Everything I Know About Business I Learned from the Grateful Dead: The Ten Most Innovative Lessons from a Long, Strange Trip by Barnes Barry

Author:Barnes, Barry [Barnes, Barry]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781455505173
Publisher: Business Plus
Published: 2011-11-02T04:00:00+00:00

How the Dead Put Its Tribe to Work

The Deadheads became a remarkably cohesive, self-sustaining, self-regulating community that was vital to the success of the band. Its only true enemy was success: the band and its culture proved so attractive that they attracted hordes of new fans. In any culture, assimilating new members can be a serious problem. But here the beauty of a good consumer tribe comes into play: when the Deadhead community came under threat, the Deadheads themselves solved the problem. Even more fascinating, the Deadheads organized themselves using the most exciting new technology of the late 1980s: the Internet.

In 1987 the single “Touch of Grey” became a hit on the radio and MTV, and suddenly thousands more people were interested in becoming Deadheads. A cult favorite became a mainstream success, attracting fans who didn’t know the ways of the tribe. The Deadhead scene started to draw many more complaints from local officials about drug dealing, drunkenness, public urination, and illegal camping in parks and on residential streets. Neither the Dead nor the Deadheads were responsible for this, but that didn’t really matter. The band had begun to attract the bad element, and some cities and venues began banning them. The Dead were in crisis, not so much for fear of loss of revenue but loss of reputation—Deadheads were becoming known as irresponsible and unkind. That’s not who they were, and it hurt.

How did the Dead solve this problem? They asked the Deadheads for help. Lyricist Robert Hunter wrote a message that was sent out with every ticket order. “Dear Deadheads: Here we are sitting on top of the world: big record, open doors and lots of steaming plans. This raises the question of who we are—the answer is: partly us, partly you.” Hunter here reminds the fans that the Dead are a collaborative effort, demanding attention and adjustment from both sides. “There is no blanket solution to the problems caused by increasing demand, and there is no turning back. We are now the biggest ‘draw’ in the history of rock ’n’ roll. That’s not a self-congratulatory statement, rather a bald fact showing the seriousness of our logistical problem. The good old days when we were your personal minstrels have been overshadowed by a new reality which must be addressed. We are not a political, religious nor a grassroots movement; not a counterculture, drug culture nor the latest big shakes snatch-and-run glamour act. We are a symbiotic fun machine.”

Symbiotic is the key term. The band needs fans, and fans need the band. So Hunter asked the fans for help, setting up some rules for parking lot vendors, asking fans for patience, and reminding them that “this wasn’t meant to be a private party.”

Deadheads took up the challenge, using the most democratic of emerging technologies. In 1986 a group of Deadheads had started a Grateful Dead discussion board on an early online community known as “The Well,” and it really took off—Deadheads tended to be well educated and affluent, the same demographic that tended to be early adopters of technology.

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