Mastering the Art of Networking in Music

In this episode of Sound Connections we will have Turo Pikari. He is really interesting to talk with. Actually, when I'm traveling and I'm in conferences, he is my favorite person to hang with. A lot of people feel that about him. Uhh he is what I would call a master networker. Hope you can learn something from it.

Hi, Turo, and welcome to Sound Connections! Hello, great to be here! I met you first time in By:Larm a couple of years ago but I've come to know since that you are quite a legendary person in the Nordic music industry. Probably, the European music industry because everywhere I go uh people ask me do you know Turo and I do know Turo but apparently everyone knows you so there's something you're doing uh as Turo that is working when it comes to network and that is sort of what we want to dive in today we want to talk about you we want to talk about networking we want to talk about entrepreneurship with that context but thank you for being here Turo you sit in Finland yes in

Helsinki right now yeah and uh I love Helsinki I love Finland I've been doing a lot right now you work with music Finland but you've done a whole bunch of stuff could you for my sake in listener's sake tell a bit about you where do you come from and what's your what's your journey until now yeah sure so uh basically tell a bit of my background uh since I was very young uh I've just been a passionate music lover uh I started to collect finals uh in the age of five or six uh I guess and uh already uh when I was when I was a teenager I had quite strong uh at that time physical social

networks are with people uh were other artists or are in some way uh related to music uh in Finland and I've always had a passion for new technologies uh so uh like many people in the music business uh I'm also a failed artist when I was I don't know 13 14 years old um I was playing uh Sonic Youth reminding uh noise Rock I had green hair but nothing came out of that so uh finally when I graduated from the University of Helsinki from The Faculty of political and social sciences

uh I still had the idea that uh I'd like to work in some way in the music industry uh and it did happen quite sooner after that and basically my entry to the business uh was done with the help with my skills in research and uh Knowledge from EU policy and funding uh from my studies uh but I did get some help also uh from my friends in the business at that time uh my entry to the music business uh was from telsto The Finnish collection societies uh it was probably around 14 years ago

I just contacted them and offered my expertise and uh eventually I was hired even though they weren't exactly looking for anyone and that's how things got started and I uh in the early days uh I was working as a research manager uh kind of also a trend an analysts there but uh I was really lucky because I also had a chance to uh develop my own career there and uh at some point I started to lead the Innovation actions and R D or tail store we were the first collection

Society in the world who launched uh an in-house Innovation lab uh in 2016 and uh I was doing uh future foresight and strategy work for them uh leading out they also data strategy work and data transformation uh for several years and during that time uh I basically started to develop my International networks also of course also tells those International networks and that gave the possibility to start to work with many International peoples and companies not just in

the music business but also tech companies and other types of organizations um right now uh I'm working for music Finland the export office for the Finnish music industry as their Innovation and Business Development next executive basically uh climb I'm overseeing all our International operations for labels Publishers management agencies artists songwriters mainly in the commercial music field uh but I'm also in charge of our research and Innovation activities across sector collaboration external funding at the moment so what do you say there's a lot of network involved

there's a lot of working with people and seeking out new people and connections um very direct question what do you believe is the essence of networking in the Museum Industry uh it plays a very crucial role I believe music business probably more than many other businesses uh it's still a very human-centric and a lot of business is actually done uh with people that you have a personal relationship with so that's something that from my perspective makes it still quite unique do you have any idea of how that might be does that come from country

culture or like what why does why is it so different than so many other Industries I don't know how maybe a lot of a lot of people who end up uh in the music industry are they are very passionate people uh yeah and they really they really love what they are doing so that might be one reason yeah so the human interaction the human resonance around music itself brings people together um that makes a lot of sense but one important question is and I don't know that so really ask you how have you become so Central like and again as I refer to the conversation everyone knows you like how has that happened

uh well I guess uh I've done quite a lot of work uh to make that happen and uh at some point uh I started to fight uh purpose orientedly to develop my professional slash expert brand in many topics uh in many cases even more than the company brand uh I was working with and uh that's very important because I think that uh that's something that makes you stand out from the crowd uh during the time when I was working for Telstra it was

not exactly the uh the sexiest business around so uh at that time uh I really pushed myself to be an expert in innovation in the music and especially in the intersection of music and Technology around many topics and uh basically that's the main reason uh I started to get uh invitations to different places and to meet other people because when I looked on your LinkedIn and you describe the kind of the panels you've hosted the different you know conferences it's pretty much every single conference I know so I guess you must be traveling a lot and visiting these places uh quite a lot of course and uh it's

it's part of my daily job as well but working export office that's something you have to do so you say one of the ways you did it is that you framed yourself as an expert which you are um but other any other like tricks you use like is there a way to approach people in the music industry that's more effective than others like do you what's your let's call it technique yeah there's a lot of techniques of course and um uh I think I've been very successful with a couple of simple things uh mainly not too much uh

concentrating on my own product or business uh it's more about being curious and listening to people uh what they are actually doing and uh of course eventually when you are developing a meaningful relationships in the business uh you need to take care of them uh even when nothing concrete is happening uh I've been very lucky because uh I've got to know uh a lot of very uh influential human connectors who have helped me a lot to develop my networks and uh currently

I think I'm also giving it back doing the same thing for many people uh entering the business so basically always when you have a chance to offer help or opportunities for other people I always try to do that yeah but uh when it comes to techniques I think uh there's also some pre-work that you kind of need to do so identifying uh key connectors in your expertise area and of course uh going to talk to them whenever there's a chance uh to make that happen of course face to face uh

is still the king uh even though we had have all the social networks and zooms uh they are something where you can start but eventually uh to make something meaningful it's always good to see people in person and uh when it comes to conferences of course uh it's good to try also to identify the best networking events in your domain and also get to know the people who are organizing events and conferences people who are programming panels and content because sometimes they are the ones who know the most of the people and eventually when you get

invited uh to a conference or an event as a speaker uh your chances to develop your networks will grow instantly yeah that makes sense well one of the things that you haven't you mentioned a bit about you know being open to talk with people is my first experience with you was that we were in gulam and I think I met you to some after conference Gathering and I remember we just started talking and I didn't know who you were and then you accommodated me in that talk and it was only much later maybe a couple of days after I realized you know your persistent music industry and stuff so what I take took from that is a person who

is very Central in the music industry as I would call you had took the opportunity to also talk to me and give me the time of day to explain what I do without putting your own agenda force and for me that sort of inspired me a lot because again I think you've also as you said paying forward you've given me some opportunities have been very like very um happy for um but I do experience a lot of the times in the music industry that a lot of people are what I would call almost unapproachable when it comes in it's called posture and you definitely don't have that and what I love about your Approach at least as I perceive it is that you are welcoming new

connections and I think that's also what helps propose you forward in your career I do have you experienced this let's call it um reservedness of many other in music industry professionals well of course there are some people like that but uh I still think that quite a lot of people are in this business are still quite open uh open for discussion especially if they are traveling for events or something like that because they need to do that anyway if they are there but I really believe that uh I think understanding the art of Chit Chat uh

is super important because uh usually uh if you start to discuss I don't know about sports food your favorite TV shows uh they might open up a lot more upper opportunities than uh a boring discussion about the streaming black box or major level marketers yeah that makes sense so if you were to approach uh entrepreneurs or people dabbling in this space that really want to create some opportunities for themselves and they need Network of how first of all could you define how important it is to have a network and second of all can you give some

practical steps to where they would get that conferences for example but first how important do you think it is to have a network in the music industry um when I think about my current job uh networks is the most important thing uh that I have and uh it's basically all that's an organization like us can offer to our clients uh in many ways so it is a crucial role and uh if you are a young entrepreneur starting a company uh you will need uh networks uh to get some business done because uh it's very hard

just from the scratch to start to connect with people uh and talk about your new ideas or products or whatever and then to the second question because that was a really good answer like practically how we do that we've talked about conferences but we mentioned that again but if you from A New entrepreneur's Perspective how would they start by getting a network foreign conferences I believe that uh there's a couple of things uh that you can do of course uh you need to prepare yourself so uh you have to kind of

look beforehand uh who's gonna be around uh who might be useful for you but then again the most important thing is to go and talk to people which is often quite uh quite hard and uh especially in Finland we are very known uh as being the silent guys and uh if there's a I don't know a conference panel uh happening in Finland normally uh when there's a q a nobody will talk anything and uh after the discussion no one will go uh to say anything to the speakers and that's exactly what you should not do uh but uh in the music business of course uh quite often

uh there's a lot of things uh that happen uh late night uh in different networking events so uh they are the places where it's much more easier and convenient to connect with different people so uh for anybody I would just say that you have to be awake and uh try to find out what's happening uh outside the official agenda because that's where the magic often happens yeah that makes sense and it really preparedness what I also tend to do is if I'm if I'm speaking at a conference or if

I'm participating in certain talks I actually go and add all the speakers to my LinkedIn so afterwards if there's some sort of uh you know connection a talk I can follow up and say that was me and so being really proactive was like who do you want to talk to and then if you if you have an interest of having connection with that makes a lot of sense you mentioned physical meetings a king so now during the pandemic you know a lot of things have happened online and soon and all these guys right now recording over soon has that changed how the networking works in the music industry you know always it's unchanged

it has changed a bit for sure and uh it's a good thing that nowadays it's very easy to schedule calls with basically anybody in the world and uh LinkedIn is a very powerful Tool uh at least for the people who use is it uh and quite a lot in this industry do use it so uh it's really efficient but of course uh in many cases that's something where you can start things but then again uh hopefully at some point uh you can make stronger connections with those people somewhere else yep but it's still even though I'm hearing it's changing and it opens up a

lot of a lot of opportunities I still hear you saying that these physical meetings and maybe perhaps that beer at the bar is really important yep yeah well makes sense especially if it's Scandinavians with my heart yeah that's great um could you share some experiences Maybe music for them where you've really been able to use your network to provide opportunities for others because I want to put some examples behind all this um yeah sure uh I think from my perspective uh there's a lot of uh industry events in different

countries where I've been attending uh for several years already before I started to work for music Finland and uh in many ways I've been more present than the Finnish music exports in many places uh before I started to work there and of course because of that I've had a chance to uh help a lot to develop Connections in uh many new markets and uh that's probably one of the most useful things that has come out of my networks that I was developing already before that yeah and also you know my encounters with music Finland romantic music group is which

is a company I have before capella we have a small office in Finland and at every single time we needed help from any export office music videos one of the first people we called because you guys have such an intentional and networking approach and like all we connected with these guys we give you these Connections in order to grow the opportunities within Finland one of the things that you know I don't know if we've actually announced this publicly but we have uh we are and have started a department of Capilla in Helsinki um because we believe that Helsinki and Finland is an amazing music country with way too limited opportunities for music export

how do you see that developing over the next couple of years uh I'm actually feeling quite positive uh still yeah the amount of Music companies are in Finland started targeting for international markets it's uh it's relatively small and most of the businesses are very small uh but uh when it comes to the quality of the content and the talent I think we are really strong and it's not just Finland it's the nordics in general and I think uh the whole Nordic brand is quite powerful nowadays so uh wherever you go uh often people are like wow you're from the nordics you're

you're so cool and uh and it's kind of a funny thing because uh in many cases it many people don't care if you're from Finland or Norway or Denmark or Sweden it's just they are Nordic people they're cool so it's easy to approach people yeah and do you think do you think that gives an advantage on the international stage that you're from the nordics it does but at the same time I haven't seen so many uh Finnish music professionals uh as visible uh in the international Arenas and I think in Finland we like to be silent and

make the business speak itself but of course there's a lot of things you could do better as well yeah no and that's what I both love about friends that don't understand about fins it's the quiet nature of it all like it's very it's very minimalistic when it comes to communicating but that's really cool but do you think that networking is the same globally within music because right now you're talking about you know physical meeting networking sort of openness is that the same thing we will encounter on a global stage within music yeah I believe so yeah so it's a universal thing that's great and I think that also

really speaks into the importance of mastering this because it's not just for our small local market but it's a global thing so if you want any to do anything locally or globally those networks and that approach to music industry just needs to be followed which is no people bond with people and exchange that's called experiences yep that's right wow okay when looking through your CV there's a lot of really interesting things so you've been involved in initiatives like the next stage Challenge and hear me incubator um so that's a focus with training the music industry Founders and entrepreneurs

and Industry professionals as far as I understand it what is your look out on that generation of Founders and music industry professionals something happening there do you believe something has been lacking what's your general feel for this whole Space um I believe there's a lot of things happening and of course uh you mentioned him and uh next stage challenge they are like uh European programs so uh companies and entrepreneurs for many uh different countries uh it's just not about Finland but I believe it's very essential to create program programs like

these because uh they can make a huge uh impact uh in network building and also the cross-sector aspect is very important in this program so uh often it's not just about music business or not just about music startup but to match these together and this is actually something we've been doing also uh by music Finland with our uh star straps music business accelerator program that has now run for three years and uh something that we are currently working on uh with uh music tech Europe Association that is going to be founded hopefully uh during the next month so it's a

collaboration between nine different European organizations from nine different European countries really trying to develop Bridges between the traditional music industry and so and music startups and uh to develop new opportunities for collaboration experimentation funding uh knowledge yeah because that's also what a lot of what I experienced when it comes to cross-industry collaboration like one of the things I focus a lot on is of course uh investors which to some degrees across the industry collaboration well it's is that landscape um have we been underperforming as an industry like working with other Industries or is it

just me because my gender the way I see me in my generation is just really not exposed to a lot of cross-industry collaboration I might misunderstand but has that been a thing and is that developing um I believe it's going to develop uh to a better direction of course music is basically everywhere so uh there's always been uh cross-industry collaboration because music has a big role uh you know audio visual content or gaming and uh probably in the future uh more and more in new content format types XR VR whatever so uh there's been a lot of stuff

happening uh always but I think uh the problem has always been uh how to make money out of that and uh that's something uh many are still struggling with but uh there's a lot of cool stuff happening and I really believe that there's going to be more and more useful tools uh to make revenues from music also in other ones and types let's say yeah makes sense we're sort of almost rounding up the podcast and I've been really happy that we've been here um but one of the things I'm really interested in is that you've seen sort of the industry from a very like big helicopter perspective and see a lot of different areas if you were to

give an advice to a entrepreneur coming into the music industry to make a mark what would that be uh basically uh some something that I already mentioned about the Curiosity but uh I think uh in general you have to be nice to other people because that's how things happen people often like to do business invite be nice people to different places so uh with that you can already do a lot of things if you had have good ideas and uh I think

the stuff that we were just talking about uh cross-sector collaboration and how our music can actually make new revenues from different sources then nowadays that's a huge thing and I think uh during the next couple of years we're gonna see more and more uh things coming out of uh how music can basically unleash the potential from ugc platforms or uh Virtual Worlds web 3 so there's a lot of tools being developed for that I was actually super proud last month at

Walifornia Music Innovation Summit where I had a chance to host a session uh where wildly the National Broadcasting Company of Finland uh presented uh to my knowledge the first use case for a tool for tracking music usage in Roblox and uh at that time I was really proud there uh to be a guy from Finland and that's actually something that could be scaled to all of the I don't know 40 or 50 million Roblox worlds and this was something that was done with the help of Tails and also with the technology provided by a Dutch tech company Copyright Delta but uh there's a lot

of cool stuff happening in that space. Yeah no yeah Dan and whatever they do they're doing that's just amazing. Thank you. I really I really like the approach of the advice saying being nice because I think that's sort of an overviewed aspect of being entrepreneur that has this you know I want to do this and I want to build this and you know sharp elbows and everything and then they forget that if you want a big build robust relationships you got to be nice you got to resonate with people you gotta have real intentions of being honest with the other person and listening to them so I think that's a great advice to end the podcast with but Torah

what's your future what are you focusing on right now what kind of initiatives are you involved in. Uh well uh Music Tech Europe uh something that I already mentioned is some something uh that's going to get properly started uh this fall this is something I'm very excited about uh we are uh working on this together with uh Nordic Music Set from Stockholm Music Tech Norway Association uh Music Tech Germany Music Tech France Barcelona Music Tech Hub uh California from Belgium Music Innovation Hub from Italy Mezzo Evans from Greece so that's

that's something really cool and of course uh when the fall is coming normally this is a time when you start to think about next year and of course uh I hope there's gonna be a lot of a lot of cool stuff happening also uh from Music Finland's side and uh I'm also doing some work Consulting with a few tech companies and uh doing some work for EU and the Finnish government at the same time so yeah sounds like a busy life but really interesting

thank you Turo um that's amazing uh I'm so happy that we had this talk about Network I believe it's so essential and it was really great to get your Insight and your perspectives on how to do it and hopefully that's going to inspire the podcast systems to go out and network themselves and take the first steps in doing this because you probably can't build anything lasting or great without it. Thank you Toro and I'll probably see you in a couple weeks or something like that. Yep thank you bye [Music]

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