More than ten years ago I started Echoes as a pet project to deliver a single sound walk. Since then it’s been a rollercoaster, and we’re now at a major crossroads. As a music graduate, I thought I might end up becoming an academic, but little did I know that this quixotic hobby would become a global platform used by thousands.
Echoes has been a mainstay of the locative audio and now AR (Augmented Reality) audio field for many years, and I’m very proud of where we’ve got to, from a personal point of view, and as a community. Now I have begun a process to invert how Echoes works, and make our community the power behind the business.
Echoes, as a business, has been financially supported by ‘whitelabel’, custom app or technology work – building apps for clients. We also receive income from our memberships, but historically this has been far outweighed by building technology for our clients. We have maintained a reasonable balance in this approach, and although it’s intense, stressful and also hard work, it has been sustainable. We’ve maintained a recognisable image in the sector of walking audio art, and built a niche for ourselves.
As the business owner, I’m now thinking about changing the model that Echoes operates under. In the UK, the emphasis is on creating ‘scalable businesses’ which grow and deliver capital to [more often than not] a small number of shareholders. I have had a persistent problem with this, as I believe the real value in Echoes is in its community of content creators – writers, artists, musicians, experimenters, dramaturgs, and many more. The quandary is that Echoes’ membership program charges those people – so I’ve looked for a way to give them more agency, or ways to alleviate that burden. We’ve tried to charge for tours in the past, and pass the proceeds onto the creators, or – more recently – to charge the listeners a membership fee. However, the sheer weight of such a small team running a complex company which is depended on by an increasing number of people distracts me from solving this problem.
Before I get to saying how I think we could solve this problem – how to give the content creators more power over their creations, the platform, and any potential profit from their work – it’s probably best we have a diversion into the values which govern Echoes. For a long time it’s simply been led by myself and a small, part-time team, with a few core values which define how it operates. To this date, I have had complete control over functionality, direction, and business decisions, but I’ve always followed these few guiding principles. They have been loosely defined so far (although clear to me) and expressed to everyone I’ve spoken to:
A strong focus on audio
My background is in music and experimentation. There is a huge amount that can be done with an audio experience that uses place. I strongly believe that this is a medium that is only just beginning to be properly explored.
A ‘phone-in-pocket’ experience
There are too many distractions in modern life, especially one as under-recognised as the ubiquitous glaring screen of the mobile phone. The beauty of walking audio is that you can just turn the phone display off and concentrate on what’s around you, and audio being played to you. It could be a mindful or a fully-engaging theatrical experience.
Content agnostic
From the very start, Echoes has been about experimentation. We started with the principle of ‘sound and location’ – placing a sound in a given location. The features we’ve built are designed as far as possible without a particular use in mind. We’re not expecting you to build a musical experience, or an audio tour, we’re offering you tools to create something special.
Sound in location
I don’t talk about ‘sound mapping’ because that would be confusing the map with the territory. Listening to sounds which are placed on a map is not the same as physically being in a place and listening to a work which is composed with what you’re looking at or where you’re standing, or what you’re smelling in mind. That’s why we’ve never allowed people to ‘copy’ walks to other places – it violates this principle. That’s also why this is a medium distinct from concert hall performance or armchair listening. It’s an artistic medium, or a medium for expression which is intrinsic to place, to the sense of identity, to the geography.
The big idea
I would now like to empower the artists which fuel Echoes to lead its future, be at the vanguard of audio walks, sound walks, locative audio, audio AR and more. To do this I am proposing we switch to a community-led model through a community buyout scheme where the community invests in and owns the business. This enables them to take control of the way Echoes does everything. They would shape its business model, alter its membership schemes, its publishing mechanisms, and help the community to grow, bring new skills into the fold and let it take flight.
A few have asked where I’ll be in all this. The answer is that I’m currently at the centre of Echoes – a bit like an overworked despot – but I’d like to help this process by doing a few things. The first is dumping all my knowledge about the platform and making it accessible to all, potentially through a wiki. The second is through me taking a different role once we’ve switched to a community-led model – as an artistic director or maybe just as a board member – but still being accessible and beholden to the community.
How we’ll go about transitioning to this model is beyond the scope of this article, but if you want to express an interest in becoming a part of it, you can tell us through this link.
I believe in the possibilities that Echoes offers, the power of the community we’ve built, and unlocking the potential of a beautiful and sweet-sounding future.