"There is a lot more to running a marketplace than getting a lot of listings...there is trust and safety, and payments and reputation. That stands eBay in good stead." Meg Whitman

Doing some late spring cleaning and found a copy of another United Technologies ad, classic...

Let's Get Rid of Management

People
don't want
to be
managed.
They want
to be led.
Whoever heard
of a world
manager?
World leader,
yes.
Educational leader.
Political leader.
Religious leader.
Scout leader.
Community leader.
Labor leader.
Business leader.
They lead.
They don't manage.
The carrot
always wins
over the stick.
Ask your horse.
You can lead your
horse to water,
but you can't
manage him
to drink.
If you want to
manage somebody,
manage yourself.
Do that well
and you'll
be ready to
stop managing.
And start
leading.

Heading to Chicago? The James is the very cool Chicago hotel property of the moment. Congrats and kudos to Danny Errico, Brad Wilson and crew on making Travel + Leisure's "The It List" debut. From T+L...

What do you call an upstart brand that blends the cheeky tone and smart looks of design hotels with the user-friendliness and affordability of mid-level chains? We call it a welcome relief. Stephen Hanson's first James hotel, in Scottsdale, Arizona, was a runaway hit. Now the restaurateur-hotelier is shaking things up in the Windy City. The 297 guest rooms are inviting exercises in mid-aughties minimalism—dark-wood platform beds, leather cube stools, cocoa-brown carpeting, slate-tiled bathrooms with brushed-chrome and marble sinks, and an orchid placed just so. Amenities, however, are anything but spare: in addition to Wi-Fi and a 42-inch plasma TV, each room has a stereo with an iPod dock. ROOMS TO BOOK Any of the 550-square-foot Loft rooms, which have views of installations by Chicago artists. DON'T MISS A cut of dry-aged beef from Kentucky's renowned Creekstone Farms, at chef David Burke's Primehouse, the hotel's requisite steak joint. (This is still Chicago, after all.) T+L here

See you at the J Bar this summer. More on the hotel here. (Thanks to the always dialed-in Lewis Lazare for the tip here)

Leading creative collaboration! PR impresario Steve Rubel makes an interesting proffer...rather than reacting/responding to a published column (ala WaPo, et al), Steve suggests folks offer up their povs in advance of a column's creation and publication. He will then, subject to his selection and possible editing, include comments/contributions in his AdAge piece. The subject of his writing: BitTorrent, more info here. Real-time collaboration it is. Bravo Steve, smooth concept.

When lawyers attack. Paul Heine writes...

In the latest wrinkle in the legal battle over the “playing what we want” slogan, Bonneville International Corp. has filed a counterclaim against SparkNet Communications seeking to cancel the consultancy’s trademark on the slogan. More via Billboard RadioMonitor here

Good for Bonneville! It seems to me that trademarking language and, further, making claims that the combination of certain words have special, unique powers requiring protection would seem to require some degree of supportive evidence. Of course I might be wrong. The last I checked only three of the so-called "what(ever) we want" stations were posting competitive numbers (1 of CBS, 2 of Bonneville). The simple truth may well be found in common sense; there is nothing magic or special about SparkNet's slogan(s) and the ratings performance of their clients might just be exhibit A. If what you are paying for, if what is being "protected" is not producing results what are you paying for? What are you protecting? Moreover, the essence of the Jack approach, it seems to me, is still too clever by half. Programming 101 - Slogans alone don't make engaging, arresting, entertaining, memorable nor winning audio, what comes out of the speakers does; each and all of the elements have a cumulative effect and affect. The three successful stations may, perhaps, share one uniqueness and it has little, if anything, to do with language and everything to do with being well programmed. For the largest DMAs, the Spring sweep results will mark one year since the Jack attack began, let's carefully examine the record once it's available. Truth will out.

A Brit's pov on net neutrality, Adriana Cronin-Lukas writes...

The telecoms and cablecos are heavily regulated and their cries for free market are false. The industry is already warped and the argument against net neutrality based on the desire to keep government out of 'markets' is misplaced. More here

The Communications, Consumers' Choice and Broadband Deployment Act of 2006 (S. 2686). Net neutrality is but one issue, such as it is and not completely addressed, in the Senate bill. The House bill done the action is now headed to the Senate. My sense is nothing will happen until next year - perfect timing for you to NOW contact your members and be heard. Latest here. Today's panel before the Senator Stevens' Committee here