It is a technology that so goes against the grain of the status quo as to undermine said status quo, yet the disruptive technology remains so untested that it is hard to measure. The premise continues that said companies are so fueled by the need for growth that they wait to see where the wave will hit before engaging. Then, of course, they've missed the wave. To deal with this kind of change, Christensen believes that you must deal with small markets — but small markets don't solve the needs of large companies.

In essence, there is no way to forecast what a disruptive technology will unveil to the market. Markets that don't now exist cannot be evaluated, therefore we have to be willing to go and explore, and attempt (and yes, sometimes fail) to find answers. Unfortunately, Marc Geiger, Don Muller and Steve Rennie did not succeed with ARTISTdirect (or, maybe fortunately for me in getting Don), but their vision was unique and their idea will bear fruit in the future.

....Here is how Youth Intelligence breaks these groups down.

When researching the 14- to 30-year-olds, here are some of the interesting tidbits that came out of their research, and I highlight these as I don't want to just bore you with numbers.

Sixty-nine percent said they did not consider downloading songs without paying to be illegal. Eighty percent said that the venue in which a concert took place was either somewhat important or very important. Eighty-six percent said ticket price was somewhat or very important to deciding on going to a show.

If you had the opportunity to go to the NACPA lunch today, you saw research by the Nielsen Company on this same group saying that teens are creatures of habit that rarely move beyond the "Core Four" activities: movies, TV, video games and hanging out. Parents are comfortable with the Core Four because they are safe.

Where is the concert experience? When the same study asked about leisure time, watching TV, listening to music, being online, playing video games and talking on the phone dominated the day. AC Nielsen notes that they found it interesting that attending a live concert doesn't even come into play as an option. This study is a fascinating look into the teen-age mind and what they think of the concert experience, which is not much. Looking at these numbers, we are looking down the barrel of a gun.

We are looking at generations of kids and young adults who don't have the passion for the concert experience and are not anxiously looking to find out. It is not my place to run through the whole report, but I hope NACPA will share it with everyone at some point as I believe it will spark great discussion and hopefully some innovation.