N=1

2012-03-07T22:38:00.000-06:00

"The schism between content creators and platforms like Kickstarter, Tumblr and YouTube is generational. It's people who grew up on the Web versus people who still don't use it. In Washington, they simply don't see the way that the Web has completely reconfigured society across classes, education and race. The Internet isn't real to them yet." Yancey Strickler

"Entrepreneurs need to be reminded that it's not the job of their customers to know what they don't. In other words, your customers have a tough enough time doing their jobs." Mark Cuban

"We believe that America is at a major digital turning point. Simply, we find tremendous benefits in online technology, but we also pay a personal price for those benefits. The question is: how high a price are we willing to pay?" Jeffrey Cole

Today's image: An Eye for Art by Rich Miller Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

Lot's of exciting things happening. Thought I would share some interesting things I've found on the way to finding other interesting things. First, this wonderful commercial for the Guardian's open journalism initiative which imagines how the Guardian might cover the story of the Three Little Pigs in print and online.

"Who decides what gets sold in the bookstore?" Seth Godin on what's happening and not happening in the book trade. He raises important issues that deserve attention and discussion. You may find the writing here and while you're there do click through and read his new Stop Stealing Dreams manifesto. Also recommended: INTERVIEW: Seth Godin on Libraries, Literary Agents and the Future of Publishing as We Know It, here

Two reads about the dead tree gang. The Collapse of Print Advertising in 1 Graph - Derek Thompson via The Atlantic, here. The latest findings from Tom Rosenstiel and team - Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism - are available. Read How Newspapers are Faring Trying to Build Digital Revenue here

Here are two good reads, I enjoyed both.

David Weinberger. Amazon info

Gary Hamel. Amazon info

I'm preordered and awaiting the new Jonah Lehrer. Amazon info

Bravos: The Flipboard team continue to do exceptional work, their iPhone app is tight and I highly recommend it. Slate debuts the Slate Book Review, a new monthly Dave Winer, the uber-cool ace of blogging (and other innovation including RSS) marks 15 years of Scripting News, here We can all learn something from Dave.

2012-02-16T20:40:00.000-06:00

Paul Gallis

1924 - 2012

Paulie Gallis was an original, a charming bigger-than-life character, a force of nature. All who had the good fortune to know him would agree, Paulie was different, a remarkable personality like no other, he was simply unforgettable. He was the affable Greek endowed with street smarts from his salad days on the hardscrabble side of Chicago. A self-made man, Paulie's endearing persona conquered all. Smitten in his youth by the bright lights of the entertainment industry, he talked his way into show business. He got in the game working for tips, running errands and doing other valet tasks for performers, vaudevillians, that played the legendary Chicago Theatre. Serving others became his life's work. He earned a sterling reputation for his uncommon dedication to clients as well as the selfless hard work, persistence, and enthusiasm he invested in every project.

Perhaps Paulie's greatest gift was his great love of life. He loved people and could be counted on to find the pure joy in every day, the hidden good in every situation. Joie de vivre! It was within his power to change the climate of any room he entered, his ability to read and work a room was peerless. Moreover, Gallis engaged all unconditionally as equals. He was as comfortable in the company of strangers as he was with his superstar clientele. He treated the unknown pick up musician and the wannabe vocalist with the same grace, respect, interest and good manners he'd routinely shown Tony Bennett and his many other famous clients and friends.

In the too often brutally competitive, harsh world of record promotion Paulie Gallis was the outlier. Known for his always refreshing sense of humor and easy going style, Gallis got the job done but he did it his way. Ever the gentleman, he is remembered as "sweet" and "nice" rare qualities indeed in the music promotion trade. He cared seriously about the work at hand however he also cared deeply about the people involved in that work. Generous to a fault, Paulie Gallis gave his name and countless hours of work to projects which offered little if any promise of a return. Kind and thoughtful, he was a mensch, the class act that made a difference whenever he was involved.

An unabashed evangelist of all things Chicago, Paulie was an exceptional and vocal advocate for the unsung greatness of his beloved Third Coast, that so-called Second City. When a label head offered him a major executive post which would have required his leaving the flatland and moving to the west coast, the now famous Gallis rejoinder was "If I feel the need to look at mountains I'll buy a can of Folgers Coffee."

Of course, no writing about Paulie would be complete without his unique calling card - those little yellow stickers he placed on the black vinyl he promoted. Truth be told, those stickers are the subject of many a good story. From Billboard's Claude Hall discovering one that just appeared on the door of his Sunset Boulevard office to rival promoters finding a THANKS from Paulie plainly visible above the coin collection basket of their home exit on the Illinois Tollway. Truly, Gallis was a savvy world-class promoter.

I feel blessed to have known Paulie Gallis, honored and humbled to say he was my dear friend. I love this incredible man and miss him much. We'll not again see his like. Sui generis. Paulie would not appreciate this writing because it's all about him and over the many years I knew him it was never about him. He wouldn't allow it. What he enjoyed was talking about others, especially his family and friends. He invariably preferred the conversation filled with genuine concern, interest, curiosity and appreciation about what everyone else was doing. As he often said to me "We're here to help other people. Who have you helped today?"

Paul Gallis photo courtesy of Fred Winston

2011-11-07T07:53:00.000-06:00

"It’s harder to imagine the past that went away than it is to imagine the future. What we were prior to our latest batch of technology is, in a way, unknowable. It would be harder to accurately imagine what New York City was like the day before the advent of broadcast television than to imagine what it will be like after life-size broadcast holography comes online. But actually the New York without the television is more mysterious, because we’ve already been there and nobody paid any attention. That world is gone." William Gibson

“Content is always shaped by the container.” Robert Tercek

"Productive paranoia is the ability to be hyper-vigilant about potentially bad events that can hit your company and then turn that fear into preparation and clearheaded action." Morten T. Hansen

Today's image: Afternoon sun by Fred Winston. Great shot. Thanks for sharing.

Welcome to the countdown. The waning days of 2011. The stage setting days which serve as the 2012 prologue. All the best to you, may you deliver your 2011 numbers and then some.

My thought is these are some of the most important issues for 2012. They deserve your attention, consideration, study, discussion and critical thinking. Thereafter, decisive action is required.

Mobile
Social
Cloud
HTML5
Data
Real-time
Revenue development
Metrics (Related: Dashboard Design)
Talent

In the coming weeks I'll blog about each issue.

On mobile, let me suggest too few media properties have made the investment required to create a solid mobile version of their website. In 2012, this is no longer optional, it's not a luxury or a nice-to-have, a mobile version of your site will be required for you to stay competitive. Having an app is fine, however, it is simply not a substitute for a great mobile version of your site.

This past week, Google began asking if you're "READY TO GO MO?" They've launched a mobile initiative that you may use to learn more about what it takes to be mobile-friendly and you may also test your site's mobility, here.

Believing it important to eat my own dog food, I was able, with Google's help, to launch the mobile version of N=1 this past summer.

Wanted: leadership in sales innovation and revenue development. Two recent exhibits of the ongoing revenue crisis in both donation-supported and ad-supported media. This round, it's broadcast television, public and commercial.

In harm's way: Ebert Presents At The Movies. Roger Ebert writes "Unless we find an angel, our television program will go off the air at the end of its current season. There. I've said it. Usually in television, people use evasive language. Not me. We'll be gone. I want to be honest about why this is. We can't afford to finance it any longer." The show is cleared in all of the top 50 markets by public stations. Affiliates get the show for free. It's produced at WTTW in Chicago and distributed by American Public Television (APT). The catch? Roger is the only source of funding. They have been unable to attract the underwriting needed to cover costs. Tragic. Read Roger's column, here.

Sales Couldn't Sell "The Simpsons" by Fred Jacobs via jacoBLOG

Bonus: Radio programming ace, Mark Edwards blogs about the first tribe of wireless. Is Local Radio Dead? In Some Ways It Is, But Owners Don't Know It Yet, here

2011-10-31T05:30:00.000-05:00

"You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions." Naguib Mahfouz

"Scientists are explorers, philosophers are tourists." Richard Feynman

"Stay hungry. Stay foolish." Steve Jobs

Today's image: Wet Tracks by Thomas Hawk. Wonderful. Thank you for sharing.

Happy Halloween! During my annual the doc told me I had to lay off the boos.

Doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore?

With thanks to Carole King, let me suggest that in the massive, ongoing sea change that is digital disruption, few of us are staying in one place anymore. Consider this proffer: Your media consumption, your behavior, will be as different five years from today as your behavior today is from what it was ten years ago. Your media production, your acts of creation and those of everyone have been assisted, enabled in truly profound ways.

Let's take one of the moving parts: social networks. Facebook and Twitter are first generation platforms. Both have made a significant impact. Both enjoy global reach. Both are building a business, a brand, without the need to invest resources in traditional marketing channels (i.e., advertising). In fact, ad-supported measured media have been the aggressive, albeit unpaid, promotional partners of both. "We all need to spend more time on Facebook" opined Tom Webster, Edison Research's Vice President, Strategy and Marketing (and their resident social scholar). Of course, Tom's right. Last week, Jacob Media's Lori Lewis and Fred Jacobs issued a clarion call about social, Time Suck: "...it's time to adapt to a multi-channel environment and study the motivations behind each channel. Or simply get left behind..."

Nobody stays in one place anymore.

Occasionally I hear from folks kind enough to ask me why I'm not blogging any longer. It's a fair question given 200+ posts a year appeared in this space during 2006, 2007 and 2008. Recent years not so much. 54 posts in 2009, 13 in 2010 and, with this, 8 posts so far this year. The quick answer is I'm still sharing my thoughts but not in this one place anymore. For example, 3 years, 7 months and 15 days ago I began posting on Twitter. My guess is I'm sharing far more on Twitter than I was ever able to share here because I can tweet a real-time link to something just read. Moreover, I can do that on the fly without my laptop or desk top via a hand-held device. The sense of time and space has changed dramatically in recent years.

This is not to suggest blogs are dead or on the way out. Nonsense. My take: there are more and better blogs than there have ever been and I have a reader full of unread posts to prove it. The signal to noise ratio is also greatly improved because our tuning tools are better. As Nathan Jurgenson wrote just yesterday "Social media is like radio: It all depends on how you tune it." [Why Chomsky is wrong about Twitter] My sense is there's nothing wrong with the fire hose. Shirky was right. What we have is a filter problem.

Some might say I have over-shared on Twitter. 36,396 tweets and counting. Guilty, not every tweet has been a gem worthy of a retweet. Let me also say I love to blog and will continue to use this space to share thoughts that require more space and time. This blog isn't dead, yet. It has simply become only one of the places where I'm living out loud. Humblebrag: I'm told my smiling clown Twitter account ranks 107,373 out of the 10,999,157 scored by grader.com so I'm closing in on breaking into the exclusive five figures club.

While I'm not able to comment on the veracity of such rankings or grades, it's interesting to note Grader's Top 100 Twitter Elite includes only three American media outlets. Fox News at #14. Huffington Post Washington bureau at #18. New York Times at #76. The list is dominated by individuals. This seems to hold true across DMA after DMA. Media, broadcasters especially, should be doing a much better job. Congrats to Thomas Clifford, my Twitter pal from Appleton, Wisconsin. He's ranked #9 and lives by the motto "Find out what sucks and don't do that."

Want to gain solid insight into the emergent metrics of social? In my experience, the go-to-guy on social media data is the aforementioned Tom Webster. You may find his blog, brandsavant, here.

Doing business in 2011 without having some kind of personal digital presence (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blog) is equivalent to trying to do business in 1990 without a telephone number or fax machine or claiming you're competitive in business ten years ago without having an email account. Table stakes. What's changing is not only the cost of doing business but the resources required to be and stay competitive in business. New devices are also changing consumer behaviors. Example: Amazon is offering a tablet which, it may be argued, is a personalized point of sale device. The prospective impacts of social commerce are magnitudes of net force larger than the changes brought about so far by today's nascent social networks.

Identity is being redefined

Who are you on the web? Used to be having email was enough. Now, Facebook, Google, Twitter and players to be named, are in a battle to own the so-called identity space. Twitter, being asymmetrical, gained an early edge over symmetrical Facebook but Zuck changed it up adding the asymmetric feature "Subscribe." It's the Wild West, no standards yet for "social authentication." It's an important issue. Stay tuned.

It's the dawn of this digital disruption. The best is yet to come. My suggestion is we'll look back on 2011 someday soon and laugh about how lame, crude all of these early platforms really were. But in the meantime, in between time, the conversation is happening with or without you so it's important to get into the game. Now more than ever, your assets must be digital, discoverable and ready to share. Be yourself. Have fun. Share.

Another example of being in more than one place. This is a must-read not shared here last month but via my posterous. Speaking at Social Media Week - Chicago, the great media critic Robert Feder said...

"...It's about engaging the reader and that's one aspect of it but it's an important part of the new media and the world that we're in and that didn't happen in old media, that didn't happen at the Sun-Times. We wrote our piece, we went home, that was it. It was a monologue delivered and that was the end of the process...people, younger people in particular, are engaged in all media they consume and that includes news and journalism and they want to be able to react, they want to be able to use it in different ways, and that's what we're affording them the opportunity to do. I'm just setting the table, I'm starting the conversation every day and what happens out there is up to the people who read it."

Emphasis above (bold) mine. Robert speaks of a fundamental change. From delivering a monologue to starting a conversation. The difference is engagement. Once upon a time print writers heard from readers when readers had taken the time to call or write a letter to them or the editor. Letters, delivered a day or so after, may or may not have been edited and published. We didn't get to read the mail of the newspaper writer. Today we do and find it odd if the ability to comment fails to follow an online writing.

Robert offered many interesting and important points during his talk, here's another:

To me, you should never take your eye off the quality of the content, that's what matters

The play's the thing. It was ever thus. Read more excerpts from Robert's thought-provoking appearance, here.

Refresh: The People Formerly Known as the Audience, written by Jay Rosen in the summer of 2006, deserves a fresh reading, here.

Cool, new, on: findings chime.in Pinterest

Bonus: Patrick LaForge on the new "Generation Gap" via Google+, here

Video: "Studies show that sketching and doodling improve our comprehension - and our creative thinking. Sunni Brown makes the case for unlocking your brain via pad and pen." I highly recommend her book, Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers [Amazon info]

2011-09-19T06:00:00.000-05:00

"It's part of the mythology surrounding the music business that spending huge amounts of marketing monies will ensure commercial success. This simply isn't so. If the music isn't compelling from the audience's perspective, no amount of spending will make it a hit." Al Teller

"The thing most people want is genuine understanding. If you can understand the feelings and moods of another person, you have something fine to offer." Paul Brock

"The only things that evolve by themselves in an organization are disorder, friction and malperformance." Peter Drucker

Today's image: da rieslings by Fred Winston. Wonderful. Thank you for sharing.

A great interview with Al Teller. Al talks about the past, present and future of the music business. Teller started in the record industry as an assistant to the legendary Clive Davis. He went on to head labels including UA, Columbia, CBS and MCA. My thanks to Ian Rogers, host of This Week in Music, for sharing the video.

2011-09-17T13:53:00.000-05:00

"Amateurs hope; professionals work." Garson Kanin

"Winning isn't everything, but wanting to win is." Vince Lombardi

"Before it can be solved, a problem must be clearly stated and defined." William Feather

Today's image: The Open Road by Trey Ratcliff. Beautiful shot. Thanks for sharing.

A video and a good read.

The new Geoffrey Moore, Escape Velocity: Free Your Company's Future from the Pull of the Past, is topical and a great follow-on to his earlier writings. [Amazon info]

2011-09-05T22:10:00.036-05:00

"What the customer buys and considers value is never a product. It is always utility - that is, what a product does for him." Peter Drucker

"Life is pretty simple. You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is in doing something else." - Tom Peters

"If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold." - Andrew Lewis

Today's image: Hey! by Fred Winston. Great shot. Thanks for sharing.

Welcome to September.

As we begin both the last frenetic drive to make our numbers before the 2011 clock runs out and the ritual dance that is the annual budget process, some loose ends for your consideration. As always, your thoughts are welcome.

Start playing the game thinking ahead
two moves or more

Critical thinking and serious listening continue to provide exceptional yields. Paul Drew often said planning afforded the best possible ROI. He was spot-on. Putting scenario planning and game theory to work are but two solid options. Let's begin by asking the important question...

What if?

What if transactional business died?

Spots and dots represent the single most important revenue engine of the broadcast trade but what if, without notice, transactional revenues precipitously declined?

We must ask such prescient questions.

I'm reminded of that famous speech at the 1975 NARM, The Day Radio Died delivered by the gifted Stan Cornyn, then a senior Warner Brothers executive. As it happened, Stan had asked exactly the right question at precisely the wrong time (the record industry, being in high cotton, dismissed his provocative thought experiment).

It's critical that we play ahead.

Here's a practical example deserving discussion: How are we going to optimize political in 2012 and what's our strategy for beating those numbers in 2013 without that cyclical gift? Importantly, what if political allocated to broadcast is reduced or doesn't come back at all in the 2014 midterm or the 2016 federal? Isn't this a perfect time to entertain the notion that an RAB/TvB led task force be established to work these cycles? From K Street to every campaign headquarters, PAC and all of the political consulting firms there are stories to be told, value propositions to evangelize and champion.

On the day job we were criticized some years ago for daring to ask "What if?" Specifically, when the automotive category went south we initiated conversations grounded in the brutal candor of fresh circumstance. We began asking "What if it doesn't come back? What if it does come back and the dollars are shifted, less broadcast and more other including interactive? How then do we compete?" The situation was indeed tragic. Some long established car stores, the majority perennial broadcast clients, closed forever. Time spent in scenario planning paid off. Our clients paced ahead the next two years having developed strategies to replace 60% or more of their local, zone and national auto spend (i.e., dealer, association, factory dollars). Moreover, we developed new strategies and tactics for auto to more effectively employ broadcast and in that process totally reimagined and rebooted the category.

What if your transactional business died? What exactly is your strategy for staying in business? The exercise is important. Rather than wasting time in a hypothetical "losing it all next year" discussion let's first imagine 2012 as the year transactional is off by 12%, your attrition rate doubles, your DSO adds 10 more days and you lose both your top seller and your DOS. What's your plan to deliver your numbers? Ask "What would have to happen?" for us to make our numbers given a set of specific conditions (ninjas of finance call such probabilistic conditions "assumptions"). Using worst-case scenarios can be productive if they are not simply possible but also credible.

We must embrace the simple reality that transactional is, in essence, a commodity business. As such, this segment of media spend is more likely than not to move away from personal selling and into the more efficient realm of machine trading. The strategic issue here is how do we optimize participation in this commodity trading process and at the same time develop a separate sales organization focused on selling solutions rather than numbers? How do we move from responding to an avail to working with clients in a creative collaboration to produce results? We have an urgent need to do both.

Sidebar: During my time with CBS Mel Karmazin asked me to consider putting Howard Stern on one of our Dallas stations. Howard was not cleared in the market at the time. One of my first thoughts was "What happens if the airplane goes down?" Experience had taught me that the best time to look for talent was before you needed them. Fast forward. Howard announces he's leaving and suddenly at risk are ratings at a bunch of stations and what has been estimated to be about 100 million in CBS billing. It became clear there had been no serious succession planning prior to Howard's announcement. History records this as a fire drill where people were sent into the burning buildings.

As the proverb says: The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is today. Mind the wise counsel of Tom Peters "The trick is in doing something else." Let's get to work.

The major advances in civilization are processes
that all but wreck the societies in which they occur
Alfred North Whitehead

Bonus: Erik Sass provides an interesting overview of what's happening and not happening in American advertising. Winners and Losers: The Changing Media Ad Landscape, 1980 -2011, here.

Flashback: The challenges faced by music radio today simply demand the aggressive employment of innovation and creativity. N=1, August, 2004.

2011-07-27T12:32:00.017-05:00

Martin Atkins

"It's not a problem if 20,000 people 'illegally' download your music. It's a problem if they don't."

"There are no airbags in the music industry. When it goes wrong YOUR head is going through the windshield."

"Technical proficiency is a dead-end. There will always be someone better. Instead focus on diversifying your skill set."

All three of our quotes today are from Martin Atkins. Martin, an accomplished entrepreneur, is a celebrated musician, author and teacher that we can all learn something from. As it happens, you can download his most recent book for free, here (offer expires October 31, 2011). Let me also encourage you to read Greg Kot's article SXSW 2011: Martin Atkins throws blueberry muffins at music industry via Chicago Tribune, here.

What's new about news: Michael Rosenblum offers his latest post on what's not happening in the 6:30 news wars. Why TV News is so VERY TERRIBLE (and why ratings keep dropping), here.

Good read: Insights with Sir Martin Sorrell by Simon Rogers. From Google's latest Think Quarterly, The Innovation issue - here - other good reads also in this issue, worth the jump.

Bravos: GMail team, very clever and a solid initiative to prompt Google account signups. Email intervention.

Google+ tumblr and Spotify are three of this summer's biggest hits. You may find me on g+ via my Google Profile link (in the left column of this page). NEW: started a blog about Google+, here.

Bonus: Kevin Kelly is suggesting the future of the internet can be reduced to six verbs.

Screening

Interacting

Sharing

Flowing

Accessing

Generating

My sense is Kevin's thesis is spot-on and simply brilliant. The following video of Kevin's NExTWORK talk about those six verbs is well worth your bandwidth. Bravos to kk.

Where ever attention flows

money will follow

2011-06-25T10:48:00.014-05:00

"The 'best' investment you can make isn't gold. It's the people you love, the dreams you have, and living a life that matters." Umair Haque

[Is content king?] “I don’t agree with that...I think it sends you down the wrong track. I’d say the emphasis is on relevance and usefulness. The danger with the content story is — the most powerful thing you could do to me as a brand if I went to [a music festival] is you could chill my beer for me. If you pursue ‘content,’ you won’t come up with that idea. And if you go to the airport and get power from Nokia or Sony, that’s much more meaningful to me as a brand. I think content steers you away from that. I think content is a subset of that, if it’s relevant and useful. But the more fundamental thing is for brands to have a meaningful relationship and engagement with their audience.” Carl Johnson

"The change in the Web’s direction is a clear indication to me that we aren’t just in the midst of a boom for new interaction modes, but rather in a generational overhaul of the Internet." Ben Elowitz

Today's image: Light in the kitchen on a warm Virginia morning by Earl Gray. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

Please let me suggest you click on the link following each quote above. Each, and all, is a good read. It's a beautiful day here in flyoverland. All the best to you, enjoy your summer!

Bonus: How to make a clock run for 10,000 years. A great read, here.

2011-05-17T00:04:00.030-05:00

"The whole point of any medium, where it is video or writing or painting or film is to expand our thinking and expose us to new ideas, not repeat the same ones over and over ad infinitum...Tell me what I don't know. Tell me what I never even thought about before." Michael Rosenblum

" For it to be a content business, content people have to run the company. The business has to be obsessed with what it’s consumers want and be able to give them that and much more. In fact then need to give them things that they didn’t know they wanted. Content consumers ultimately need to be surprised and fully expect their sources of information to be smarter than they are about the topics they are reading or viewing." Larry Kramer

"It will be very hard for people to watch or consume something that has not in some sense been tailored for them." Eric Schmidt

Today's image: Leaning Tulip by Fred Winston. Wonderful. Thank you for sharing.

Let's suppose you launched a business in November of 2008 and in April of 2010 your business had achieved a value of approx $1.35 billion. Let us say your revenues that Spring were on pace to make $1 billion in sales faster than any other business in history. Let's agree that in October of 2010 your business was operating in over 150 markets in the USA, over 100 markets in Europe, Asia and South America and you had over 35 million registered users.

Now...
What if?

What if in the Fall of 2010 you were offered $3 billion to sell that business and then weeks later you're approached by another suitor who offers you over $5 billion to sell?

What if your 2011 projections indicated you were in good shape, pacing to deliver between $3 and $4 billion in revenues. Would you dare change anything?

It's the true story of Groupon and here's how they've answered those two what if questions...

They said no. They were not interested in selling (Yahoo! and Google were the rumored buyers)

and

They decided while business was good it was time to change things, invent another product and introduce a different business model.

Imagine that.

A company that's about two and a half years old which is on track to produce revenue equal to about 21% of US radio's total revenue in 2010 (using BIA/Kelsey estimate of $14.1 bil, and $3 bil rev assumption for Groupon) and instead of being laser focused on tweaking and optimizing their existing business model they've decided to also change up their own game, innovate and launch another business.

Before you continue reading, please watch the following video.

Clearly, Groupon and its competitors (over 100 similar US sites) are having an impact on local ad spending.

Allow me to suggest that Groupon Now has the potential of changing the local direct game yet again because its value proposition is fundamentally different. Groupon is putting the third screen to work and doing it in real-time, they've entered the brave new world of the mobile pure play.

"Mobile is huge for Groupon...I believe we could see us doing 50 percents of deals sold/purchased in the next couple of years" said Michael Shim, Groupon VP Mobile Partnerships. As eMoney writer Tricia Duryee reports "Mobile, along with social and local, will be one of the largest drivers for Groupon's deals business over the next few years...Shim said the service has also exceeded expectations, with more than 1,000 merchants already signed up to offer real-time deals. 'We’ve been inundated with demand. Groupon Now is about local discovery. What can I find around me?…We are just getting going on where we think it will take our business.'" [ref]

Introduced last week and more than 1,000 merchants already signed up. Pop quiz: what's your best take rate story? Is it a compelling one-sheet being used on the street and on your site?

My sense is there are strategic issues involved. Here are four to consider.

1. The practical notion of "Local" is being redefined. We're moving from the traditional big/generalized (e.g., DMA, SMSA, US Census block code) to the new small/personalized (think GPS or exact position within three meters). A new marketing grammar, a new sense of place, will be one of the second or third-order effects in the growing adoption of location-based services.

2. New players want in, others want bigger local shares. Local has not been 100% owned and operated by the usual suspects (i.e., the traditional incumbents including print, broadcast and out of home) for a while now but it's getting ever more competitive. Local and hyper-local is where everyone wants to be next. Everyone includes Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Pandora, and [insert the name of an advertising or ad-supported company here].

3. New rules of engagement are emerging and with them new expectations are being created. The metrics used in buying and evaluating local media will likely change and affect some share of local ad spend. From buys based upon audience estimates and proof of performance (run as ordered?) to registered users and completed transactions (products/services sold). Moreover, performance pressure will increase. From flights evaluated over days and weeks to flights evaluated over hours in real-time. In this new always-on connected world it's certainly possible that price and item copy will be placed, judged on actual in-the-moment purchase behaviors. Impulse purchasing is exploited, solutions defaulting to mobile (i.e., Help, I'm hungry or I'm bored). As ever, the research tool preferred by local retailers continues to be the cash register.

4. Creating awareness without generating completed transactions will become less and less attractive to buyers, especially those local merchants provided more performance-based options. Branding or pure image driven advertising will become more difficult to justify. John Wanamaker gets credit for the famous adage "Half the money I spend on advertising is wasted; the trouble is, I don't know which half" but as AdWeek's Michael Wolff wrote just yesterday on the subject of digital marketing and TV's upfront week "...15 years into our ability to measure the absolute effectiveness of the way and the methods by which we sell something, and, still, TV advertising, which measures nothing, guarantees no sales, offers no data, registers no interest, quantifies no desire, provides no follow-up, and which no sentient being watches anyway, is making more money than ever before. Waste works." [ref]

While I appreciate Michael's point of view there remains major work to be done on the metrics used in the buying and selling of digital media. Serious debate continues and we have yet to reach a consensus relative to accepted definitions and measures. Bravos to IAB for their ongoing efforts. Further, while Steve Jobs continues using TV to sell his iPhones and iPads I'll remain bullish on the potential of TV advertising done right. We'll stipulate here that doing TV right is not at all easy and most don't do it right, however, Apple stands out as a good example of just how powerful TV advertising can be. Target, the merchant, is another exemplary TV advertiser. There is, imo, a significant share of the $65.9 billion in annual US TV ad spend [2010 cit] that is pure waste.

"At every crossroads on the path that leads
to the future, tradition has placed 10,000 men
to guard the past."
Maurice Maeterlinck

What's a broadcaster to do?

To those working in radio, those progeny of the first generation wireless, the true real-time media pioneers, let me offer five suggestions. As well, let me encourage you to share your thoughts, ideas and suggestions via comments here below.

1. Game it up. At your next sales meeting, play the Groupon Now! video and give sellers the following homework assignment. "How do we pitch Big Frank? What is our value proposition that will blow Big Frank's face off? How will we help him to fill his empty tables?" Make it a pitch competition. On pitch day encourage brutally candid discussion. Vote first, second and third place winners. Let the sales team and a good representation of staff not on the sales team participate in the voting. For those already deep into "Deal of the Day" and other discount coupon strategies, how are you measuring up? Would Big Frank buy your offer over Groupon Now? Do you have a video that demonstrates how your program works? A video that clearly articulates value that the prospective client can understand? Does your value proposition match or exceed the one offered in the Groupon Now video? You must have and present a compelling, engaging story. Remember Leo Burnett's counsel on great advertising being three messages: "Here's what we've got. Here's what it will do for you. Here's how to get it."

2. Work your network. Start a serious conversation with others. What's happening with Groupon, LivingSocial, et al in your market and others? What are your colleagues (and clients) hearing, learning and doing? What's the RAB's best thinking on this? Take the advice of Dr. Jeffrey Cole and ensure that your learning curve is consistently steeper than your action curve. "You have to be paying attention, learning and watching." Do your homework. Be prepared for your client's phone call asking you "What do you know about Groupon?"

3. Make something happen. Get in the game. Take measured action and experiment. Be willing to fail and learn how to fail faster. Be agile. Embrace iterative development. Take the winner of your pitch competition (see #1 above) for a test drive. Carefully study the results. Revisit your design and fine-tune or blow up and move on to your second place winner. Repeat. Move on to your third place winner. Hold another pitch competition.

4. Give your team a better chance to win. Be the best that radio can be. The anecdotal evidence would suggest 7 of every 8 potential merchant deals are rejected by Groupon. Can you imagine a radio sales manager failing to approve 7 out of 8 orders for new business? Even if it turns out not to be true let's admit it...7 of every 8 being rejected makes a killer urban ad legend for Groupon. If what Groupon is doing is working it's working, in part, because they do qualify their clients and work within a creative framework designed to optimize performance on the Groupon platform. Radio should consider taking a more pro-active, aggressive approach in working with clients to develop creative that plays into radio's inherent strengths and utilize smart scheduling of that creative to maximize the chances of producing best results for the client.

5. Check out what Fred Jacobs and the digital ninjas of Jacobs Media have to say about all of this. They're offering a good read. Make the jump to the always informative jacoBLOG here.

Keep in mind Groupon was Andrew Mason's second attempt at using the platform he developed. His first, ThePoint, failed to produce the results he expected but he didn't give up, he moved on to invent Groupon. Now he's inventing Groupon 2.0 What's your team up to?

Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter.
Try again. Fail again. Fail better.
Samuel Beckett

Footnote: What did Google really want? My guess is Google - if they really did make an offer - already having the superior tech skills, wanted Groupon's creative staff and their local sales team. It would have been a very savvy accretive acquisition in their local strategy. They have since launched Google Offers.

Previously: My post about Groupon from late last year: Nobody likes it but the audience.

Finally, a must-see video and a book recommendation. Thanks for stopping by.

Bonus: TED: Eli Pariser: Beware online "filter bubbles."

Recommended:

The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding from You by Eli Pariser.
Amazon info.

Reviewed by Jesse Walker: The Facebook Friend in the Plastic Bubble

2011-05-07T20:42:00.007-05:00

"The true test of being comfortable with someone else is the ability to share silence." Frank Tyger

"There must always be some advantage on one side or the other, and it is better that advantage should be had by talents than by chance." Samuel Johnson

"The ability to have our own way, and at the same time convince others they are having their way, is a rare thing among men. Among women, it is as common as eyebrows." Thomas Bailey Aldrich

Today's image: The unknown bud by Fred Winston. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

A beautiful Spring day here in Madison. Today I'd like to share a video and my notes of a keynote session from last month's ad:tech SF 2011 conference. As readers of this blog are aware, I am a big fan of Dr. Jeffrey Cole. Simply put, he's brilliant. Dr. Cole is Director of Center for the Digital Future at the USC Annenberg School. The video of his keynote, available via YouTube using the following link, is a must-see. Trends, Fads & Transformation: The Impact of the Internet.

Following are my notes from the keynote which are by no means complete and should not be considered a substitute for watching Jeff's performance which is, indeed, a tour de force.

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Your learning curve must be much steeper
than your action curve.
You have to be paying attention, learning and watching.

We lost a great opportunity in the 1940s understanding the impact of television. We are undertaking the study of the Internet that should have been conducted on television in the late 1940s. Digital is going to be far more important than television. Eleven years ago began the massive project, tracking of digital, first the web and now mobile that should have been conducted with television in the 1940s. Started in the US now covering 35 countries around the world. For eleven years now we've gone back to the same people year after year. Watching as non-users moved to dialup, as dialup users went to broadband, we watch as 2% drop off the web each year and want to know who are the people who leave and why and more importantly do they return and if so when and what brings them back. Eleven years in we continue to track the never users and want to know how the people who have never been online do things in a world where most of us are online.

Highlights. What we've found over the last eleven years.

Schedules have almost disappeared. The old way. Newspapers - once a day. Having to wait 24 hours for an update doesn't work anymore. How up to the moment does a newspaper online have to be? The answer is thirty to sixty seconds. Music used to have one of the most formalized schedules of any medium. Artists would produce about forty minutes worth of music, (about 12 songs) and release in a cycle of about every 18-24 months. For some people this never worked. Prince is an example. There was no way to release ten albums a year. Today we are waiting for the new model. TV was on such a schedule that the greatest success in the history of magazine publishing - TV Guide - came from a magazine that listed what was on television.

There are too many choices. In 1975, in the average American city, most of us had seven television channels, 90% of viewing was on three - ABC, CBS and NBC. Thirty years later, most markets had well over one hundred channels and 90% of viewing was on six or seven channels. You give people infinitely more choice and we only move out or branch out a little bit. Restaurants owners know that. 20 page menus frustrate people. They can't make choices, there's too much to choose from. Most people in a restaurant want eight to ten choices. Enough choices to feel they can actually make a choice but not so many that they're overwhelmed. On the web 90% of Internet time is spent in 15 places and all the other millions of places account for less than 10% of our Internet time. We're overwhelmed by choice.

All media will survive, but most will be smaller players in a digital era.

The Film Business

Been shrinking for a long time. It's high point was in the 1930s and 40s before the introduction of television. This year film has experienced its most serious decline in a very long time, film attendance so far this year is down 20%. Hollywood is looking at economic factors but is settling on the fact that it's probably the quality of films. DVDs which kept the film industry afloat during much of the 21st century are disappearing and not coming back. DVDs will be gone in four years as everything moves into the cloud. Movie theaters have been seriously overbuilt, many/most will close or convert, become smaller but remain important. A war is brewing between the studios and the theaters. Studios want to release films on the day they're released to home video as well as into the theaters. Theater owners can't catch a break. Studios now want to take films that have been in the theaters for two months and make them available on home video. Theater owners said if they do that they won't run trailers for any of the studios. At the same time as we're seeing film move closer into the home and the distinction between the home screen and the film screen is getting shorter and narrower and the quality of the sets is getting bigger. Theater owners are about to experience another serious problem. Historically, business model gave major share (80-90%) of box office to studios in first weeks of showing, share to theater owners increased becoming majority in later weeks. Most films are out of theaters now within three weeks. In a typical year of 52 weeks, 40 different films will have been number one. With the exception of Avatar we have not seen a film in the last five years that has been number one more than three weeks in a row. With declining share of box office revenues theater owners were hiking up the cost of refreshments. The minute calories counts are required on movie theater food the game is over. A large popcorn and a Coke is about 1,600 calories. Power: those who create good content. The old adage "Content is King" is true.

Music Industry (or what's left of it)

What it takes to be #1. It used to take selling 15 million copies of an album to be number one, last year the number one selling album of the year, Eminem's Recovery, sold 3.4 million copies. Digital in the next three years will pass the CD sources of revenue. CDs will disappear. Digital only platform in 5 years. Music becomes supplemental, becoming the place you get familiar with the music, an ancillary market to the real money in touring, merchandising, advertising. Cloud new home. Power: everyone. Consumer, artist, everybody except the music company.

Book "Publishing"

Long before the Internet, per capita sales have been pitiful for a generation. To get on the New York Times best-seller list out of a country of 300 million people you have to sell 15 to 20 thousand copies of a book. We are not a country of book-reading people. 50% of us buy zero books a year. And of the 50% of us who buy books 70% of them buy one or two books a year. Books are bought by a small minority. Amazon last year now makes more revenue from its digital sales than from its hard cover sales. "Books" will survive but we'll pay a very precious premium to own. We will own few (30 to 40) and pay a lot. Beautiful, expensive books the new reality. Self-publishing which used to be a necessity for some people who couldn't get their books published and used to be low rent and no status now looks like a smart business choice. Power: Authors.

Newspapers

Teenage habit broken. We know thirty years ago teenagers didn't read newspapers but started to when they got into their 20s and 30s. Today they don't read newspapers and the evidence is clear, they never will. When Internet penetration gets to 30% offline newspaper sales begin to decline. 30% is the line that changes everything. India, where internet penetration is at 15% newspaper sales are skyrocketing. By the time they get to 30 they will begin to decline. The sad truth for newspapers is every time a newspaper reader dies he or she is not being replaced by a new reader. In America, newspapers have less than five years remaining. In 1900 we had 600 communities that had two or more newspapers. Today we have six that have two or more newspapers. Instead of counting down the two newspapers towns, we are now counting up the no newspaper towns. Power: Global Players. Examples: New York Times - growth last ten years has been outside of New York not inside of New York. Wall Street Journal. Washington Post. Four or five "global" American voices.

The iPad: Transformational Remarkable device. It's been out a year and no one has really caught up with Apple. Apple has moved the goal post before the other teams have even taken the field. The one thing that absolutely boggles the mind is "I turn it on and one second later I'm working. There's no three or four minute boot. That one out of ten times produces the blue screen of death" Keep in mind newspapers and magazines were never going to do very well on the internet until now because the internet was a "lean forward experience." Nobody wants to lean forward and read a newspaper. They might read an article in the newspaper. Jeff Bezos figured out that if people were going to read books electronically it had to be in the same environment they actually read books, leaning back, in bed, in the bathtub, he created the Kindle. The iPad also marks the beginning of the end for the mouse.

Television is the medium that grows not shrinks

People will watch on a third screen. First screen becomes better. The gap between the home and the theater is narrower than it has ever been. Television couldn't grow until now. It could only grow as it escaped the home. Television becomes our constant companion. We are witness to ratings growth in "live event" television because of "co-viewing." We've always had co-viewing at home when people were together but now people who are not together are watching the same televised event via social networking as if they are together. Laugh tracks may disappear from television because of this new co-viewing via social networking. Movies don't have laugh tracks because producers know we will be watching movies with other people. Power: Content creators and viewers. When, where and how viewers want.

New Trends

Screen time is exploding. In 1975, we spent 16 hours in front of a screen, last year it was up to 36 hours, we think it will be over 50 hours in the next three to four years. If you look at a teenager there's not a moment when they are not in front of a screen except school and sleep. People almost never lose their mobile phones. Mobile phones are important in our lives.The reason is if we leave our phone on the table in a restaurant we can't make it to the front door of the restaurant before we're reaching for it. We can't get far enough away from it to lose it.

Privacy concerns reach a peak.

If digital content is to survive it's going to be largely through targeted digital advertising. Targetability with limits provides a great bonus to the media owner who can charge ten times as much to give an audience that the advertiser wants. A boon to the advertiser who can reverse the most powerful quote in the history of advertising - I know half my advertising budget is wasted, I just don't know which half. Boon to the consumer who can start receiving advertising that is relevant and engaging. Fun once the shock wears away.

What happens with privacy and targetability? Four simple things. Newspapers, television producers, advertisers have to tell their customers, their readers and viewers what information is being collected and why and what they intend to do with it. Privacy policy statements (written by lawyers) must not be written for lawyers. Serious penalties for anyone who violates those policies. Simple opt-out or opt-in but those who opt-out may have to start paying for what other people get for free.

Social networking is the real deal. To a teenager an online community is like a nightclub and when the uncool kids start showing up at the nightclub or the nightclub becomes too popular you're outta there. What's the worst thing that could happen to you at at nightclub? Your mother shows up. And now your mother wants to friend you on Facebook. Facebook will climb close to a billion users. We are not likely to see another monolithic community like Facebook again.

Learning curve must be much steeper than your action curve. You have to be paying attention, learning and watching.

Many of us are tired of technology defining our lives. We call this phenomenon "E-nuff already." Wanting the benefits of technology without all the disadvantages. We don't go to sleep without answering all our email. People are looking for balance. They want control.

Moving away from the PC-based internet to mobile devices. Only 4 to 6 percent of people who own PCs will actually need PCs (desktops, laptops, netbooks). When the iPad came out the first question was is this a fourth screen or a replacement for the second screen? Firmly convinced this replaces the second screen for the majority of us.

Mobile is everything. The internet is going everywhere through mobile. 5.7 billion people share having a mobile phone in their life.

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Bravos to Jeff for yet another truly amazing presentation, he's doing work that matters. Thanks too to ad:tech for sharing the video.

2010-12-15T15:53:00.025-06:00

"It is not the parts that matter, it is their combination." Vladimir Nabokov

"There is a moment when every work in the process of being created benefits from the glamour attaching to uncompleted sketches. 'Don't touch it any more,' cries the amateur. It is then that the true artist takes his chance." Jean Cocteau

"The only real voyage of discovery, the only Fountain of Youth, consists not in seeking new landscapes but in having new eyes, in seeing the universe with the eyes of another, of a hundred others, in seeing the hundred universes that each of them sees. And this we can do with a Renoir or a Debussy; with such as they we fly indeed from star to star." Marcel Proust

Today's image: The Passage of Time by ToniVC. Beautiful, amazing shot. Thank you for sharing.

Nobody likes it but the audience

One of the biggest business success stories of 2010 is Groupon. Andrew Mason and his team have reinvented, actually reimagined, that old, well-worn shoe of retail pricing promotion - the coupon - and in the process they've "made the coupon cool." Andrew's stated goal is to "change the world...transform the way people buy from local businesses" and he's done just that in the world that is local advertising. In about two years Andrew and his team have emerged as a major player in the local advertising market (a $133 billion marketplace according to BIA/Kelsey) and are operating at a profit. They've also attracted the attention of unsolicited buyers including, so we are told, Google. While they continue to expand aggressively, adding new markets each week, the Groupon copycats are in hot pursuit with new imitators launching almost daily.

So how is it that the local advertising incumbents (e.g., newspapers, broadcasters, direct mailers) missed the incredible opportunity discovered by Groupon? Why have their coupon initiatives failed to achieve the success realized by Groupon? After all, the technology being used by Groupon is not at all proprietary. Using email to deliver coupons has been around for almost two decades. The simple facts would appear to be the incumbents failed to recognize coupons for what they could be, the suits saw them for what they were/are and ultimately no one liked the Groupon concept except the audience (and a significant majority of Groupon's client merchants). According to Andrew, the Chicago Groupon subscribers now number about one million (representing more than the combined circulation of the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun-Times).

Compare and contrast: What innovations have local incumbents launched during the past two years that can compare with Groupon's success? What enterprise launched by a newspaper, broadcaster or other ad-supported media firm in the past two years is now producing free cash and worth, at least, a one billion dollar evaluation?

How did this Groupon success suddenly happen?

My sense is Andrew and his team didn't know everything about the coupon business. Maybe they failed to understand or appreciate the accepted best practices and industry dogma. Perhaps they had no idea that single digit redemption rates were considered normal in the coupon and direct response trade. And because they were not coupon experts, they just didn't know what they didn't know. Because they didn't know or care about coupon conventional wisdom, they succeeded. Please permit me to guess again. They knew everything about the coupon business and having carefully studied it they boldly thought theirs was a different and better approach. No matter. Allow me to suggest that the single biggest difference between Groupon and their entrenched local competition is one of leadership. Team Groupon came to play.

Attitude
Fresh. Creative. Fun.

Andrew and his team imagined the coupon as a way to offer people "cool things to do" and part of their mission was to "help people to rediscover their city." The Groupon team focuses on helping customers get great deals that can be shared and enjoyed with friends. The Groupon team also focuses on merchants helping them to better understand how to advertise in a way that produces results. The Groupon business model ensured Groupon made money on every single transaction. Most of all, the Groupon team is to be commended, no, make that celebrated, for bringing a fresh, creative attitude to what has been the tired game of coupon. Andrew Mason and his team have earned their successes and they've done it by having the courage to make their enterprise fun.

Bravos, team Groupon!

What innovations in advertising and marketing will 2011 bring? The best is yet to come. Andrew Mason is but one of the new entrepreneurs that will dramatically change the landscape of local media. Here's a safe bet. It will be courageous, creative leadership that will make the difference and win the day. Stay tuned.

Bonus: Groupon 2.0 By Frank Sennett via Time Out Chicago, here. Hat tip to Robert Feder.

2010-12-01T14:04:00.003-06:00

"Scarcity comes from distinction. And distinction comes from being bold and meaningfully different. Rediscover your unbridled imagination and idealistic hopes, and create new and preemptive benefits. Shatter what conventional wisdom tells you can be done. Pour your heart into your idea. And pour your soul into bringing it to life." Tom Asacker

"Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary." Cecil Beaton

"Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius, power and magic in it. Begin it now." Goethe

Today's image: By God's Grace by night86mare. Wonderful shot. Thanks for sharing.

Welcome to December and the final days of 2010. It's been an interesting if not exciting year but, as ever, the best is yet to come. Please let me suggest you give some serious thought to these questions...

Did you achieve the successes you wanted, needed to happen in 2010?

Are you ready, prepared to make 2011 the best year of your career and a record-breaking year for your enterprise?

No matter how you answer these questions you (and all on your team) will benefit from reading Opportunity Screams: Unlocking Hearts and Minds in Today's Idea Economy, the latest book by Tom Asacker. [Amazon info]

Tom's little book is a gem. It's one of those rare books that will make you think and inspire you to take action. It's a book you'll want to keep handy and return to, a book that will deliver fresh (and refreshing) insights with each new read.

What it's not...a book of rules, another collection of one-size-fits-all formulas or generic best practices.

What it is...a distillation of Tom's over twenty years of study into what works and doesn't work in the marketplace. Tom provides a framework, a practical template, for how to more deeply understand what's happening in today's increasingly complex and constantly changing idea economy. This book will help you to recognize those marketplace patterns most deserving your attention and, using Tom's framework, give you a genuine competitive advantage on the road ahead.

Opportunity Screams is simply one of the best business books of 2010. Get yours and get some to share this holiday season. [Amazon info]

2010-08-17T01:06:00.032-05:00

"Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better." Samuel Beckett

"After all, it is hard to master both life and work equally well. So if you are bound to fake one of them, it had better be life." Joseph Brodsky

"The ancient covenant is in pieces; man knows at last that he is alone in the universe's unfeeling immensity, out of which he emerged only by chance. His destiny is nowhere spelled out, nor is his duty. The kingdom above or the darkness below: it is for him to choose." Jacques Monod

Today's image: If You Want to Achieve Greatness Stop Asking for Permission by Thomas Hawk. Wonderful. Thank you for sharing.

Eating your own dog food

Whose blog is this I think I know. He's spends his time on Twitter, though.

Been a while since I was last in this hall. Hope that you are enjoying your summer and that all is well with you.

Please allow me to share some thoughts about broadcasters and the road ahead.

A quick review of just about any station website will blatantly suggest broadcasters are laggards, they're not pacing with innovation. My thought is they should be (but are not) eating their own dog food. Let me put that into context. As Professor Leonard Lodish said...

"Technology-oriented people think if they build a better mousetrap, people will buy it," Lodish says. "But as the venture capitalists say, ‘The dogs don't always eat the dog food.' You've got to market effectively."

[ Reference: Getting the dogs to eat the dog food]

In my experience, station staffs are not living, breathing, and fussing over every pixel of their website(s). They're putting it out there but they're not, themselves, heavy users. Some station folk may like their site(s) but too few are real believers, honestly passionate, pumped about being in-the-tank, rabid evangelists, proud enough to say they LOVE their site(s), ready to take up the fight with anyone not in complete agreement that their site(s) is/are, by far, the very best in the market.

Clearly, station staffs are overworked and consumed with the daily press of affairs, however, the listeners/viewers don't care. They've been told to visit and when they do they typically find a site that fails to deliver. Station sites fail on many counts but none greater than failing as a total time suck. Too often listeners/viewers are failing to find things that they are excited about sharing. This is an epic fail, the failure of engagement. It's one of those engine warning lights you best be being paying close attention to going forward. The quality of your station website(s) has/have to be equal to or greater than the quality of your on-air product(s).

Do your assets matter?

Are they discoverable and easy to share?

A review of your referrals will give you a richer picture. How much of your inbound traffic is from the folks? Where are MySpace, Facebook, LinkedIn, blogs, Twitter, et al ranking in your referrals?

Last month, how many times did your site(s) strike the responsive chord and generate over one-hundred comments on a single post? How many times have your Twitter updates achieved the social network gold of 100+ retweets? How many times this year has your site attracted the attention of your local media colleagues and become news in the metro? When was the last time something on your site became the subject of state, national and/or international attention/news? Are your digital assets highly ranked and prized locally (e.g., A top 20 Twitter account in your DMA? Are one or more of your blogs respected and linked to by other local media and bloggers?). Are your assets "made fresh daily" dynamic and in the moment taking advantage of the new "nowness" and hyper-connectivity of the real-time network? I'm not talking about pulling a Webby nomination, I'm talking about the number of times you have crashed your server, I'm talking about the kind of stuff that leads to your sales people fighting over the inventory baked into your web assets.

If you've not achieved any of those kind of results know this - there is still time to get serious and get in the game. You can do it. It all starts with being honest and doing the hard work. First, show the listeners/viewers that you truly care. Care enough to get into the conversation and engage. Care enough to listen seriously. Care enough to eat your own dog food, the stuff that you keep telling your listeners/viewers to eat. How is it? How can it be better? What would have to happen to make it the best?

How do you go from being the station known (and loved) for Carlos and the Chicken (hat tip: Tom Webster) or that fun-loving morning show weather guy to also being the station known (trusted) for being the gold standard of ongoing local community engagement?

And, really important, please do remember this (Thank me later)

"People come back to places that send them away."
Dave Winer

Don't be concerned about whether the glass is half-empty or half-full, be very concerned with who's pouring. Game on! Your thoughts are invited and appreciated. Next, engaging the developer community and getting real about curation. Thanks for stopping by.

Bonus: TV stations websites are preaching to the choir by Terry Heaton, here.

Extra credit bonus: What Happened to Yahoo by Paul Graham, here.

P.S. If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much room.

2010-07-20T05:42:00.008-05:00

"If the rate of change on the outside exceeds the rate of change on the inside, the end is near." Jack Welch

"All of us failed to match our dreams of perfection. So I rate us on the basis of our splendid failure to do the impossible." William Faulkner

"There's a saying among scientists, that you don't know you've got a really good idea until at least three Nobel laureates have told you it's wrong." Paul Lauterbur

Today's image: Learn to Fly by illeromela. Beautiful shot. Thank you for sharing.

Learning to Fly

The brilliant Bob Henabery, my creative godfather, often suggested to me that to understand the contrarian mindset one must be able to grasp "driving on the other side of the road." He was right.

Another mentor, the gifted genius Jim Yergin, frequently called me out on my use of metaphor, to wit: "By using analogy, injecting metaphor, what you are doing is avoiding the hard work of thinking. It tells me that you have not developed your thought to the point that you can articulate it clearly without secondary reference." He was right.

2010 should be a time of incredible opportunity for broadcasters. A game-changing moment when the most creative people working in professional audio and video take charge and take the lead in the brave new world of digital, always on audio and video. After all, they have an urgent need to make something happen.

Instead, we are witness to those without professional broadcast provenance taking charge: Pandora leads the emerging music audio space and YouTube leads the space that is becoming the new video.

How did it happen that broadcast professionals witnessed the take off and have continued to watch the early flight of these new players without mounting any significant response? What has enabled these amateurs to succeed, to make progress while the incumbents, the broadcasters, have, or so it may be argued, simply watched?

My sense is Pandora and YouTube have dared to dream.

They are learning to fly right before our eyes (and ears). What were once dismissed as "pigs on the runway" have taken flight and they're now on the radar.

While they may represent the best known entrants into the new audio and video spaces, they are not alone, they're only two of the increasing many that share a charter - reinventing media and radically changing the mediascape as we know it.

Next, I will offer a point of view and some suggestions for how broadcasters can and should move forward in this brave new world. As always, your comments are welcome and encouraged.

2010-05-31T17:11:00.021-05:00

"If you can keep your head when all about you are losing theirs, it's just possible you haven't grasped the situation." Jean Kerr

"You're always a little disappointing in person because you can't be the edited essence of yourself." Mel Brooks

"To avoid criticism, say nothing, do nothing, be nothing." Fred Shero

Today's image: And the Road Goes On Forever by Thomas Hawk. Amazing. Thank you for sharing.

Memorial Day
Help our troops and help their families.
Please, join me and give what you can
USO

Inspired by The Power of Pull by Hagel, Brown and Davison, today's post is a follow-on to my last post, here. This is the second in a series. From the book's introduction...

"It's quickly dawning on us...our education was at best a thin foundation
that needs to be continually refreshed in order for us to stay competitive.

The stress in our professional lives bleeds over into our personal lives as we find ourselves working longer hours and as long-standing relationships are disrupted by unexpected events...Incumbents at the core - which is the place where most of the resources, especially people and money, are concentrated, and where old ways of thinking and acting still hold sway - have many fewer incentives to figure out the world, or to discover new ways of doing things, or to find new information. They're on top, and they're ready to keep doing what got them there. But simply accessing or attracting static resources no longer cuts it. Accessing and attracting have little value unless they are coupled with a third set of practices that focus on driving performance rapidly to new levels. These practices involve participation in, and sometimes orchestration of, something we call 'creation spaces' - environments that effectively integrate teams within a broader learning ecology so that performance improvement accelerates as more participants join."

The authors suggest we are witness to a value migration from the "experience curve" to the "collaboration curve."

Answering the earlier call for "flow" we have the recommendations of another in my flow, Tom Webster. My thanks to Tom.

Justin Kownacki
Altitude Branding
Convince & Convert
in over your head
Six Pixels of Separation
Brian Solis

More from my flow. Three broadcasting (radio) blogs worth your bandwidth and three daily emails for you to consider.

Blogs/RSS:

jacoBLOG
The Infinite Dial
RAIN: Radio and the Internet Newsletter

Daily email newsletters, solid day-starters:

The Slatest
Mike Allen's Playbook
Hugh's Daily Cartoon

Who's in your flow? Please do get in touch with your suggestions. Thank you.

A word to the wise: It's no longer an option. You (and your stations) should be on Twitter. If you are, please consider this your written invitation to follow (@martindave), you have my pledge to follow back. Should you not be Twittering, why not? What exactly are you waiting for? Jump in! Getting started: Complete your profile including pic, link and bio. Tweet! Twitter tips: 1. Be yourself 2. Read replies, respond, engage. 3. Share the good stuff, RT and link 4. Manners matter, be nice. 5. Have fun.

Closed circuit to Jeff Haley: Join the conversation! Ready, willing and able to assist you in making the most of social networks including Twitter.

Congrats & cheers: All honored by Ad Age Magazine in their 2010 Entertainment A-List. The top five: Sony Pictures, Justin Bieber, Blind Side, Clear Channel, and The Beatles, Rock Band. Writing about Clear Channel, Ad Age says "Exec VP Evan Harrison's iHeartRadio makes Clear Channel a breeding ground for discovering new artists and a top earner in digital revenue" $175 million gross (SNL Kagan, 2009). 22 million monthly uniques at iHeartRadio.com

Bravos: The legendary Paulie Gallis on his latest lunch meet in Chicago. We had a great time gathered at Tavern at the Park. Attending were Mark Edwards, Brian Kelly, Tom Teuber, Kurt Hanson, John Gehron, Dan Kelley, Jim Scully, Dick Rakovan, Kipper McGee, Mike Shied, and Doug Dahlgren.

Summer reads: first in a series, the latest from N=1 fav Clay Shirky (non-fiction). From the publisher's release...

"The potential impact of cognitive surplus is enormous. As Shirky points out, Wikipedia was built out of roughly 1 percent of the man-hours that Americans spend watching TV every year. Wikipedia and other current products of cognitive surplus are only the iceberg's tip. Shirky shows how society and our daily lives will be improved dramatically as we learn to exploit our goodwill and free time like never before."

Pre-order: Cognitive Surplus: Creativity and Generosity in a Connected Age by Clay Shirky. [Amzn info]

Got a summer read to recommend? Please share in comments.

Bonus: Cognitive Surplus: The Great Spare-Time Revolution. Daniel Pink & Clay Shirky via Wired Magazine, here. "...organizations that are founded to solve problems end up committed to the preservation of the problems." - Shirky

Learn more, earn more: The Conclave's Summer Learning Conference happens July 15-17, in Minneapolis. Rock radio maven Fred Jacobs and his Jacobs Media team kick off Conclave's 35th year with a new annual learning event, Jacobs Media Summer School. Just added: Jerry Clifton's Night School. More info and online registration, here. Being involved behind the scenes provides me with some unique insider knowledge. Let's just say Conclave 2010 is one you do not want to miss. FD: I serve as an unpaid director on the Conclave board.

Must-read of the month: May: State of Play by B. Kite Pt 1. Some notes on the growing pains of gaming culture, here. Pt 2. Considering the artistic future of video games, here.

Enjoy or endure

Sir Ken Robinson returned to TED this year. Sir Ken's talk is an outstanding follow-on to his last TED appearance. His thesis is we make very poor use of our talents. His suggestion is there are two groups of people in the business world. Those who enjoy what they do and those who endure and wait for the weekend. For those that enjoy their work, it's not what they do, it's who they are. Note to leaders: job one is to create the conditions for achievement. Check out his wonderful new Ted Talk: Bring on the learning revolution!

Have an amazing week. Thank you for stopping by. Your thoughts via comments and email are always welcome and appreciated.

2010-05-22T16:28:00.018-05:00

"We are more easily persuaded, in general, by the reasons we ourselves discover than by those which are given to us by others." Blaise Pascal

"Making the simple complicated is commonplace; making the complicated simple, awesomely simple, that’s creativity." Charles Mingus

"It’s not what you look at that matters, it’s what you see." Henry David Thoreau

Today's image: eia by e7* Wonderful capture. Thanks for sharing.

Inspired by The Power of Pull by Hagel, Brown and Davison, today's post is an invitation, the first in a series. Let's get started with a slice from The Power of Pull introduction:

"The first and simplest level of pull is all about flexible access - the ability to fluidly find and get to the people and resources when and where we need them...Access will become increasingly necessary as competition intensifies and disruptions become more frequent. It used to be that we could rely on 'stocks' of knowledge - what we know at any point in time - but these stocks are diminishing in value more rapidly than ever before. Consider the compression of product life-cycles occurring in most global industries today. Even the most successful products fall by the wayside more quickly than the ones that preceded them as new generations come through the pipeline at an ever faster clip. In more stable times, we could sit back and relax once we had learned something valuable, secure that we could generate value from that knowledge for an indefinite period. Not anymore."

The challenge:

"Can you identify the fifty smartest or most accomplished people who share your passions or interests, regardless of where they reside?...For these fifty people, how effectively are you using social media to increase your mutual awareness of each other's activities?"

The context:

"Knowledge flows represent extraordinary opportunity. In a world where edges surface and grow rapidly, these knowledge flows provide the key to continually replenishing our knowledge stocks and exploring new forms of innovation. One challenge in an era of proliferating knowledge flows is to figure out which of these knowledge flows provide the most value. We often are not even aware of the full range of knowledge flows available and therefore cannot effectively use search tools and other mechanisms to access the most rewarding ones. We must master a new set of techniques designed to shape serendipity and attract attention in the most productive way possible. These techniques are the key in turning the challenge of knowledge flows into the rich opportunity of knowledge flows. Rather than a source of value destruction, they become a source of value creation."

The invitation:

My thought is we share our flows. Following, from my experience, are some of the sources that consistently offer solid insight, knowledge flow, that merits your attention. Of course, YMMV, so please do consider this an invitation to offer a few gems from your flow. Take a moment and share by leaving a comment. Alternatively, send me an email with your list and links or post to your blog, send me a link and we'll link to your post from here. Let's do this! Thank you.

Tom Peters! popurls Hacker News paidContent Joho the Blog

Scripting News Rosenblum TV BrandSavant Doc Searls Weblog

Beyond The Beyond Fimoculous Kevin Kelly Thomas P.M. Barnett's Globlogization

Tom Asacker Mediagazer EDGE MediaMemo

Lastly, from the Twitter, the linkers Twitter list by Patrick LaForge (@palafo)

This just in: My thanks to marketing maven Tom Asacker. Tom weighs in with these from his flow:

Grant McCracken
Jonathan Salem Baskin

Piers Fawkes
Matthew May

"The job of the dramatist
is to make the audience wonder what happens next.
Not to explain to them what just happened,
or to suggest to them what happens next."

David Mamet

Bonus: David Mamet Memo to Writers

More flow coming, next time. Thanks for stopping by.

2010-05-20T12:56:00.001-05:00

"Creative thinking will improve as we relate the new fact to the old and all facts to each other." John Dewey

"As the age of information demands the simultaneous use of all our faculties, we discover that we are most at leisure when we are most intensely involved." Marshall McLuhan

"Great innovations should not be forced on slender majorities." Thomas Jefferson

Today's image: 131/365 by honeygueco. Beautiful. Thank you very much for sharing.

Please take ten minutes and watch the following video. The audio is a talk by Dan Pink, the video a very well done animation of his talk. If you have not yet read Drive, Dan's latest book, don't delay, it's a must-read. You will find a link in the left column of this page under "Reading." My thanks to RSA (Royal Society for the encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce) for allowing me to share this video with you.

2010-05-09T19:52:00.010-05:00

"The best preparation for tomorrow is to do today's work superbly well." William Osler

"I have learned this at least by my experiment: that if one advances confidently in the direction of his dreams, and endeavors to live the life which he has imagined, he will meet with a success unexpected in common hours." Henry David Thoreau

"Being forced to work, and forced to do your best, will breed in you temperance and self-control, diligence and strength of will, cheerfulness and content, and a hundred virtues which the idle never know." Charles Kingsley

Today's image: untitled by Felipe T. Marques. Great shot. Thank you for sharing.

"The ROI of Social Media is
Your Business Will Still Exist in 5 Years"

The four minute twenty-five second update on social media. It's worth your bandwidth. My thanks to Erik Qualman.

Bonus: The first media trade publisher to stop the presses and get online was Bob Hamilton. Bob quit the dead tree business 27 years ago and started publishing in the world of 300 baud. His writing, Top 10 things "New Radio" has to be, deserves your attention, it's here. Kudos, Bob!

Good read: The Power of Pull by John Hagel III, John Seely Brown, Lang Davison. Amazon info, here.

"Our basic management approaches are fundamentally broken...We are running faster and faster and falling farther and farther behind...The basis of competition is fundamentally changing...Value creation was around 'knowledge stocks'...We are moving to a world where the source of economic value becomes knowledge flows...Are you in the flow?...The means of value creation are shifting from push to pull..."

Related video: David Weinberger's Web of Ideas: John Hagel on the Power of Pull. My thanks to Dr David and the Berkman Center. Video, here.

2010-05-05T01:32:00.025-05:00

"Oh, give us the man who sings at his work." Thomas Carlyle

"The right man is the one who seizes the moment." Goethe

"Know the true value of time; snatch, seize and enjoy every moment of it. No idleness, no laziness, no procrastination." Philip Dormer Stanhope

Today's image: Untitled by LJ. Great capture. Thank you very much for sharing.

Some good reads that deserve your attention.

This Scott Belsky book is a gem. The subtitle - "Overcoming obstacles between vision & reality" - sets the table for this good read.

Belsky offers solid insights and suggests a practical systematic approach for managing and directing the "creative psyche."

"...when we closely analyze how the most successful and productive executives, entrepreneurs, and businesspeople truly make ideas happen, it turns out that 'having the idea' is just a small part of the journey, perhaps only 1 percent of the journey." Amazon info, here.

The brothers who brought us Made to Stick and an interesting monthly read in Fast Company now have on offer Switch a story-driven narrative about that beast change. That they acknowledge, suggest Nudge, the fine writing of Richard Thaler & Cass Sunstein, as well as the Carol Dweck treasure Mindset, indicates these guys have done their homework.

"...we argue that successful changes share a common pattern. They require the leader of the change to do three things at once...Our goal is to teach you a framework, based upon decades of scientific research, that is simple enough to remember and flexible enough to use in many different situations..." Amazon info, here.

Jaron, a pioneer in virtual reality technology, has written a controversial "manifesto."

"...For millions of people, the internet means endless free copies of music, videos, and other forms of detached human expression. For a few brilliant and lucky people, the internet has meant an ability to spin financial schemes that were too complex to exist in the past, creating dangerous, temporary illusions of risk-free ways to create money out of thin air...there are obvious short-term benefits for some people, but ultimately a disaster for everyone in the long term." Amazon info, here.

Read a good book lately? Your suggestions are welcome. Please do share, leave a comment and suggest a read. Thank you very much.

We are all fortunate, blessed to be living in this very cool emerging world of hyper-connectivity. A new normal of always-on and nowness fueled by our access to and dependence on the network. Our handsets, boosted by that almost ubiquitous accelerant, wireless access, are driving totally new behaviors. Mobile is redefining the fundamentals, part of that is the very meaning of local, it's a whole new grammar and sense of place. Forget about DMA and census block code. The new local is defined in GPS terms - exactly where you are within three feet or less (think P.K. Dick). Time and space are obliterated in one click. Touch is the coming gesture, the new click. We are witness to a profound shift. A gradual fading of the desktop and its mouse. They're going the way of that fax machine handshake noise which is now merely years away from being pop culture trivia, and along with internet dial-up connection noise, an audio question on Jeopardy.

You've no doubt noticed, there's increasing chatter, buzz and discussion about all these early iterations of social networking and the social graph. YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn have captured respectable shares of mind.

Some perspective.

As a guy who was a dot com CMO back in the day, in what can reasonably be characterized as the first major wave of our digital networked society, the differences, compared to today, are indeed dramatic. In the first wave we all accepted the same operating mindset - spend your VC money as quickly as possible. The logic being you could get an equal, or greater, amount of cash in the next round. It was all about your "velocity" of spend, the rate at which you burned money. The table stakes included 20K a month for a PR firm, and at least one million dollars a month in advertising. You weren't considered to be in the game until that first full-page ad appeared in The Industry Standard (The Bible, "the newsmagazine of the Internet Economy"). At one point our CEO called me out during an off-site senior staff meeting for not spending enough money.

Today, the aggregate 2009 ad spend of YouTube, Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn would fall short of what we spent in one year at that now long gone dot com. This is nothing short of revolutionary. But wait, there's more because we're just getting started.

Something's happening here
What it is ain't exactly clear

According to Tom Webster the awareness of Facebook and Twitter is now over 80%, among the 12+ population in the US (Edison Research: Twitter Usage in America 2010).

Twitter's 2009 earned media included a segment on Oprah. Be honest. When was the last time anything your company did was featured on Oprah? The new rules of engagement suggest that the smartest kids working at social networks are enjoying the significant and unique benefits of earned media while the majority of us continue using an increasingly dated playbook (we pay for media). Conversely, the lasting power of the prime time (and live sports) television spot is confirmed daily - it continues to lead the communications mix in Apple product introductions. TV sellers should be using this to make their case.

The time for merely talking about social networks is coming to an end. It's time you and your team get serious and actually get into the game. You must have a well-reasoned strategy. However, you can forget about any urgent need to be correct. Just jump in with purpose. At this point we're all making this stuff up as we go along and don't let anyone tell you any different. If you and your team have a social networking success story please get in touch. I would love to learn what's working for you and, with your permission, share your story here.

Back to the countdown. The great news is, according to Tom, Facebook and Twitter usage estimates are still under 50% of the 12+ US population. Think of it this way, it's late 1975. FM radio first reached a 50 share of American radio listening in 1976.

Cohort replacement is the pure essence of nature at work. The digital immigrants have the advantage of years behind them while the digital natives are living closer to the future, the advantage of significantly more years ahead. I'm reminded of those old white AM radio guys in 1975 telling us FM kids that "nobody has ever complained about the quality of music on our station, your 'music sounds better on FM' argument is just stupid, it's ridiculous."

We can do this. As Gary Hamel once wrote...

"All that matters
is whether you care enough
to start from where you are."

High signal, low noise: Are you reading BrandSavant, Tom Webster's personal blog? It's a serious conversation about "gaining insight from social media data." Jump there now, it's here. Put this one in your reader. You'll thank me later.

Bonus: Beyond the Information Revolution by Peter F. Drucker. The Atlantic, October 1999.

2010-04-02T16:02:00.005-05:00

"Our grand business is not to see what lies dimly in the distance, but to do what lies clearly at hand." Thomas Carlyle

"It is more important to know where you are going than to get there quickly. Do not mistake activity for achievement." Mabel Newcomber

"Enthusiasm is the greatest asset in the world. It beats money and power and influence." Henry Chester

Today's image: Could we please go back to start? by .cherry blossom Great shot. Thank you for sharing.

Start making something

Here's some great counsel from the wonderful new book, Rework. Highly recommended [Go, Start making something, Rework by Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson. Amzn info]

"We all have that one friend who says, 'I had the idea for eBay. If only I had acted on it, I'd be a billionaire!' That logic is pathetic and delusional. Having the idea for eBay has nothing to do with actually creating eBay. What you do is what matters, not what you think or say or plan.

Think your idea's that valuable? Then go try to sell it and see what you get for it. Not much is probably the answer. Until you actually start making something, your brilliant idea is just that, an idea. And everyone's got one of those.

Stanley Kubrick gave this advice to aspiring film-makers: 'Get hold of a camera and some film and make a movie of any kind at all.' Kubrick knew that when you're new at something, you need to start creating. The most important thing is to begin. So get a camera, hit Record, and start shooting.

Ideas are cheap and plentiful. The original pitch idea is such a small part of a business that it's almost negligible. The real question is how well you execute."

As Joe L. Floyd, my friend, former business partner and legendary broadcasting pioneer was fond of saying...

Talk is cheap,
whiskey costs money

Enough talk! Let's start making something. Please allow me to suggest a great place to get started.

Kurt Hanson is presenting his 8th annual RAIN Summit in Las Vegas on Monday, April 12th. The program begins at 10AM and runs until 7PM. It's one of this year's must-attend events. [More info, here]

What makes Kurt's RAIN Summit different and why should you go out of your way to be there?

Simply put, it's the one and only event where trailblazing thought leaders gather to share best practice, to discuss what's happening (and not happening) in the internet radio space. It also happens to be a world-class networking opportunity. If you own broadcast stations, work at the corporate staff or station level this is a meeting you cannot afford to miss. Moreover, if you're interested in learning, keeping current with what the best & brightest are up to, then you would be wise to make the investment.

RAIN Summit West concerns itself with the practical things that matter. Look into it and you'll discover an agenda packed full of presenters that are involved in actually making things, they belong to that entrepreneurial tribe of mavericks - the cool kids of nowness; they're the players, each and all working just ahead of the cutting-edge of our new mediascape.

My suggestion: stop making excuses, ignore the clueless, forget the advice of those who clearly don't get it (hint: they're the ones telling you they don't know anyone that's going) - make something happen, make plans to attend the RAIN Summit West. You'll thank me later.

Closed circuit to broadcasters, webcasters & vendors: For a limited time, take 30% off RAIN Summit registration by using the discount code "Martin30" when registering. Registration info, here. [FD: There's nothing in it for me should you use the code other than helping others to experience the awesomeness that is Kurt Hanson's RAIN Summit. Don't miss it if you can.]

Bonus: Must-read of the week. The Collapse of Complex Business Models by Clay Shirky, here.

Next time: Stuff you should be reading.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a wonderful weekend. See you next week in a brand new show.

2010-03-31T05:46:00.014-05:00

"So then the year is repeating its old story again. We are come once more to its most charming chapter." Goethe

"Courage is grace under pressure." Ernest Hemingway

"The desire for safety stands against every great and noble enterprise." Tacitus

Today's image: reflections (A) by camil tulcan. Wonderful shot. Thanks for sharing.

"So what have you learned since I last saw you?"

That's the question leadership scholar Warren Bennis threw at Tom Peters. Tom goes on, in his latest book, to speak about learning. [The Little Big Things. Chapter 118. Learning. Making the Grade: Lifelong Learning Is a Mission-Statement Must. Amzn info]

"In our rapidly gyrating world, learning-for-life is no longer an option; it's a professional life (or death) necessity - as more and more are beginning to realize. This is true of you at age 17 or 27 or 47 or 67..."

"Bottom Line: I strongly believe that an explicit focus on 'lifelong learning' for everyone on board could well be the most sustainable advantage an organization of any flavor can have!

Hence, I hereby strongly (!!) suggest that...'An unstinting commitment by every one of us to accelerated lifelong learning'...or some close kin be made a formal part of your mission-values statement. It deserves to be right up there in the stratosphere with the likes of superior quality and profitability."

It's impossible not to agree with Tom Peters on the critical importance of lifelong learning. Understanding we are all busy, dollars and time tighter than ever, let me encourage you to sign up for a valuable learning opportunity.

Should you be reading this on March 31st, and you're in the broadcasting business, congrats, it's your lucky day. My thought is there are two must-attend learning events coming up in 2010. Please allow me to suggest that you will benefit by attending both.

First, the 35th annual Conclave Learning Conference, being held in Minneapolis, July 15 - 17. It's a meeting built on a long and rich tradition. In fact, it's the longest running radio programming conference in America.

As you may have heard, this year's Conclave begins with the debut of the Jacobs Media Summer School, a very special new event developed by Fred Jacobs and his Jacobs Media team. Fred's event, certain to be amazing, is only the beginning. Everything I'm hearing from the Conclave agenda committee suggests that this year's Conclave Learning Conference will be one truly exceptional experience and one you should go out of your way to attend. It has the potential to be the best Conclave in history and that would certainly be something you should not miss.

If you've attended a Conclave you know all about the special, unique experience - this is the year you should come back. If you've not been to a Conclave Learning Conference then this is the year you should take your first Conclave deep dive.

Who should attend? If you work in broadcast media you'll benefit by attending. While the Conclave is an excellent networking opportunity, the actionable take away is unmatched. The agenda is packed with practical knowledge, stuff that you can put to work back at your stations.

Here's the best part. Until midnight tonight you can register for only $149, that's 50% off the $299 registration. But you must act today. Complete the registration form and in the Gang of Ten section use the code "35 Insider." That's it! You're in for $149. There's no need to list nine others in the Gang of Ten section of the form because this code has already qualified for the special discount.

This offer expires today. Pay $149 today or - if you wait - $299 or more. I'm suggesting you take advantage of this valuable learning opportunity by taking action today. Don't wait. Use the following link, the Gang of Ten code "35 Insider" and get registered today. Please email this post or copy/paste and forward this information on to friends and colleagues. Friends don't let friends pay retail. You can also get details on the special $99 rate at the host hotel. If you're reading this after March 31st let me again encourage you to attend. The cost of Conclave registration remains an outstanding value.

Here's the link, for more info and to register, Click Conclave. See you at the Conclave! [FD: I serve as an unpaid member of the Conclave board]

Tomorrow, information (and a discount code) about my second must-attend conference of 2010.

As always, thank you for stopping by.

2010-03-12T13:03:00.005-06:00

"Appetite, with an opinion of attaining, is called hope; the same without such opinion, despair." Thomas Hobbes

"Whatever enlarges hope will also exalt courage." Samuel Johnson

"Initiative is to success what a lighted match is to a candle." Orlando Battista

Today's image: tea by Garry Wiesgin. Amazing shot. Thank you for sharing.

Let's catch up. Two good reads worthy of your bandwidth...

A simply wonderful collection of Tom Peters thinking (and living) out loud.

"Instead of waiting to launch a new idea or business until 'things get better,' or starting off every project with a focus on cost minimization, consider instead this quote from former Lend Lease (Australia) CEO Stuart Hornery:

"Every project we take on starts with a question:

'How can we do what's never been done before?' "

Make Hornery's Bold Question your automatic Question #1:

"How will this project enhance the Customer Experience in a way that's so 'dramatically different' from our competitors that we capture new customers and retain old customers and grow our share of business with them. And markedly boost the 'top line'?"

"THINK DIFFERENT" must be a full-time preoccupation in good times and bad..."

The Little BIG Things: 163 Ways to Pursue EXCELLENCE. [Amazon info] Follow Tom on Twitter, here.

Jason Fried and David Heinemeir Hansson, the founders of 37signals, have produced a gem. Rework is a playbook for the real world, a compilation of clear headed business rules.

"Inspiration is perishable.

We all have ideas. Ideas are immortal. They last forever. What doesn't last forever is inspiration. Inspiration is like fresh fruit or milk: It has an expiration date.

If you want to do something, you've got to do it now. You can't put it on a shelf and wait two months to get around to it. You can't say you'll do it later. Later, you won't be pumped up about it anymore.

If you're inspired on a Friday, swear off the weekend and dive into the project. When you're high on inspiration, you can get two weeks worth of work done in twenty-four hours. Inspiration is a time machine in that way. Inspiration is a magical thing, a productivity multiplier, a motivator. But it won't wait for you. Inspiration is a now thing. If it grabs you, grab it right back and put it to work."

Rework [Amazon info] Follow Jason on Twitter, here.

Bonus: Time to Start Taking the Internet Seriously by David Gelernter. Must-read of the week, via EDGE, here.

Thanks for stopping by. Have an incredible weekend. Back next week with a brand new show.

2010-01-28T16:46:00.012-06:00

"We hate to decide. We avoid deciding. We hide from it...Once someone decides, they almost always succeed (unless they want to win an Olympic medal or some other ridiculous prize awarded to just a few). The decision is the hard part, but we spend precious little time on it." Seth Godin

"In any moment of decision the best thing you can do is the right thing, the next best thing is the wrong thing, and the worst thing you can do is nothing." Theodore Roosevelt

"Wherever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision." Peter Drucker

Today's image: Mount Hood by rasone. Amazing. Thank you very much for sharing.

Be Decisive

One of the most important and difficult responsibilities of effective leadership is being decisive. Gathering relevant information, ensuring data used is credible, timely (fresh), crafting and seriously considering a variety of practical solutions sets, while essential, are the easy parts of the decision making process. The most challenging part involves intellectual rigor devoid of pedantry.

"Few people think more than two or three times a year. I have made an international reputation for myself by thinking once or twice a week."
George Bernard Shaw

Thinking is the underlying magic, the hard work in the decision making process, the wellspring of good decisions. Critical thinking, at its best, is an intellectually honest labor, the product of cognitive diversity, it's serious thought imbued with imagination.

"Most people in an industry are blind in the same way - they're all paying attention to the same things, and not paying attention to the same things."
Gary Hamel

My sense is too many firms have defined and adopted so much best practice that they have become, more or less, identical. This operating mindset comes from prizing only the knowable, respecting nothing but the proven, it's a process driven by the singular mission of minimizing the unpredictable. Unfortunately, this approach inevitably leads to institutionalized risk-aversion and incrementalism. Innovation gives way to inertia. Original thinking is not required. Moreover, the "untested" is discouraged, frowned upon. The danger is this becomes an irrational quest for the holy grail of predictability, a search for something elegant (perhaps something akin to the next Black-Scholes formula). Caution, one might be wise to mind the counsel of Albert Einstein: "Elegance is for tailors." In other words, be skeptical of elegant math.

It is my suggestion that there has never been a time more favorable, more ripe for being a contrarian. Dare to embrace the naive assumption. Foster the chaos that is unvarnished candor, search for what's missing, carefully study what your competitors are doing and seriously consider doing the exact opposite. Differentiate in all you do. Create contrast. Each day, ask yourself the most important questions of all...WHY? and WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE?

"Discovery consists of seeing what everyone else has seen
and thinking what nobody has thought."
Albert von Szent-Györgyi

Once you've done your homework, done the hard work of thinking and reached your decision let me suggest that you add one more important step before taking action. It comes from Harvey Mackay, the famous Minnesota envelope maker turned business writer, and it's a gem. Gather your team one more time and ask...

"What are the five things that could go wrong,
and what would we do about each."

Today's quote by Seth Godin courtesy of Hugh MacLeod. It comes from an interview with Seth on Hugh's blog, Gapingvoid (linchpin: ten questions for seth godin). Earlier this month Hugh started "Hugh's Daily Cartoon" - it's free via email and I highly recommend it, sign-up here.

Get more info on Seth's new book Linchpin, (it's a good read) via Amazon, here.

My thanks to Seth and Hugh.

2009-12-16T06:08:00.030-06:00

"If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough." Albert Einstein

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." Aristotle

"If I had asked my customers what they wanted, they would have said a faster horse." Henry Ford

Today's image: Moon For Masako by ~EvidencE~ Beautiful. Thank you for sharing.

The product is the marketing
Do things worth talking about

Gordon McLendon got it right. The Old Scotchman, one of the true wizards of 20th century wireless, gave his managers much wise counsel, including this precious gem: "Get people to talk about your radio station."

Long before business writers and marketing mavens first hit on the now vogue notion of "word of mouth" marketing, McLendon and company were holding multi-metro clinics on manufacturing buzz and taking it to the bank.

Today most broadcast managers are preoccupied (overwhelmed might be a more honest characterization) with the crush of daily affairs. The urgent is getting all the attention and in the process it's the important that is being neglected.

On the day job, in our work with radio, television and new media managers, we are witness to the production of outstanding results including some amazing, remarkable ROI. Without exception, those results are produced by starting with a single serious focus, an obsession with the product.

In our experience, these winning managers share attributes which set them apart from others, here now are four...

1. A mindset that encourages and rewards risk taking, appreciates failing faster as the secret sauce of innovation.

2. A respect for talent, a deep understanding that creativity is a renewable resource.

3. A daily dedication, a drive, which keeps them fresh, on fire and pathologically competitive.

4. They love and honor their craft. Accordingly, they have fun, consistently bring their A game, come to play and play to win. They do work that matters, things worth talking about.

Our best advice continues to be summarized in one simple declarative sentence...

"All that's important is what
comes out of the speakers
and on the screen(s),
everything else is a footnote."

Please allow me to again suggest that you read The Design of Business by Roger Martin [Amzn info]. Following are three paragraphs taken whole from that writing. My thanks to Roger Martin.

"Some contexts don't reward repetition, structuring, and planning that are the hallmarks of mastery. Those nonstandard contexts require the creation of a new approach or solution; they require originality. Originality demands a willingness to experiment, spontaneity in response to a novel situation, flexibility to change directions as information dictates, and responsiveness to opportunities as they present themselves, even if they're unexpected. Rooted as it is in experimentation, originality openly courts failure. It's important to become comfortable with the processes of trial and error and iterative prototyping, or you'll be tempted to focus on the less risky mode of mastery, to the exclusion of originality.

Mastery without originality becomes rote. The master who never tries to think in novel ways keeps seeing the same thing the same way. In this manner, mastery without originality becomes a cul-de-sac. By the same token, originality without mastery is flaky, if not entirely random. The power is in the combination."

Martin's thesis concerns combining proof-based analytical thinking with possibility-based abductive thinking (Charles Sanders Peirce's "third form of logic"). His writing makes the case for the advertising put forth in the subtitle of his book, "why design thinking is the next competitive advantage." At the end of his writing he offers this thought...

"As you grow more sure-footed and adept at maintaining the design thinker's balance, you will gain fluency in both the allusive poetry of intuitive discovery and the precise prose of analytical rigor."

Readers are leaders: Amazon.com - Best Books of 2009 - Top 10 Books: Business & Investing, here. AdAge - Book of Tens: 10 Books You Should Have Read in 2009 by Matt Kinsey, here.

Congrats & cheers: Uber-cool media entrepreneur Rob Barnett, Warren Chao and their hard-working, wicked sharp My Damn Channel gang, winners of the first ever New Media Minute Award of Excellence [more info]. Well deserved. (Stay tuned...these guys are just getting started.) Radio programming ace Scott Shannon named VP, Programming for group operator Citadel. If you're keeping score, that's day job number five for the exceptionally gifted Mr Shannon. His other gigs include hosting the highly rated WPLJ breakfast show where he also serves as PD. In his spare time Scott is the mid-day star of the True Oldies Channel where he again doubles up, serving with distinction as the net's chief creative officer and principal architect.

Bonus: Rethinking How Broadcast Media Uses Research by Tom Webster, here. Kudos, Tom. Seems to me we have a bunch of smart people preoccupied with study, comparative analysis, interpretation and serious discussion related to the old answers when they should, instead, bring intellectual rigor to a critical pursuit of discovery - finding the new questions. Roger Martin said something that relates here "...(the reliability-driven colleague) sees the future as the enemy and the past as a friend."

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