"Poetry is the shortest way of saying something. It lets us express a dime's worth of ideas, or a quarter's worth of emotion, with a nickel's worth of words." John Grier

"Most clear writing is a sign that there is no exploration going on. Clear prose indicates the absence of thought." Marshall McLuhan

"The thorough man of business knows that only by years of patient, unremitting attention to affairs can he earn his reward, which is the result, not of chance, but of well-devised means for the attainment to ends." Andrew Carnegie

Today's image: Head Above Water by Philippe Sainte-Laudy. Amazing. Thanks for sharing.

Leadership: Robert X. Cringely offers us some wisdom, thanks to Janna Raye...

"Modern corporations suffer from systemic-level issues that emerge in top-down hierarchies. Managers are there to control staff and budgets, not to lead. Although you can make valiant and often successful attempts to control things and processes, you will never again be able to control people. We've evolved, basically, and the information age has had a lot to do with it. So we still "manage" companies the same way as when we actually operated assembly lines in America--the good old days! Now, people need leaders, not managers, and that's what a fractal organization enables.

"In fractal organizations, it's the staff deciding how to continuously improve processes in their functional areas for efficiency of time and resources. These organizations thrive with a new pay model also, based upon results or value of work delivered and not how much time it takes to do the task. Those who are really good will get to go home early! These are not the organizations that are shrinking. Like galaxies, they continue to expand, actually aided by a strong gravitational pull of the leaders at the center. Those who do it well create a compelling vision and keep it alive. They allocate resources to projects that align with the vision, and reward arm- and team-cluster leaders for the creative ideas their staff bring to the organization. It's a shared vision and collective goals that are missing from the vast majority of organizations, which is why failing projects continue to drain resources. Really caring about what you do and feeling proud to be a part of something special and wonderful is what every human desires, even if they say they don't."

Read Robert's entire post here. Bravos, Cringely, well done.

Thank you very much: Marketing maven Tom Asacker kind enough to send along his very cool new book, A Little Less Conversation, Connecting with Consumers in a Noisy World. [Amazon info]. More on Tom's writing after the reading.

Congrats & cheers: Radio programming ace Mark Pennington promoted to PD of legendary Detroit rocker WRIF. Well deserved. Thanks to Lee Arnold for the tip. Adult Alt bows on AccuRadio today. Kudos Tom Teuber, Kurt Hanson and all involved. NPR launches online community, smart. [Related: NPR]