By George Howard   9GiantSteps, Oct 10 2009 OK, a day or so after my panel at the fantastic Future of Music Policy Summit, and I want to try and toss out a few thoughts. First off, while I’m typically not real big on conferences, I can enthusiastically recommend this one. The values of the conference and the caliber of speakers/workshops makes this - in my mind - the go-to conference. Get yourself registered for 2010 asap. So, my panel was entitled New Musician’s Toolbox. I moderated, and the panelists were: Duncan Freeman, founder, Band Metrics; Charlie McEnerney, Host + Producer, Well-Rounded Radio/Musicians for Music 2.0; and Alexis Rodich, Director of Marketing and Partner Relations, BandsinTown. Excellent panelists all, and certainly people/companies committed to adding value. I urge you to check out each of these companies. I think what really hit me about the conference was that it’s the first time where I felt like the expectations of the attendees wasn’t completely whacked. I’ve been doing these conferences for longer than I care to remember, and, in fact, it was after a conference where I spoke, in which, simply because I had the suffix “A&R” attached to my name, that my panel was over-crowded with a teeming mass of demo-wielding aspirants attempting to fast track themselves to a record deal, that I decided to write my first book telling people that foisting a demo on a fatigued record label executive in the hopes that this would somehow further your career may not be the very best strategy. read more