-Can they thrive in the unstructured yet fast-paced environment of a startup?  Can they 'roll up their sleeves' and make a difference?  Will they be a cultural fit?  For example, the resume from someone that has worked at a large company for many years most likely would not have many encouraging signals that they would excel in the startup world.

-For business development/sales candidates, can they be effective on the 'sell-side'?  It's one skillset to do 'buy side' biz dev at a large media company where everyone is pitching you to license them.  Quite another to try and strike distribution deals when you're at a little known startup.  

-Advisory vs Operational. Often times people from advisory professions like consulting, law or advertising want to 'go client side' and on the operational side.  A history of being on the advisory side is very much a yellow flag for hiring managers at startups when looking at candidates.  Again it's a different skill-set to be an operator vs. advisor and so it's important to show evidence that you can 'get things done'.

-Why us?  Having and showing passion for the mission at hand goes a long way, especially with early stage startups.    There are many ways of showing this interest to your prospective employers.

I could go on but, if you don't come from an obvious background that a startup would consider, get creative about how you can signal to them that you'll be a risk worth taking. 

As many of you know, I just returned from a nearly 3-week vacation in India.  This time I travelled with some friends who had never been.  It was instructive to see a familiar land through the eyes of foreigners.  Among the things they noticed...

Children everywhere. For instance they took note of how there seem to be children everywhere.  The median age in India is way under 30 so it’s not surprising but the number of young people around was striking when this was pointed out to me.  These people will want education, jobs and to be able to spend their income in the decades to come spelling opportunity and risk for the country.

Mobile rules.  From the very rich to poor villagers, everyone seems to have a mobile phone.  We even saw a beggar with one!  There is no doubt that the rise of mobile adoption has changed lives for the better.  For instance, check out the work that SMSONE around micro-local news.

A spiritual land. We’ve all read about how India is a place for spirituality and religion.  It is, after all, a land that has spawnded 4 major world religions and countless sects.  My friends marvelled at how prominent a role religion plays from the colorful, roadside shrines to the figurines on car dashboards adorned with fresh flowers.  I’ll never forget the sight of a merchant praying to Ganesha before opening his store, even as I waited.

The filth.  It must be said that India is a filthy place with trash (and worse) littering the streets.  This is not something I needed a foreigner’s eyes to see and, in fact, has always been one of my biggest frustrations with my homeland.   People think nothing of tossing trash out the window of their car.  What a shame as it is otherwise such a beautiful land. 

Cricket.  Many people know how popular cricket is in the country but, as my friend remarked, he hadn’t seen a single field or open space where people weren’t playing cricket.  One of the highlights of our trip was playing with the adolescents of Rohet, a village outside Jodhpur in Rajasthan.

The kaleidoscope of colors.  I had taken these for granted but it is amazing to see the richness of color – from billboards and wall posters to the clothing to the trucks.  My friend loved the way the trucks were adorned with markings unlike the eyesores in the West.  One amazing sight was walking into a department store’s sari & bridal section and taking in the colors and fabrics being strutted out to the potential customers.

There were many other observations I’m glad I got to see India through a different lens this time around.

To sum up: boy from Brooklyn raised by single mom gets scholarship to Exeter. Gets into music/A&R. Ends up producing & rapping on Fugees' The Score multi-platinum record. Makes lots of money. Spends it. Dropped by label. Gets into drug dealing to earn money.  Gets caught, sentenced to 14 years. Sentence commuted by Pres Bush thanks to Carly Simon & Orrin Hatch.  Now performing music, teaching & working with prisoners' charities.

I remember hearing about Pres. Bush commuting his sentence and thinking that it wasn't right for someone to not pay their dues because of their celebrity.   I was wrong.  Taught me a lesson of not judging without knowing the facts.  There is no doubt about his guild however he's certainly contributing a lot more to society outside of prison than locked up.  I hope he continues to make great music.

I recently spoke to someone looking into starting an online content venture.  He has an idea for a video/podcast series that would fulfill a gap in the market.  He comes from a 'traditional media' and production background and had questions on the monetization front.  To boil it down, he has 3 options:

1. Charge users: Given the type of content, this is unrealistic although there could be incremental revenue to be had via mobile and download distribution.  But it would be incremental at best.
2. Get sponsors to underwrite it: It's a concept that would do well in a sponsorship format.  The trick here is to get the sponsor.  It is tough to do so if one has no relationships, no audience (remember, this is in concept phase) and no track record in getting an audience.  He is very credible on the content front so advertisers would have no doubt on the quality of the content, but how would a sponsor know how much and what kind of audience they would reach?  Some sites sell content sponsorships on spec but these tend to have established relationships and a track record established their credibility.
3. Sell/license concept to distributor:  Like most production companies, he could bring in a distributor - everyone from a tv broadcaster to a portal like myspace or aol - to fund the production and, depending on the terms, license it outright or share risk/upside. 

It's first come, first served unless you're one of the 50 lucky lottery winners (out of 9000 total raffle entries) who get to enter first.  So the diehards end up camping outside the RCA for up to a few days beforehand.  I showed up at around 7:30 am (very ambitious for me on a Saturday!) and the queue was very long by then.  Alas, after 3 and a half hours of waiting, I was just getting to the building entrance where I faced another 40 minute wait, which posed a dilemma: I'd queued so long in the cold but yet I also had to leave to make it to a football (soccer) commitment.  In the event, I couldn't let my teammates down and so, grudginly, left the line.  I came back around 2:30 pm and, not surprisingly, most of the artwork was gone.  I was one of the last people to buy and bought a couple works that were left.  I'm not sure they do it for me yet but I was glad to support a good cause as the proceeds go to fund the RCA and its students.

Just back from the Monaco Media Forum and following are some observations:

• The free vs. paid debate was top of mind.  The debate between Arianna Huffington and Mathias Dopfner was the best industry related panel discussion that I can remember.  Rafat agrees.  The two actually agreed on a lot but, when they disagreed, they were articulate, scathing yet respectful, and funny.  
• Jon Miller said it well that there are tensions out there that will get resolved in the coming 18 months.  I thought he was a great speaker as well.  Rafat made him squirm but he held his own.
• There wasn't much talk of the recession/financial crisis.  Yes, it was mentioned now and again but most people seemed to be looking forward.  This is a good thing.
• There is latent discontent with ad agencies and the agency model from marketers.  I spoke to a couple and they complained about the cost structure of their agencies for what they get and that their agencies still didn't get digital.  I sense disruption in the big agency model in the next 5 years.
• Spencer Reiss had a last-minute addition to the quick pitches with Feng Jun of Aigo.  They are the largest digital consumer product company in China with over 1000 employees.  It made it clear how American/Western European the conference was.  More speakers/people from so-called emerging markets would enrich the experience.
• The invite-only aspect of the event made for high quality attendees/networking.
• Monaco is as glitzy and classy as they make it out to be.  Walking into the dinner at the hotel de Paris felt like the set of a Bond movie.  The decor was ornate, gilded and roccoco.  Very impressive.  But I couldn't live there.  I was craving a slice of pizza at night and, of course, nothing to be found.

I just came across two great Web-only music video series:

Black Cab Sessions:  They get artists to do a song in the back of a London black cab, often after they've just played a gig.  It's great to see artists like Lykke Li and The Walkmen in such a stripped down form. I like the touch of having the cabbie do the intro.

The Takeaway Shows:  In a similar vein to the Black Cab Sessions, and in their own words: "Every week, we invite an artist or a band to play in the streets, in a bar, a park, or even in a flat or in an elevator, and we film the whole session. Of course, what makes the beauty of it is all the little incidents, hesitations, and crazy stuff happening unexpectingly. Besides, we do not edit the videos so they look perfectly flawless, instead we keep the raw sound of the surroundings. Our goal is to try and capture instants, film the music just like it happens, without preparation, without tricks. Spontaneity is the keyword.

The Take away shows exist since April 2006. There was Chryde, who wanted to shake things up and find another way to share music, and there was Vincent Moon, who wanted to film music differently. Chryde offered Moon to go and film musicians in the city, Moon seized the idea and glorified it. Since then, other directors across the world joined this project, and we plan to extend it worldwide."

I love seeing bands up close and stripped down.   In the case of the latter, I like the story behind the shoot that accompanies every post and the unguarded moments - like Zach Condon of Beirut walking the streets of Paris.  The Sigur Ros performance in the Paris cafe is surreal and spectacular.  This is what the Internet video is all about.

[Hat tip to my gigmate Lisa for pointing these out to me.]