MyBandStock: Defining Perk

MyBandStock is a revolutionary website that enables fans to support musicians through a process, enabled by the Internet, known as crowdsourcing. The idea is that fans buy "stock" in a musician, which is a monetary investment, which the musician can use to complete a project such as recording an album or touring the East Coast. Rather than receiving a financial reward for their investment, fans receive exclusive perks from the musician only available through the MyBandStock web service.

I recently had an opportunity to think about the wide variety of perks that fans may want to receive in order to induce them to purchase "stock" in a musician.

Along with two other interns working for MyBandStock this summer, we were instructed to devise as many realistic and feasible perks as possible. These two qualifiers have a drastic impact on the potential list of perks available. For instance, having these constraints eliminated the possibility of a flight to the moon or a lifetime supply of Aero chocolates (my favorite) as a perk for an investing fan.

This was no obstacle for the three music-teers (an ill-witted play on the three musketeers).

In preparing the group for this project, I proposed an interesting technique in order to develop our many ideas. I suggested that the less we think about the ideas, the easier they will come to us.

In Dr. Elizabeth Lloyd Mayer's book, "Extraordinary Knowing," she investigates some of the theories and science behind clairvoyance, ESP, and telepathy. She asserts that some of our clearest thinking occurs when we do not focus on thinking. By relaxing the posterior superior parietal lobe, deep levels of meditation can occur in which a sense of connectedness and intuition may be attained. Therefore, by opening our minds, I believed that we would best populate our perk ideas by utilizing this technique of knowing without knowing.

The results were phenomenal. Not only did this strategy allow us to come up with an ample list of perks that could be feasibly and realistically added to the current MyBandStock web service, but it also gave us new perspective on how to think about perks in general.

It occurred to us that perks come in three different, yet distinct forms. Recognizing the difference in perks will enhance the MyBandStock web service's ability to market to the appropriate demographic and will also add clarity to which sort of perk fans are most willing to invest in.

The way that our team distinguished between perks is by looking at them as:

• Access
• Merchandise
• Experience

Perks that deal with access involve exclusive insider information about the musician that can only be provided by the relationship between MyBandStock and the particular musician. By purchasing "stock" in a musician that gives one access to the perk, the fan is being admitted into an exclusive club of knowledge that they can only be admitted into by means of the MyBandStock web service.

Perks that deal with merchandise involve tangible objects that the fan can receive that relates to the musician. The extent of merchandise is limitless and musicians can determine any sort of object to personalize in their image.

Finally, perks that deal with an experience relate to opportunities that fans can engage in directly with the musician that they are a fan of. Experiences may vary, but the way that this is different from access, is that the emphasis is on the relationship formed between fan and musician, whereas, access is exclusive information.

Thinking about perks in these terms gives new scope and meaning to what a perk truly is. I think that by using this framework, MyBandStock will be able to grow their perks in the future in an organized, effective, and efficient manner that will enhance business functioning.

It was a fun assignment that I hope will add valuably to the MyBandStock web service as time progresses.

• Music For Thought