and reels, Irish and Scottish folk songs, original songs, and popular music from various genres. The band borrows liberally from the catalog of The Clancy Brothers with Tommy Makem, Christy Moore, Van Morrison and The Chieftains, Dick Gaughan, Robert Burns, Lunasa, Crooked Still, Planxty, Andy Irvine, and Paul Brady. They also sprinkle in original songs by Ade Peever, original tune arrangements by John and Roisin, and the occasional mountain, old-time and Appalachian influenced tunes.

Ade and John have a great stage presence, and it’s clear to anyone paying who is attention, that these guys LOVE the collaborative music-making process. For them, making music is not just a collaboration between musicians on the stage….but also a joint exercise in merry, melody making with the audience themselves.

And Roisin on Fiddle simply rocks. She’s played in string bands all around the world, and these days Hollywood is very fortunate to have her as the string shredder of the house band at our own local establishment.

The band takes requests, cues the audience when to clap on certain songs, stomp their feet on others….or chime in with a line of a song such as “I think I’ll have a pint!” All of this interaction leads to a truly unique evening of entertainment. Playing live music requires a live audience if you know what I mean. Certainly, some kinds of music engage in different ways, but in a genre and setting which demand a true give and take with the audience, these guys didn’t let us down.

About halfway through the 2nd set, The fellow on the barstool next to me walked up to the stage and dropped a few bucks in the request jar. “Galloway Girl”, an old Irish ballad was the tune he wanted to hear. As the band plowed through this emotional melody, I looked his way through the corner of my eyes. I could see he was tearing up during the first chorus. Who doesn’t love a good cry?

This song was followed by foot stompers and hand clappers such as “Finnegan’s Way”, and “The 200-Year-Old Alcoholic.” These songs that I was previously unfamiliar with, now are on my list to look into further, and maybe even learn myself to have some fun on the guitar. The songs of the Irish are often poignant, often festive, and often humorous. Sometimes, all in the same title.
I can’t wait to dig deeper into original recordings by Ade and visit again with these guys. They make Hollywood proud. If you want to visit them check out their Facebook page for more information. Another Guinness please barkeep!

Email Jeff Jacob if you have a local band you’d like us to check out!

Find the original article here.

Filed Under: Corporate Team Building, Leadership, Musical team building, Songwriting Events, team building, Team building Florida, The Song Team - Team Building Blog Tagged With: celtic bridge, celtic music, Fiddle, irish pub, john schreiber, river irish ballads, scottish folk song, team building, team building in florida, team development, the song team

A Lesson from Google on Keeping Your Employees – (Sharing from Adam Vacarro)

February 14, 2014 by Jeff Leave a Comment

Google’s decision to place senior vice president of advertising (and employee No. 16) Susan Wojcicki at the helm of YouTube offers an important lesson about retaining employees.

Re/code reports that Wojciki had recently had some of her responsibilities on Google’s senior executive team split with fellow SVP Sridhar Ramaswamy. Moving on from Google wasn’t out of the question. “Wojcicki had been interested in running her own thing [and] had also been a recruitment target for a venture capital or perhaps a CEO role,” the website reports.

Google’s dilemma–a high-performing worker wanting to give her leadership skills a whirl–can come up at any company. You might not be able to hand your employees the keys to a brand as powerful as YouTube, but you can let them scratch their itch by letting them launch their own projects under your umbrella. In other words, you can retain your top talent by encouraging a culture of intrapreneurship.

I know, I know. The term is one that causes many business owners to roll their eyes. It’s been found in the pages of Inc. since the 1980s, but rarely is it clear exactly how a small business with a distinct focus can realistically expect to let every employee chase her dream.

A few months back though, I was able to interview the leader of an Inc. 5000 company–Kansas-based marketing firm DEG Digital–about the company’s dedication to encouraging intrapreneurial endeavors. Among the feathers in CEO Neal Sharma’s cap: More than half of all DEG employees have a different title than the one they were hired with by the end of their first year at the company.

Sharma related the story of then-DEG web strategist Cara Olson, who years ago told him she wanted to leave the company to launch her own email marketing startup. Sharma listened to her idea, then asked her whether she’d want to stick around and launch the project for DEG. Eight years later, Olson manages 30 employees, and email marketing is one of the company’s biggest business units.

Weigh Your Interests

The obvious and important caveat about Olson is that she didn’t want to start a recipe blog or open a coffee shop. It’s unlikely that Sharma would have let her do so on DEG’s time. She wanted to start something that made sense for DEG to have under its umbrella.

So it’s important to clarify that for small businesses, an intrapreneurial initiative should be judged on its fit with your company. Sharma says he tries to approach every employee-pitched project as a venture capitalist would, thinking about the kinds of returns it could ultimately net DEG. At the same time, it’s necessary to weigh how well you can afford to lose that employee.

In the case of Wojcicki, Google’s brass clearly didn’t want to lose her. She’s been with the company since some of its earliest days; the company even operated out of her garage for a time. Putting her in charge of YouTube keeps everybody happy.

Google’s experience with Wojcicki doesn’t perfectly mirror DEG’s with Olson, but both drive home one obvious, yet easy-to-forget point: One key asset you have in your effort to retain top employees is, when reasonable, to let them do what they want.

 

 

Filed Under: Corporate Team Building, team building, The Song Team - Team Building Blog Tagged With: Corporate Team Building, employee engagement, leadership, leadership and team building, nashville team building, songwriting team building, team building, team development

Technology as part of the team: Songwriting and team building

October 29, 2013 by Jeff Leave a Comment

Technology as part of the team was our topic this past weekend at The Keen Digital Summit at the Omni hotel in Nashville was a truly inspiring, and enlightening event. With so many entrepreneurs, social media gurus, marketers and designers in one place…MAN, the ideas and solutions were flowing. So much information was transferred back and forth, amazing networking. Really it felt great to be a part of this inaugural event put together by Kristin Luna and Scott Van Velsor. Amazing presentations from Chefs, bloggers, designers and even Hub Spot blew the lid off my creativity tea-pot!!

Sharing the overall bill/speaking platform with the likes of Jairek Robbins and Mark Montgomery www.findyourflo.com was very cool. Both of these guys are at the top of their game creatively and have accomplished so much relative to their ages on the timeline…so to speak.

For my part, it was rewarding at a “Tech Conference” to be well-received with the message of technology as PART of the team, rather than as a replacement for vital team members. Unique thinkers, creative problem solvers, passionate inventors, skilled workers will always have a place in successful organizations. There is NO app, that will replace these folks. Nope, no way, no how.

And sharing the commonalities between successful collaborative songwriting and team building, was joyous.

Filed Under: Corporate Team Building, Songwriting Events, The Song Team - Team Building Blog Tagged With: Corporate Team Building, corporate team building nashville, jaerik robbins, leadership, team building, team building nashville, team development

Team & Technology at Keen Digital Summit – The Song Team

October 28, 2013 by Jeff Leave a Comment

Team & Technology. There is NOT and will NEVER be an “app” for that. Meaning – That Technology in all it’s grandeur, will never take the place of dedicated, inspired, talented, unique team-members. How do you assemble YOUR team?

Filed Under: Corporate Team Building, Songwriting Events, The Song Team - Team Building Blog Tagged With: Corporate Team Building, keen digital summit, leadership and team building, songwriting teambuilding, team and technology, team building, team development

Building a Great Team – A Dentist's Chair View

March 18, 2013 by Jeff Leave a Comment

If you have work to be done on your teeth, please take note. The following describes a situation that might make you LOVE going to the Dentist. This is not your typical open up and say “ah” experience.

Building a great team is not easy. Developing that team once in place so that it performs consistently at championship level, may be even more challenging. However, Dr. James Munro and his amazing cast at Belle Forest Dental in Bellevue, just a few minutes west of Nashville proper…. are Oscar-worthy in the quality, scripting and demeanor of their service. From the moment you walk into their office “living room” with its West Elm sense of modern, open décor you are swept into feeling as though you are in a spa. Complimentary beverages of a very wide variety await you in their help yourself, guest fridge. Watch the program of your choice on their huge flat screen TV, or assuming it’s not being utilized at the time, take a seat in their highly effective, full body massage chair, isolated in it’s own “Zen” room complete with waterfall sounds, and soft lighting to set the mood. This part of your experience really helps reduce your stress level before entering the inner sanctum.

None of this even begins to touch upon how genuinely friendly, extremely knowledgeable, or efficient the cogs turn here. Susan and Connie in the front desk area are amazing. “What flavor smoothie would you like when you’re finished?

“What’s that,” you say?

“Yes, with fresh fruit, we make a smoothie for you to take with you when done with your procedure! “

Brilliant. This clinic not only goes above and beyond in every aspect of your clinical experience with them, before, during and post-procedure….BUT they also stand by their work. If there is an issue with something that has been done, and you’re not happy with a result, they will take care of it. (Disclaimer – within reason. If you go and bash your teeth on a microphone or with a baseball bat…I wouldn’t expect any help here.)

The staff at Belle Forest Dental truly illustrates the winning definition of TEAM to me. Together Everyone Achieves More.

Filed Under: Corporate Team Building, The Song Team - Team Building Blog Tagged With: Collaboration in the workplace, Corporate Team Building, songwriting teambuilding, team building, team development, write a song build a team

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