"The first - and usually the best - opportunity for successful change is to exploit one's own successes and build on them. Problems cannot be ignored. And serious problems have to be taken care of. But to be change leaders, enterprises have to focus on opportunities. They have to starve problems and feed opportunities."
Peter Drucker

Brian Lamb, subject of the cartoon image, was honored this past weekend by The American Newswomen's Club. Brian, president and CEO of C-SPAN, is a national treasure deserving of much recognition. He does work that matters. The ANWC 2006 Benefit Gala was a great success (by all accounts - sorry we missed it). Our friend and former colleague Jim Bohannon served as emcee/auctioneer for the event. Bob Schieffer closed yesterday's FTN with a commentary commending Brian. Bravo Bob! Well done. First met Brian during my watch at Washington International Teleport (WIT) where C-SPAN was a client. Brian has always been the perfect gentleman. Congrats and cheers to Brian and to his C-SPAN team. Love BookTv, not a weekend without it!

Bill Figenshu now leading the charge at Softwave Media Exchange sent along a response to part of an earlier post where I said "Kudos to Google, Yahoo and Microsoft. Each is dedicated, in some important way(s), to inventing the future of advertising sales." To which Fig says...

A few questions,

after 9 short months,

Who is buying over ONE MILLION DOLLARS IN RADIO A WEEK?
Has placed over 150,000 spots on the air?

Who has 40% of the USA radio audience in just 8 months? (12+ million listeners.)
Who has over 1,300 Major/Medium market radio groups registered?
Who has placed revenue on 15 of the top 15 groups?
Has 41 of the TOP 50 radio stations in the US as a partner?

Who has launched/developed a

-Political platform for radio?
-Flighted revenue platform for radio?
-An automated direct response & remnant platform?
-Cable TV platform?
-Broadcast TV platform?

That would be...Software Media Exchange - SWMX.COM

Check out our electronic advertising platform here. Sure it's a shamless plug. But we are growing by leaps and bounds! The broadcast industry is embracing one of it's own. It's in our DNA. Not a part time job.

If we were Google, we would be considered a huge success. But look at it this way, we're leaders in e-media advertising sadly "we suck at search!"


Thanks for getting in touch Fig, thanks too for the update on your latest venture. Good luck and keep us posted. Fig is a smart guy and a good man, I remain a fan. (FD: Fig was a client of mine in the last century and we were colleagues at Infinity/CBS). Meanwhile, Sara Kehaulani Goo provides a Google update, A New Advertising Engine, via WaPo here. Thanks Sara, good job! Jefferson Graham writing in USA Today, Google ad sales outpace all comers, provides a good review of the bidding for the $100 billion local ad market here. Good piece Jefferson. (FD: we use Google AdWords for our retail store and love the program, very effective)

The DePaul Journalism Challenge: Rewriting the Future of the American Newspaper. Check out the winners here.

Dave Logan, ever the uber-cool media exec and always well read creative noted a WaPo piece about MySpace and writes..."Is there anything more fickle than an American teen?" Read the well written Yuki Noguchi piece In Teens' Web World, MySpace Is So Last Year here. Thanks Dave.

Should that eagle fly: This morning's WSJ reports Clear Channel's founding Mays family could make more than $1.1 billion plus $80 million in severance pay should a new owner ask that the family exit.

Interested in military strategy? Here's a must-read: Colonel Thomas X. Hammes, USMC (Ret.) has written a brilliant book on the state and future of military strategy. Col Hammes posits we are living in the world of 4GW (fourth-generation warfare), the only type of war America has ever lost (Vietnam, Lebanon and Somalia). Highly recommended. Amazon info here. (My thanks to Thomas P.M. Barnett for suggesting the reading)

New & Improved? You decide: Rob Barnett kicks off Rob Barnett Media here. Flash? Well, if you must, OK. Index page title is "Rob Barnett Will Disrupt Media," at least he is setting the bar high. Go for it Rob - Cheers and good luck. Jerry Del Colliano is writing again, this time via his blog, here. Jerry is using that little TM marking on his page title "Inside Music Media." OK. But did he really file on it? It's not showing up on the fed's database. No matter, good luck Jerry, cheers and welcome back to the world.

Winer Wisdom...

"At first, the Internet, the market dominated by Google, Yahoo, Microsoft and Amazon (and others) was about the web, a publishing environment, then it became two-way, and search developed as a core but adjunct feature, much as the OS of a personal computer is part of the package, but the spreadsheet, word processor and other productivity apps are really what it was about. There will be new technology enterprises that make the search engine as humdrum as the desktop OS is today. Bet on it and win. Think that all innovation must come in the form of applications of search and you'll be left in the dust." I'll continue to bet with Dave Winer; Bravo Dave, more here