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| All good points Steve, and small ones at that! What 
is that, 5 point font? :) I had to get my microfiche reader out. I wanted to offer one last analogy with 
the corporate world to reinforce our thoughts below, which may also wrap some 
warm and fuzzies around the thread...and then I'll stop. At my company, we have several layers and 
hierarchies of management, from first line managers, to directors, to 
VPs, country, business unit and function executives, to our CEO, 
which on average is about 5-8 levels from individual contributor to CEO. I guess 
you could consider these folks famous, in our own ecosystem of over 100,000 
employees. Many of these executives put in some intense work days, often 
16-18 hours a day, talking to customers, traveling the world, speaking, 
making high impact decisions, etc. They live their jobs and they get paid 
accordingly. Whenever anyone think they have a busy job, even a professional 
musician, they should conceptualize the job of a corporate executive. They are 
extremely high stress, high accountability, and time intensive...and their heads 
are on the chopping block to drive results for the company. They don't 
entertain, they drive the health of the company, upon which many peoples' 
careers and lives are at stake. Moreover, typically we will have third 
and fourth level executives who rarely exchange emails with teams of individual 
contributors (non-people manager). That is just the way they do business and it 
is their management style. Neither right nor wrong. However, on occasion, a high 
level executive will actually participate in an email discussions with team of 
individual contributors, because they feel it is important to be present on the 
front lines. And they will do this on a regular basis. MAIN POINT: I can say from experience that this 
above interaction between executives and employees generates a lot of positive 
morale in the company, and generally creates more respect of our leaders when 
they do this.  It makes people feel good to know that their leaders and 
visionaries care about what they think, talk to them, listen to them, engage 
them, etc.  It breaks down those idealistic walls of proletariat and 
bourgeoisie. I think the same can be the case for the music 
industry. And we've even seen it on our very own LD list. Just recently, a well 
known looper posted something on our list, and it appeared that people liked 
this...it brightened up their day and outlook on the list, their art, etc. And I 
have to believe that if a famous looper can increase the morale of a discussion 
group and make people feel good about what they do, inform them, offer bits of 
advice and wisdom, etc....that the feeling will be mutual. Usually, when we do 
good things that make others feel good, it makes us feel good ourselves. So it 
can be a win-win situation. And this is why I really value the opinons and 
interaction of loopers like Steve Lawson, Rick Walker, Sunao, and many others 
who do this for a living and our representing us on the front lines of the 
looper world. Every time you post to the list, you help build a positive morale 
and a stronger infrastructure of the community.  Kris 
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