Even with overlap, at one thousand fans per artist, one million artists cannot acquire one billion true fans.  All the music lovers in the world are never going to accept and process billions of artist-initiated emails, status updates and text messages.  Pushy self-promotion doesn’t scale.  If everyone is doing it, nobody is going to do it effectively; the same applies to fundraising; fans are going to tune these messages out.  Collectively, artists and their managers are running the risk of appearing like financial planners at a cookout…occasionally invited, but often avoided.

It’s safe to play the middle, but power comes out of the ends of the battery. I use this analogy when I am talking about what to create or how to say it. Some creators have an inclination to attempt to appeal to the widest possible audience by splitting the middle. In my experience, the middle is never as large or as powerful as either end. If you are building an audience, consider appealing to the ends. Power comes out of the ends of the battery, not the middle.

When we put our minds to the task of making the most of the space between, it’s not all that surprising to learn what we can accomplish during a long commute to the office. What’s really surprising though, is to learn what we can accomplish as a bag of popcorn expands in the microwave. Small spaces are the biggest part of our days.