LESSONS for CULTURE + BUSINESS SUCCESS ?

THE FATE OF ‘OBSCURE DVDs’ – LESSONS for CULTURE + BUSINESS SUCCESS ?

Part !

Introduction

I set out to write a short blog, and ended with a longer one.

I therefore decided to post it in five separate segments.

To make it easier on you to read and - hopefully - savor it.

Dr. Dinnah

The New York Times, Arts and Leisure Section, Sunday March 4, 2007. Two disparate items caught my eye, and mind, and heart.

On page 4, in FILM, A.O. Scott informed us that a new DVD will appear of the 2004 “WOMAN IS THE FUTURE OF MAN”. The Korean director of that film, HONG SANG SOO, we are told, “belongs to a fast-growing category of international filmmakers, masters at the height of their powers, who remain almost entirely unknown in the United States.”

THE DOWNTURN IN DVD BUSINESS

On page 14, Bryan Reesman places a Title or Heading that does not do justice to his detailed, and thought provoking discussion of the DVD business difficulties: “For Obscure DVDs, A Precarious Future.’

He enumerates the various forms in which the DVD business has been stymied and economically hammered.

He also reminds us that in the beginning, DVDs provided renewed life to old artsy movies, and to various forms of films that do not fall into the ‘mainstream.’

He raises the business question:

who will be able to supply interested buyers with movies, old or new, that belong to those very special or specific ‘niches’ (‘obscure’ is his term ) ?

He also raises a larger question: What will happen to American Culture, already largely homogenized, when the small companies that have given DVD form to the quirky movies can no longer do so ? How will it be possible to interrupt the flattening influence of the major studios and large retail stores ?

FOREIGN MOVIES ARE MY HOBBY

Disclosure:

I LOVE foreign movies, and have a special soft spot for Korean, Chinese, and Japanese movies.

I am also very interested in the dialogue between movies and culture.AND between movies and business.

WHAT’S THE KEY TO A BUSINESS’S SUCCESS?

There is however a central question that keeps coming up for me.

I am a Business Development and Executive Coach because I am always studying the answer to the questions: what makes a business succeed ?

In the discussion of ‘Obscure DVDs’, there seemed to be only one business option or outcome: down down down we go.

Yet my experience leads me to observe the elements relating to a second, sister question:: ‘What will enable a business to succeed in a given situation, when others do not ?’

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All Rights Reserved C 2007 Dinnah G. Pladott , Ph. D.