"Don't be discouraged by a failure. It can be a positive experience. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterwards carefully avoid." John Keats

"The most glorious moments in your life are not the so-called days of success, but rather those days when out of dejection and despair you feel rise in you a challenge to life, and the promise of future accomplishments." Flaubert

"Out of clutter, find simplicity. From discord, find harmony. In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity." Albert Einstein

Today's image: Need for Speed by Amnemona. Fun shot. Thank you very much.

It's that time of year. Making the best of the days and weeks remaining before year end. Getting ready for the new year.

One of the most important questions to ask is "Who are we?" The question regards our highest aspirations. What exactly are those aspirations? How will we define success? What measures must we monitor? Business objectives should be stated in clear and simple terms. For example:

Top five, 25-54
Top five rev producer
20% of rev = non spot

55% bcf

Aspirations, indeed our highest aspirations, should be bigger than our business objectives. Aspirations should be the stuff of dramatic difference. Achievement of our business objectives allows us, enables us, to reach for our aspirations. The two largest retailers in the US are doing just that. Wal-Mart and Target are each funding community initiatives, initiatives that make real differences in their respective communities. Broadcast has the unique, powerful and game-changing ability to influence.

On a roll: Dr Dave is...

"Hyperlinks are the opposite of information. They enrich, rather than reduce. Open-ended, decentralized, messy… all the things databases of info are not. Most of all, they are social...

...They are done for someone by someone. Linking is a type of writing. We link for some anticipated set of readers.

So, the Web works against the regime of informationalization."

"It is ultimately language that is the unspoken between us. Language is driven by what matters to us. We have words, sentences, paragraphs, punctuation.... That’s the shared lumpiness of the the unsaid. And now we have links. Links that have presence and persistence.

Our brains discriminate edges, but we we also are fascinated by the transcendence of edges. The value is in the complex, the loose-edged, the potential, the unspoken, because that is what we share and how the world matter to us.

Defrag -- our generational project, not just this conference -- isn’t about reassembling pieces. It’s not about clarity and simplicity. It’s about how we are finding ways to let the world matter to us together. For that we need to enable, cherish, and protect the unspoken between us."

More here. Bravos, David!

Bonus: Michael Rosenblum...

"We are all pioneers in a new realm - the world of communicating and expressing yourself online - not necessarily to ‘the viewers’, but increasingly to ‘each other’.

It’s not broadcasting. And it’s not vlogging.

It is something else.

With its own rules, its own grammar and its own path to take.

We are really just getting started with this, but I think there is something here."

Outstanding! Michael's blog is a must-read, his thoughts well worth the bandwidth. MORE

Brian Williams held his own and turned in a fine performance with the SNL kids. Kudos to Howie for making it a topic on Reliable. I'm with Rachael on this one.

Where the hell is the Container API? Russell Beattie asks the important question here.

Pump up the volume: Who had more sponsored link impressions than eBay and IAC in September and August? From zero, that's zilch in July to growth at the rate of 209,950%...the answer here. My thanks to Alex Patriquin and the Compete crew for sharing the insights.

Web 2.0 - On The Ropes? You decide. Tom Foremski offers up his take here.

Who's zooming whom? Radio trade pub edition: Blue = R&R, Red = Radio-Info, Green= Inside Radio.



Jan Chipchase, Nokia researcher, delivered a great talk at TED earlier this year. Jan does human behavioral research, his talk is about connections and consequences. He is preoccupied with what we carry. "The street will take it and will figure out ways to innovate...and it will innovate in ways that we cannot anticipate." Kudos, Jan! Outstanding.

Owned > Considered > Carried > Used

Congrats & cheers: Steve Dahl on the debut of his new morning show. Dan Mason and Dr Kathleen Dillon on their marriage.