"What helps luck is a habit of watching for opportunities, of having a patient, but restless mind, of sacrificing one's ease or vanity, of uniting a love of detail to foresight, and of passing through hard times bravely and cheerfully." Victor Cherbulies

"One of the strongest characteristics of genius is the power of lighting its own fire." John Foster

"One pound of learning requires ten pounds of common-sense to apply it." Persian proverb

"Conversation should be pleasant without scurrility, witty without affectation, free without indecency, learned without conceitedness, novel without falsehood." Shakespeare

UW Terrace photo by Kelly Hafermann via Flickr Isthmus pool Thanks!

Lewis Lazare reviews the Fallon & Senn book "Juicing the Orange"...

If we have a bone to pick with Fallon and Senn regarding their book, it's with the way they constantly bandy about that loaded word "creativity."

Of course ad agencies must be creative to succeed. But we would suggest the advertising they produce, if it's going to succeed, also must be smart, rather than the wildly undisciplined mess that passes for creativity at too many ad agencies today. Well said Lew, bravo! Lew is a must-read for any serious student of marketing and advertising. Get more of Lew's view here

Congrats and cheers to Scott Shannon on his induction into the Radio Hall of Fame. Scott has certainly earned this honor, he truly deserves the recognition. Beyond his considerable gifts as a programmer, Scott is also a brilliant performer and a gentleman. Other 2006 inductees include Douglas Edwards, Christopher Glenn, John Hare and William B. Williams.

Young turk, rising star dept: Chris Corcoran of XRadio promoted to Vice President of Affiliate Management, Dial Global Programming. Very smart move, Chris is the goods. Congrats to Chris.

Mike Kinosian interviews Tim Dukes programming wizard in residence at Emmis' WLUP...

...an aggressive, pomp and pageantry three-dimensional radio station. That’s what a Rock station has to be in order to truly survive

Tim is one of the best programmers in the biz, his finest hour yet to come. Read the entire Inside Radio interview here

Erica Farber interviews the always interesting Mark Masters...

If you have great intellectual range and great emotional range, you can emote on behalf of the audience. You get emotionally naked in front of the microphone, and the speakers disappear. And when the speakers disappear you create a relationship. Without emotional and intellectual range, it’s just facts and data.

Few understand talent as Mark does. The Mark Masters Publishers Profile may be found here

Craig Newmark steps up and offers insight into his latest ventures, here Bravo Craig!

Technorati sez: There are now 175,000 new blogs each day (my thanks to you for reading this humble blog), more via CNET here

Bonus: The Gallop Poll rates television news and talk personalities...

The net favorable (favorable minus unfavorable) findings:

Diane Sawyer +69
Charles Gibson +47
Matt Lauer +45
Dan Rather +44
Regis Philbin +43
Bob Schieffer +41
Brian Williams +40
Barbara Walters +38
Katie Couric +37
Anderson Cooper +34
Meredith Vieira +29
Lou Dobbs +28
Larry King +27
Bill O'Reilly +10

Three of the personalities tested posted net negative ratings, Geraldo Rivera -23, Star Jones -26 and Rosie O'Donnell -28. You may review the data with narrative here

All the news that fits online: Yahoo continues strong lead. comScore Media Metrix has released findings of an online news study. Yahoo posted 31.2 million unique visitors in June representing a 13% increase in year-over-year growth. MSNBC placed with 23.4 mil visitors, down 14% from a year ago. AOL showed 20.4 mil, down 2% while CNN served up 19.9 mil, down 6%. Story via MediaPost here

Peter Smyth writes and gets it 100% right, my thanks to Lee Arnold for the pointer...

Managers often fall into the trap of not hiring people who are "too smart" or "too aggressive". That's a direct reflection on the insecurity of the manager, and will, sooner or later, reduce the station's effectiveness in the marketplace. Another potential mistake is hiring the friend or acquaintance just because they are a known quantity, even if they may not be the best candidate for the job. More management blinders at work.

We managers are not compensated to create the most comfortable environment, nor are we paid to create a team of clones who all think alike. We are obligated to assess what our real market needs are, and to do everything in our power to fulfill them. That may mean going outside our comfort zone, or the comfort zone of our staff, but it should be clear to all involved that the motivation and expectation behind those recruitment campaigns is to bring us someone who will shake up the place. Change can be good; in fact it can be the best thing if it keeps all of us sharp and aggressive.

When we bring someone onto our payroll, we need to consider it the beginning of a relationship, not the end of a process. Talented people want to learn, they want to grow and they want to progress in their career.

Bravo Peter! My sense...there is a serious paucity of great leaders. Until and unless we address this leadership problem media firms will continue to struggle. Moreover, the future of our business is put in harms way by this lack of leadership. As said here previously the fish stinks at the head first. Read all of Peter's writing here. Check out A Great General Manager here