Raise your credibility score!

I’ve written on this before, but I think there’s some new pearls here from Scovi in one of his breakouts at Willow this year. Such an important part of the game that is live audio is making the artist comfortable with you regardless of what your actual skills are. So often audio guys keep the gig because of a high credibility score and it has absolutely nothing to do with audio skills. It’s important to show people we’re really together, organized, ready to go…they can trust us. Nothing will serve the team better then you being a trusted, professional engineer. God is in the details – why aren’t we detailed people? Develop into a detail oriented pro!

Poorly handled “tasks” can be the enemy of your credibility. Things in the wrong places on stage, no power, not on time, not ready to go.

“The difference between greatness and mediocrity is not measured by the quality of tools at your disposal – rather the quality of the approach.” Over rated, under paid dude with lots of TEC awards on his shelf

Here’s some ideas on how to improve your score that are really close to my heart right now…

Be accountable as the audio engineer. It’s really simple to say but can be much harder to do. This behavior is infectious and nothing will raise your credibility score more than saying its my fault, I did that, and then making sure it never happens again. That last part is most important because you’ll only be allowed to mess up so many times and it will be time to find a new seat on the bus or a new role to play. Learn from every mistake and only make the same ones once.

Do not make problems mysterious. Digital consoles don’t do things all by themselves – they must have human interaction. Computers seldom just hiccup. Wireless mics rarely just turn off during a service or aren’t ready for an artist on their own. Most times if something doesn’t happen the way we intended, its ultimately our fault and it requires courage, confidence, and humility to be accountable to the rest of your team.