Photo: Red Storm Rising by autumnleaf Beautiful shot. Thank you.

"To give real service you must add something which cannot be bought or measured with money, and that is sincerity and integrity." Donald A. Adams

"Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit." Aristotle

"Our business in life is not to get ahead of others but to get ahead of ourselves - to break our own records, to outstrip our yesterdays by our today, to do our work with more force than ever before." Stewart B. Johnson

What Twitter is: Dave Winer...

"People who say that Twitter hasn't figured out how to make money don't understand the role technology companies play in the much larger media and communication ecosystem. Ideas gestate here, grow up, find users, and then find customers. In a way Twitter is a mega-enterprise product, and by using it, we're helping them prove it." Bravo Dave, well said. Dave's post here.

Get out of the way:Michael Rosenblum on the CNN - YouTube debates...

"A few days ago, CNN started running a promo in which CNN News VP David Bohrman and a few producers sat at a table in front of laptops. “We’ve gotten hundreds of questions so far” says Bohrman, “and we have to pick the best ones to ask”.

Why?

Why does David Bohrman (or anyone for that matter) have to pick the best questions, or any questions. Why not just post all the video questions on the web and let the public decide which ones they like the best.

In the online world, David Bohrman, (or anyone else doing this) simply gets in the way of the process. The beauty of the web is that it does not need, nor does it want ‘executive producers’ or ‘vice presidents’. Neither would I want David Bohrman to be on Amazon.com deciding which of the thousands of books available we will be offering tonight.

Go home.

The same goes for Anderson Cooper.

Get out of the way.

The CNN/Youtube debates were a start, but only a start. We are halfway there. New technologies arrive, but we cannot help ourselves but to plug them into old and tired architectures for delivery."

Kudos Michael! Your reading is spot-on, outstanding! Read his post here FYI - Nielsen estimate of viewership was an average of 2.6Mil; compare with 2.8Mil viewers for the June non-YouTube CNN New Hampshire Dem debate and the May Fox GOP debate at 2.5Mil. The CNN-YouTube debate did set a new record for 18-34 cable debate viewing, an average of 407,000. Contrast with the 3.1Mil viewers tuned in to Larry King's Paris Hilton interview. LATER: In comments Dan Kelley adds "CNN: Why not start with picking the most common questions first?" Good point Dan; let's play the hits. My take is let the folks vote the vids up and down digg style. Whatever, Michael is on the mark here; we don't need no stinkin VP, EP, MC and crew to judge and select the videos. Vox populi!

Must see video: My favorite military strategist, Thomas P.M. Barnett, delivers his PNM talk at TED (2005) here. Dr Barnett rocks! Also - check out his blog here. Highly recommended.

Don't Fill Up Your Cup: The Power of a Little Less. From chapter six of the book Chasing Cool by Noah Kerner and Gene Pressman. Amazon info. Blog. A good airplane read.

• Stay focused on a vision but remain open to inspiration from everywhere
• Begin with one great idea that's better than the alternatives
• Develop a total aesthetic but always leave room for surprises
• Borrow equity authentically and share at the same time
• Take big risks with a healthy dose of risk management
• Become Goliath but always behave like David
• Keep differentiating your company...keep people coming back for more
  

Bonus: LibraryThing. Thanks to Dave Weinberger for the tip. What is the meaning of technology in our lives? Kevin Kelly responds The Technium and the 7th Kingdom here.

Thank you very much: Appreciate you stopping by. Top ten visits by country: USA, Australia, UK, Canada, Ireland, Belgium, Germany, India, South Korea and Brazil. Five most e-mailed posts: Drake & Sklar, A Great General Manager, Allan Stagg, STAR, Jockless oldies. (analytics from the last thirty days)

Congrats & cheers: The new crew at TVNewser. Moving into the house that Brian built: Chris Ariens (editor), Gail Shister (contributor), Diane Clehane (contributor), and Alissa Krinsky (writer).