Photo:
Produce by Fred Winston
The legendary performer is also a gifted shooter. Great shot from his collection "Rural America." Thanks Fred!


"I think that a writer should avoid stuffiness like the plague. I think he's better off to be a questioner, than an accepter. I think a good writer can never be a snob; a snob sets himself apart from people, rather than being one of them. That's suicidal for a writer. I think a writer should be joyous, and an optimist, rather than a cynic. Anything that implies rejection of life is wrong for a writer, and cynicism is rejection of life. I would say participate, participate, participate." George Gribbin

Congrats & Cheers: The Web Celeb 25. Forbes offers up their first list including almost all of the right people...Amanda, Hosea, Perez, Kos, Drudge, Seth, Jarvis, Scobleizer, Jimmy Wales, Frank Warren, Cory & Xeni, Lisanti, Jason and Om. Read all about it here. Congrats too: Steve Rubel, the prince of PR, on his well deserved honorable mention. Our favorite Ask-A-Ninja guys Kent + Doug are featured by Forbes in a related web vid (the Ninja hisself also makes an appearance).

Money Honey Mess: Jon Friedman makes the right call. CNBC needs to step up and cover the Maria Bartiromo - Todd Thomson - Citigroup story. Failing to do so harms credibility and invites the freak show to write their own versions of the story. This lapse in judgment deserves correction. Read Jon's well written take via MarketWatch here.

Please keep in mind: Bob Wilson, founder of R&R, is recovering from a stroke. You may drop Bob a line at Burbank Healthcare, 1041 S. Main Street, Burbank, CA 91506.

Please give what you can to help the children of Allan Stagg, any amount will make a difference. Thank you. Allan Stagg Kids Fund c/o Marshall Community Credit Union, 839 West Green Street, Marshall, MI 49068

Up to nothing but good: Caught up earlier this week with Todd Fowler, the young turk of media brokerage and his AMS-B colleague David Reeder. Todd and David were in Madison attending the Wisconsin Broadcasters winter meet, enjoyed spending some time with them. Congrats and kudos to John Laabs, Michelle Vetterkind and Linda Baun for what everyone reports to be a very good meeting.

It's not what you say. It's what people hear: Wise counsel. Been suggesting and practicing that pov for decades. Now it comes to life in the title of the new Frank Luntz book Words That Work: It's Not What You Say, It's What People Hear. Amazon info here. Just getting into it, a really good read. Bravo Frank!

Knocking the cover clean off the ball, again: Terry Heaton writes...

"But if local TV is about local advertising, to where will local advertisers turn in a world of diminishing relevance for broadcasting? This is a question of profound implications, but it's one that ought to give all local media companies hope for the future, for the real growth in internet advertising over the next decade will be at the local level. And the evolution of local media on the web will, once again, be about the evolution of local advertising.

Key to the development of a local online ad market is the identification of the local web, and this offers a remarkable opportunity for those willing to explore this territory today. In the not-too-distant future, everyone will have access to the local web, but this access is unavailable today, because the database hasn't been created. It exists in bits and pieces, but no technology can replace the human research necessary to build the initial database. This is a task that will pay huge dividends to the one who creates it, market-by-market, and there's no reason this can't be done by a local media company."

Local, local, local! Spot-on Terry! Excellent stuff. Read Terry's entire post here.

Bonus: Breakthrough Ideas for 2007. Excellent reading courtesy of The Harvard Business Review here. Highly recommended. (Thanks to Dave for the tip.)

Bonus 2: "The present is only faced in any generation by the artist" says Marshall McLuhan during his discussion with Norman Mailer. CBC video from 1968 here.