Inevitable by
Thomas Hawk

Cool shot, thank you.

"To contrive is nothing! To construct is something! To produce is everything! Edward Rickenbacker

"There is a calculated risk in everything. There has been a calculated risk in every stage of American development. The nation was built by men who took risks - pioneers who were not afraid of the wilderness, business men who were not afraid of failure, scientists who were not afraid of the truth, thinkers who were not afraid of progress, dreamers who were not afraid of action." Brooks Atkinson

Save the date: Tuesday, May 8th. If you work or once worked in or around the Chicago music scene (radio, music promotion, distribution, label sales, et al) you will want to save this date. Details coming tomorrow.

This week marks the two-year anniversary of Hunter S. Thompson's suicide. Joel Renna writes about the good doctor here. The guru of gonzo said a great many profound things, some of my favorites: "It still hasn't gotten weird enough for me." "When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro." "The music business is a cruel and shallow money trench, a long plastic hallway where thieves and pimps run free, and good men die like dogs. There's also a negative side." I miss Hunter, we need him at times like these, his is a voice missing in the conversation. What would he have thought about the freak show coverage of Anne Nicole's death.

Listening: If you have not heard the songs of Regina Spektor you probably should. Highly recommended. When interviewed by CBS for their Sunday Morning program the reporter asked about her hardscrabble childhood in Moscow and how she feels about now living in New York. Sensing the reporter's objective she replied "You can't make me cry. I'm a Bronx girl." She is that and can she sing. Jump to her site here.

Fred Winston is blogging about meat (with a very cool photo) here and tells us a story about a 65 pound tooth here.

Top 10 Gmail tips and hacks: Courtesy of David Chartier here. I love my Gmail, thanks David. (&thanks to Techmeme for the tip)

Talent, talent everywhere: There has never been a better time to find talented, gifted people to engage in your enterprise. One of the wonderful things about today's rich interactive environment is if we provide a way for talented people to contribute, they will. Case in point. A suburban Chicago high school student earns an internship on the NBC hit show The Office. Fred Jacobs has the story here. Provide a simple, easy way to participate, enable the sharing of your simple contribution process (e.g., "Come play with us and email a friend this cool invitation to play"- dial up the "fun factor" to eleven), offer up premiums that money can't buy (think: priceless, like The Office walk-on. Never underestimate the power of recognition, getting on-air name mention is not a big thing to us, it remains a very big thing to viewers/listeners), boldly extend the invitation - repeat with audacity, celebrate the contributors. McConnell and Huba write about the 1% that are active contributors. If you have not heard 80/20 is dead online. It's now 100/1. All you need do is engage your 1%. How are you getting their attention, capturing their interest, inspiring their imagination, getting them to take action and contribute? (Hint: Make them the stars of your show)

Exactly wrong: Banner on a station site "Bigger and Better Advertising Opportunities! Now Available @ XXXX Click here to find out more" When clicking you get a page with nothing more than one line of text and an email address link ("To advertise on the air contact our sales department - sales@xxxx.com"). No bigger and better opportunities, nothing more found out. This is a major missed opportunity: 1. A total waste of banner space 2. A wasted click. The landing page fails to payoff the banner. More important, 99%+ of the time you have lost a prospect unless you honestly feel the very few prospects that do click will also 1. click on the email link 2. allow their email client to load 3. write you an email asking for more information. Not going to happen. And yet you wonder why your site is not generating sales leads. There's a much better way. Please stop making it hard for me to spend my money. Think! Put yourself on the user side of the equation. Payoff all promises, all expectations created. Reward my click. Don't waste my time. Don't make me think. Tell me a story. Always keep in mind: "what's in it for me?"

Bonus: Seth on customer service here.

I would have made today's post shorter but didn't have the time.