"A magician is an actor impersonating a magician." Jean Eugene Robert-Houdin

"The scientific approach to the phenomenon of human nature enables us to be ignorant without being frightened, and without, therefore, having to invent all sorts of weird theories to explain away our gaps in knowledge." D.W. Winnicott

"What is true, what is false, what is, finally, important? It is not a sign of ignorance not to know the answers. But there is great merit in facing the questions." David Mamet

Today's image: Dennis and Edward by Thomas Hawk. Very cool shot. Thanks for sharing.

Bravos to Les Moonves and David Field. Both have demonstrated courage in doing the right thing with their radio businesses.

In pursuit of his strategy to lighten the concentration of ad-supported assets in the CBS portfolio, Les is selling his radio concern. Giving more resources to radio became counter-intuitive. My sense is an acquisition like Lions Gate seems a better resources fit chasing Les' strategy.

David's portfolio is radio. His strategy of opportunistically growing Entercom and the reach of his local platforms makes the purchase of CBS Radio a savvy move.

All legacy media is now fraught with peril. Accordingly, remaining in the radio game demands an uncommon focus, tenacity and agility. David and team are the radio geeks needed to succeed in that game. They'll also be advantaged by some valuable proprietary intangibles as the CBS Radio properties join the fold. Stay tuned.

New must-read: Sara Fischer's Media Trends newsletter via Axios. Also, follow Sara on the Twitter 

Reading: One Mission. How leaders build a team of teams. By Fussell & Goodyear. Amazon info

Watching: The Defiant Ones via HBO. The docu-series about Jimmy Iovine and Dr. Dre. More

Congrats & Cheers: David Field to Receive NAB's National Radio Award. More

"We need to remind ourselves that advertising is for the customer. It is they who ultimately determine whether advertising is good or not - in that they vote with their purses or wallets." Vic Polkinghorne & Andy Palmer

"We don't get them to try our product by convincing them to love our brand. We get them to love our brand by convincing them to try our product." Bob Hoffman

"Understanding comes from focusing, chewing, and relentlessly ragging on a problem. It comes with false starts, dead ends, and frustration. Thinking requires time and space. It's slow. It means saying I don't know. In short, thinking is everything the modern workplace is designed to eradicate." Shane Parrish

Today's image: Some of 2016's best non-fiction reads.

What a year! As it comes to a close, please allow me to suggest some reading. Here are Amazon links to the books featured in today's image.

Competing Against Luck: The Story of Innovation and Customer Choice. By Christensen, Dillon, Hall and Duncan. Amazon link

Pre-Suasion: A Revolutionary Way to Influence and Persuade. By Robert Cialdini. Amazon link

Magic and Loss: The Internet as Art. By Virginia Heffernan. Amazon link

Invisible Influence: The Hidden Forces that Shape Behavior. By Jonah Berger. Amazon link

Off Script: An Advance Man's Guide to White House Stagecraft, Campaign Spectacle, and Political Suicide. By Josh King. Amazon link

The Seventh Sense: Power, Fortune and Survival in the Age of Networks. By Joshua Cooper Ramo. Amazon link

And one from 2015 which I read again and highly recommended again this year...

Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World. By McChrystal, Collins, Silverman, and Fussell. Amazon link

And one other, not pictured above...

How to Make Better Advertising and Advertising Better: The Manifesto for a New Creative Revolution. By Polkinghorne & Palmer. The Design Museum Shop in London sells this book online. To purchase click here

Thanks for stopping by.

"Each advertisement must make a proposition to the consumer. Not just words, not just product puffery, not just show-window advertising. Each advertisement must say to each reader: 'Buy this product, and you will get this specific benefit.'"

"The proposition must be one that the competition either cannot, or does not, offer. It must be unique - either a uniqueness of the brand or a claim not otherwise made in that particular field of advertising."

"The proposition must be so strong that it can move the mass millions, i.e., pull over new customers to your product."

"These three points are summed up in the phrase 'UNIQUE SELLING PROPOSITION.'

This is a U.S.P." Rosser Reeves. Reality in Advertising

Today's image: Howl. By Fred Winston. Great shot. Thanks, again, for sharing.

We can all learn something from the great Rosser Reeves. Celebrated as one of the creators of modern advertising, Reeves invented the notion of U.S.P. or what we now commonly refer to as positioning. In his 1961 book, from which we have liberated the above excerpts, Reeves also offered a new definition of advertising.

"ADVERTISING IS THE ART OF GETTING

A UNIQUE SELLING PROPOSITION

INTO THE HEADS OF THE MOST

PEOPLE AT THE LOWEST

POSSIBLE COST."

The definition is as he originally wrote it, in all caps.

My thought is Reeves' thinking is as fresh, relevant and important today as when first published. This classic writing belongs in your library, and you're in luck. After being out of print for decades, it's again available at a very affordable price. Use the link above - the book title - to purchase via Amazon. Reality in Advertising is a must-read for every serious student of media, marketing and advertising.

More good reads and a great listen deserving of your attention:

Kipper McGee, the venerable radio programming ace and marketing maven, has a book out. Brandwidth has dropped and available now in soft cover here and Kindle here. Don't have a Kindle? No worries, the Kindle eBook version can also be read on any computer by downloading a free reader. Highly recommended.

It's official, we have a winner. Sean Ross delivers the dernier cri and reveals the Summer Song of 2015, here Bravos, Sean. Thanks for again doing a thoughtful and thorough judging.

There's a bunch of good writing on the web but none finer on the subject matter relevant to radio than jacoBLOG. Fred Jacobs and his Jacobs Media gang do a simply exceptional job of presenting the important and interesting. Fred's latest post, Making the Donuts AND Driving the Trucks, is another example of why you need to make jacoBLOG a part of your daily weekday reading. Don't miss it if you can, here.

Related: We wrote about this distribution premise of Fred's post as a paradigm shift, one we called "Export vs Import" in 2007. It was the first year we began to advise clients on the importance of exporting content. My sense is our thinking, while perhaps ahead of its time, remains relevant today. Read the post, here

Creating killer content

has become the first

big step. It's no longer

the finished art.

Vox Jox Redux: The great Claude Hall in collaboration with the always amazing Rollye James delivers the goods via a cool new site. Updated each Monday morning, it's a curation of interesting conversations about radio and more. Rollye is also providing a killer set of links to all manner of good stuff. Congrats and cheers to Claude and Rollye on a wonderful, fun read! Worth the jump, here

Highly recommended: Penn Jillette's Marathon Life in Magic. Here's The Thing, a podcast by Alec Baldwin via WNYC, here

As many of you know, I have been absent from this space for some time. Some 48.5K tweets later, I've decided to come home and invest more attention here. Now, how to get used to a channel that is longer than 140 characters. Thanks to all for your support and encouragement.

"Applause is the only appreciated interruption." Arnold Glascow

"To be nobody-but-yourself in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody but yourself - means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight, and never stop fighting." E.E. Cummings

"Fortune pays sometimes for the intensity of her favors by the shortness of their duration." Baltasar Gracian

Today's image: Morning light in the woods. By Fred Winston. Beautiful. Thank you for sharing.

Disruptive strategy:

zag when others zig

The Great American Dream Machine was a weekly magazine show on public television (1971-72). A mix of short features, sketches and song, it was both satire and documentary. It's acknowledged as seminal work, a precursor to Saturday Night Live and The Daily Show.

The show runners planned to launch the show with rotating weekly hosts but the brilliant Sheila Nevins, at the time, a producer on the show, had a better, original idea. Go without a host, use images and animation as bridges to connect the segments. Nevins' unconventional, fresh concept proved to be a masterstroke.

Let's remember the wise counsel of Gordon McLendon - "The Old Scotsman" 

Carefully study what every station in the market
 is doing, then do the opposite.

What's important is creating perceptible contrast. Nothing subtle whatsoever. Strive to be obvious, palpable, visceral. The marketing genius Dale Pon called this approach "high definition communication" (way back in the early 1980s). 

Do your homework. Know that, in most situations, there is more than one right answer. Follow the lead of Nevins, McLendon and Pon. Have the courage to zag when others zig.

ICYMI: Good reads

What does the Facebook experiment teach us? By danah boyd, here

This American Gamble. Ira Glass's 'This American Life' Leaves PRI. By Cara Buckley, here 

11 Top Quotes on Complexity Plus a Startup Twist. By Margaret Molloy, here

Sharing and celebrating your favorite authors. By Seth Godin, here

Recommended: Shakespeare's Montaigne. Greenblatt and Platt. Classic. NYRB detail, here

Have fun. Make something happen! 

Thanks for stopping by. See you on the Twitter. 

"Where observation is concerned, chance favors only the prepared mind." Louis Pasteur

"Genius is only a greater aptitude for patience." Comte de Buffon

"One morning one of us, having no black, used blue instead, and Impressionism was born." Pierre Auguste Renoir

Today's image: Late Night Travel By Thomas Hawk Beautiful shot. Thank you for sharing.

Markets are conversations

Thesis #1/95, The Cluetrain Manifesto

One key benefit of today's hyperconnectivity is the wealth of conversation. Not a day goes by without someone starting or adding to a discussion. On topics related to media there's a robust diversity of ongoing discussion. Those working in media will gain valuable insight and advantage by devoting attention to a couple of particular discussions.

First, serious inside broadcasting baseball conversations and, second, the abundance of comments on broadcast media emanating from what Jay Rosen has called "the people formerly known as the audience."

Many of us arrived here from a different world. Access or exposure to some kind of thought leadership or best practice wisdom and any continuing professional education whatsoever were limited; trade pubs were delivered weekly, popular industry conventions staged annually. The important exercise of "holding a mirror up to the audience" was typically a once a year ritual - the perceptual research study - more event than process.

This should not be understood as a suggestion we should discount the potential value of publications, conferences or survey research. Au contraire, my thought is each would be enriched, complimented, not replaced, by careful study of available conversations. What has forever changed is context. The conversations are already in progress. Get engaged and involved.

To review the (now) obvious fundamentals as stated in The Cluetrain: "The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media." and "We have real power and we know it. If you don't quite see the light, some other outfit will come along that's more attentive, more interesting, more fun to play with."

Localized radar: To get a quick read on your market create a local Twitter list. Populate with all the usual suspects. For best results make it an ongoing curation. Invite listeners/viewers/followers to suggest additions. Here's an example created for Madison, WI. Such lists can well serve your market "listening" strategy. FYI - some clients have created a second list using a Twitter account not associated with the company so they can also track tweets of all media in their market.

The Broadcast Ecosystem

My sense is broadcasters would benefit from some discussion about ecosystems. Let's frame it this way: Amazon, Apple, Google, and Facebook are each building and fine-tuning (iterating) an ecosystem. A bespoke community set designed to create and sustain competitive advantage. What is the state of your company's ecosystem? Seems a fair, timely and important question.

You can Google "Amazon ecosystem" (or any, all of the big four above) and get an idea of the concept, including graphic representations. In my experience, a candid and valuable discussion about any ecosystem should begin with mapping. Have your associates independently create maps which reveal what they believe is your present ecosystem. Gather your team to share and discuss their maps. Create a map of your ecosystem. Iterate. How can your ecosystem be improved?

One example: broadcaster ecosystem maps include Audience & Advertiser clusters. Within the Audience cluster are lifestyle groups and their purchase needs/behaviors. These relate to buyer, potential buyer groups within the Advertiser cluster.

An area often overlooked in this mapping is your local developer community. The upside potential of establishing a formalized approach, a respectful place within your ecosystem, to effectively involve talented hometown geeks is not at all insignificant. Thank me later.

Good reads

The Future of UI: Contextual Intelligence. By Bob O'Donnell, here

EXCELLENCE. NO EXCUSES. By Tom Peters. This 737-page download is a gem, here

The Power of One. By Fred Jacobs. Fred offers up a solid post about the Nielsen LA Radio ratings scandal which turns into an interesting discussion via comments on how ratings are used, here

Witty Worried and Wolf. Nancy Wolf, the smart and celebrated communications lawyer, is not retiring, she's restarting. Enjoy her new blog here

SCOTUS: The Aereo decision, here

In closing let me share a wonderful image. This week Professor Gary Hamel delivered another of his thought-provoking talks. A keynote at the London Business School's Global Leadership Summit, his talk was about hacking management. The following image was taken from his deck. My thanks to Dr Hamel for allowing it to be shared here. Dare to distribute, discuss and post in your workspace.

"I always say there are a hundred U.S. senators and eight people with their own show." Lorne Michaels

"The other set of effects, which is more narrowly targeted at the media industries, is that typically the new companies don’t take the profits of the old companies; they make the profits of the old companies go away. You end up having to shift from operating in a position of scarce resources and abundant profits to a world of abundant resources and scarce profits. And the design of businesses and organizations in that second world is very different from that first world."  Clay Shirky

"Smartphones have gotten us used to things that are mostly software and, consequently, get better over time. Every other manufacturer of durable goods will have to follow suit. Their overall success will likely be a product of how well they adapt to this new fact of life."  Phil Windley

Today's image: Lightning Strike Over the Pacific. By Craig Hudson v Reg Saddler. Thanks for sharing.

Your station sucks

Working in the so-called legacy or old media world ain't what it used to be. Preserving share has never been more difficult, the hard work of growing share never more formidable.

These challenges are made increasingly complex by media's nature, it's one of what Paul Valery called the "delirious professions...all those trades whose main tool is one's opinion of one's self, and whose raw material is the opinion others have of you." In other words, the high-wire acts - those careers where everyone is entitled to an opinion about one's work. Examples: politicians, artists, writers, actors, athletes, singers, musicians, dancers, journalists, comedians and broadcasters.

Accordingly, there's no shortage of opinion about media's present condition, no lack of crystal gazing and wishing out loud. About those employed as "creative people," the legendary critic John Leonard wrote "Each is asked every minute of the day to be original: unique."

Buzz Bennett, a celebrated radio programming ace, nailed it; told the station's receptionist didn't like his new format he said "Everyone has the right to program."

Media folk do their jobs in public, they work in a virtual fishbowl. Moreover, the advent of social networks has endowed public expression with a practically frictionless ease and the velocity of light. The opinions have always been there, the sea change is our new hyperconnectivity.

There are a lot of conversations going on inside the broadcasting trade about the present and future challenges of Broadcasting. For the purposes of this post, allow me to reduce one of those conversations to fifteen words: how do we effectively prepare for the future while remaining competitive and successful this quarter?

Reid Hoffman says "Starting a company is like throwing yourself off the cliff and assembling an airplane on the way down." The challenge for broadcasters is doing what Reid suggests while also working full-time on another demanding job.

In the argot of popular business writings, broadcasters find themselves up against Christensen's Innovator's Dilemma and a need to develop a time-sensitive solution set to affect the potential crossing of a Moore's Chasm. How can Broadcasters optimize present performance and be better prepared for the road ahead? Let me suggest a first step. 

The metrics, stupid

Broadcasters have need for a more comprehensive set of audience and revenue metrics especially at the local and regional levels. This is a critical matter as data could provide the inherent advantages of situational awareness. Where are we? How are we doing compared with all available options? 

The old saw applies here - what we measure gets attention.

We have some grasp of the national and global numbers. For example, one IAB/PwC measure of US time spent with media vs ad spend in 2013 puts TV's share of time spent at 38% with 45% of ad spend, Radio getting 12% of time spent with 10% of the ad spend.

We know from another IAB/PwC measure, Internet ad spend in the US was #1 last year eclipsing Broadcast TV revenues for the first time. We know that Broadcast Radio ranked fifth in revenue behind Internet, Broadcast TV, Cable TV and Newspaper. What we need is a richer perspective of the whole mediascape, a fresh sense of marketplace consumption and revenues. 

Kevin B. Sweeney, one of the great advertising sales and marketing mavens of the 20th century, was known for his list of "Ten Questions" every Broadcast Radio manager needed to be able to answer. One of the ten, list your local newspaper's top 100 advertisers, was intended to shift focus, improve productivity. 

To move forward effectively, Broadcasters need better treasure maps and scorecards.

Broadcast has done a good job of developing vertical competitive tracking systems. To date these have been focused on more and more granular, real-time data about the Broadcast silo. Competitive defined by direct competitors - the Broadcast guys across the street. This well-intended effort has advanced an acute myopia. The reality is, the majority of ad and marketing spend in every market is captured by non-broadcast properties while Broadcasters continue to be almost exclusively preoccupied with broadcast spend.

Again, what's needed is insight which captures the bigger picture. How did Broadcast do last month compared not just with other Broadcast competitors but with all available options - a more complete understanding of consumption and ad spending in our market. Fundamentally, this represents embracing a new and more realistic definition of what's happening in the marketplace.

We are living on the edge of a brave new world. One which is less about Radio and TV and more about audio and video. Less about Newspaper, Print and more about text. 

For the record, my take is Nielsen will step up and do an outstanding job of providing some of the new audio and video data needed by Broadcasters.

To be continued: Next, creating a local media ecosystem.

Good reads: Fred Jacobs has a great post on the state of commercial Radio. Read "The Flat Radio Society" here. Tom Asacker suggests we "Create some drama," his latest writing is worth the jump here.

ICYMI: Recommended reading: Fiction: Two great reads from 2013. The Goldfinch by Donna Tartt [AMZN] and Lexicon by Max Barry [AMZN] Non-Fiction: The book we all need to read and keep reading is How to Write Short - Word Craft for Fast Times by Roy Peter Clark [AMZN]

Thanks for stopping by.

"You shouldn't get attached to a feature set. You should get attached to a problem you’re solving." Caterina Fake

"If you’re not prepared to be wrong, you’ll never come up with anything original." Sir Ken Robinson

"If you are not prepared to be fired over your beliefs...you are working on the wrong project." Tom Peters

Today's image: This Little Banksy Bird Can Sing. By Thomas Hawk Great capture of a Banksy in San Francisco. You can view a Banksy set by Thomas, here. As always, thanks for sharing, Thomas.

Welcome back. So good to see you again. It's been too long since I first knew it had been too long.

Allow me to invite your attention to this must-see video. The Art of Asking, a simply wonderful talk by Amanda Palmer. Thank me later.

"The schism between content creators and platforms like Kickstarter, Tumblr and YouTube is generational. It's people who grew up on the Web versus people who still don't use it. In Washington, they simply don't see the way that the Web has completely reconfigured society across classes, education and race. The Internet isn't real to them yet." Yancey Strickler

"Entrepreneurs need to be reminded that it's not the job of their customers to know what they don't. In other words, your customers have a tough enough time doing their jobs." Mark Cuban

"We believe that America is at a major digital turning point. Simply, we find tremendous benefits in online technology, but we also pay a personal price for those benefits. The question is: how high a price are we willing to pay?" Jeffrey Cole

Today's image: An Eye for Art by Rich Miller Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

Lot's of exciting things happening. Thought I would share some interesting things I've found on the way to finding other interesting things. First, this wonderful commercial for the Guardian's open journalism initiative which imagines how the Guardian might cover the story of the Three Little Pigs in print and online.




"Who decides what gets sold in the bookstore?" Seth Godin on what's happening and not happening in the book trade. He raises important issues that deserve attention and discussion. You may find the writing here and while you're there do click through and read his new Stop Stealing Dreams manifesto. Also recommended: INTERVIEW: Seth Godin on Libraries, Literary Agents and the Future of Publishing as We Know It, here

Two reads about the dead tree gang. The Collapse of Print Advertising in 1 Graph - Derek Thompson via The Atlantic, here. The latest findings from Tom Rosenstiel and team - Pew's Project for Excellence in Journalism - are available. Read How Newspapers are Faring Trying to Build Digital Revenue here

Here are two good reads, I enjoyed both.

David Weinberger. Amazon info

Gary Hamel. Amazon info

I'm preordered and awaiting the new Jonah Lehrer. Amazon info

Bravos: The Flipboard team continue to do exceptional work, their iPhone app is tight and I highly recommend it. Slate debuts the Slate Book Review, a new monthly Dave Winer, the uber-cool ace of blogging (and other innovation including RSS) marks 15 years of Scripting News, here We can all learn something from Dave.

google-site-verification: google039ef822c1bddf97.html

Paul Gallis

1924 - 2012

Paulie Gallis was an original, a charming bigger-than-life character, a force of nature. All who had the good fortune to know him would agree, Paulie was different, a remarkable personality like no other, he was simply unforgettable. He was the affable Greek endowed with street smarts from his salad days on the hardscrabble side of Chicago. A self-made man, Paulie's endearing persona conquered all. Smitten in his youth by the bright lights of the entertainment industry, he talked his way into show business. He got in the game working for tips, running errands and doing other valet tasks for performers, vaudevillians, that played the legendary Chicago Theatre. Serving others became his life's work. He earned a sterling reputation for his uncommon dedication to clients as well as the selfless hard work, persistence, and contagious enthusiasm he invested in every project.

Perhaps Paulie's greatest gift was his great love of life. He loved people and could be counted on to find the pure joy in every day, the hidden good in every situation. Joie de vivre! It was within his power to change the climate of any room he entered, his ability to read and work a room was peerless. Moreover, Gallis engaged all unconditionally as equals. He was as comfortable in the company of strangers as he was with his superstar clientele. He treated the unknown pick up musician and the wannabe vocalist with the same grace, respect, interest and good manners he'd routinely shown Tony Bennett and his many other famous clients and friends.

In the too often brutally competitive, harsh world of record promotion Paulie Gallis was the outlier. Known for his always refreshing sense of humor and easy going style, Gallis got the job done but he did it his way. His distinctive voice and  authentic laugh made indelible impressions. Ever the gentleman, he is remembered as "sweet" and "nice" rare qualities indeed in the music promotion trade. He cared seriously about the work at hand however he also cared deeply about the people involved in that work. Generous to a fault, Paulie Gallis gave his name and countless hours of work to projects which offered little if any promise of a return. Kind and thoughtful, he was a mensch, the class act that made a difference whenever he was involved.

An unabashed evangelist of all things Chicago, Paulie was an exceptional and vocal advocate for the unsung greatness of his beloved Third Coast, that so-called Second City. When a label head offered him a major executive post which would have required his leaving the flatland and moving to the west coast, the now famous Gallis rejoinder was "If I feel the need to look at mountains I'll buy a can of Folgers Coffee."

Of course, no writing about Paulie would be complete without his unique calling card - those little yellow stickers he placed on the black vinyl he promoted. Truth be told, those stickers are the subject of many a good story. From Billboard's Claude Hall discovering one that just appeared on the door of his Sunset Boulevard office to rival promoters finding a THANKS from Paulie plainly visible above the coin collection basket of their home exit on the Illinois Tollway. Truly, Gallis was the go-to guy, the savvy problem solver, the quintessential world-class promoter.

I feel blessed to have known Paulie Gallis, honored and humbled to say he was my dear friend. I love this incredible man and miss him much. We'll not again see his like. Sui generis. Paulie would not appreciate this writing because it's all about him and over the many years I knew him it was never about him. He wouldn't allow it. What he enjoyed was talking about others, especially his family and friends. He invariably preferred the conversation filled with genuine concern, interest, curiosity and appreciation about what everyone else was doing. As he often said to me "We're here to help other people. Who have you helped today?"


Paul Gallis photo courtesy of Fred Winston

"It’s harder to imagine the past that went away than it is to imagine the future. What we were prior to our latest batch of technology is, in a way, unknowable. It would be harder to accurately imagine what New York City was like the day before the advent of broadcast television than to imagine what it will be like after life-size broadcast holography comes online. But actually the New York without the television is more mysterious, because we’ve already been there and nobody paid any attention. That world is gone." William Gibson

“Content is always shaped by the container.” Robert Tercek

"Productive paranoia is the ability to be hyper-vigilant about potentially bad events that can hit your company and then turn that fear into preparation and clearheaded action." Morten T. Hansen

Today's image: Afternoon sun by Fred Winston. Great shot. Thanks for sharing.

Welcome to the countdown. The waning days of 2011. The stage setting days which serve as the 2012 prologue. All the best to you, may you deliver your 2011 numbers and then some.

My thought is these are some of the most important issues for 2012. They deserve your attention, consideration, study, discussion and critical thinking. Thereafter, decisive action is required.

Mobile
Social
Cloud
HTML5
Data
Real-time
Revenue development
Metrics (Related: Dashboard Design)
Talent

In the coming weeks I'll blog about each issue.

On mobile, let me suggest too few media properties have made the investment required to create a solid mobile version of their website. In 2012, this is no longer optional, it's not a luxury or a nice-to-have, a mobile version of your site will be required for you to stay competitive. Having an app is fine, however, it is simply not a substitute for a great mobile version of your site.

This past week, Google began asking if you're "READY TO GO MO?" They've launched a mobile initiative that you may use to learn more about what it takes to be mobile-friendly and you may also test your site's mobility, here.

Believing it important to eat my own dog food, I was able, with Google's help, to launch the mobile version of N=1 this past summer.

Wanted: leadership in sales innovation and revenue development. Two recent exhibits of the ongoing revenue crisis in both donation-supported and ad-supported media. This round, it's broadcast television, public and commercial.

In harm's way: Ebert Presents At The Movies. Roger Ebert writes "Unless we find an angel, our television program will go off the air at the end of its current season. There. I've said it. Usually in television, people use evasive language. Not me. We'll be gone. I want to be honest about why this is. We can't afford to finance it any longer."  The show is cleared in all of the top 50 markets by public stations. Affiliates get the show for free. It's produced at WTTW in Chicago and distributed by American Public Television (APT). The catch? Roger is the only source of funding. They have been unable to attract the underwriting needed to cover costs. Tragic. Read Roger's column, here.

Sales Couldn't Sell "The Simpsons" by Fred Jacobs via jacoBLOG

Bonus: Radio programming ace, Mark Edwards blogs about the first tribe of wireless. Is Local Radio Dead? In Some Ways It Is, But Owners Don't Know It Yet, here

"You can tell whether a man is clever by his answers. You can tell whether a man is wise by his questions." Naguib Mahfouz

"Scientists are explorers, philosophers are tourists." Richard Feynman

"Stay hungry. Stay foolish." Steve Jobs

Today's image: Wet Tracks by Thomas Hawk. Wonderful. Thank you for sharing.

Happy Halloween! During my annual the doc told me I had to lay off the boos.

Doesn't anybody stay in one place anymore?

With thanks to Carole King, let me suggest that in the massive, ongoing sea change that is digital disruption, few of us are staying in one place anymore. Consider this proffer: Your media consumption, your behavior, will be as different five years from today as your behavior today is from what it was ten years ago. Your media production, your acts of creation and those of everyone have been assisted, enabled in truly profound ways.

Let's take one of the moving parts: social networks. Facebook and Twitter are first generation platforms. Both have made a significant impact. Both enjoy global reach. Both are building a business, a brand, without the need to invest resources in traditional marketing channels (i.e., advertising). In fact, ad-supported measured media have been the aggressive, albeit unpaid, promotional partners of both. "We all need to spend more time on Facebook" opined Tom Webster, Edison Research's Vice President, Strategy and Marketing (and their resident social scholar). Of course, Tom's right. Last week, Jacob Media's Lori Lewis and Fred Jacobs issued a clarion call about social, Time Suck: "...it's time to adapt to a multi-channel environment and study the motivations behind each channel. Or simply get left behind..."

Nobody stays in one place anymore.

Occasionally I hear from folks kind enough to ask me why I'm not blogging any longer. It's a fair question given 200+ posts a year appeared in this space during 2006, 2007 and 2008. Recent years not so much. 54 posts in 2009, 13 in 2010 and, with this, 8 posts so far this year. The quick answer is I'm still sharing my thoughts but not in this one place anymore. For example, 3 years, 7 months and 15 days ago I began posting on Twitter. My guess is I'm sharing far more on Twitter than I was ever able to share here because I can tweet a real-time link to something just read. Moreover, I can do that on the fly without my laptop or desk top via a hand-held device. The sense of time and space has changed dramatically in recent years.

This is not to suggest blogs are dead or on the way out. Nonsense. My take: there are more and better blogs than there have ever been and I have a reader full of unread posts to prove it. The signal to noise ratio is also greatly improved because our tuning tools are better. As Nathan Jurgenson wrote just yesterday "Social media is like radio: It all depends on how you tune it." [Why Chomsky is wrong about Twitter] My sense is there's nothing wrong with the fire hose. Shirky was right. What we have is a filter problem.

Some might say I have over-shared on Twitter. 36,396 tweets and counting. Guilty, not every tweet has been a gem worthy of a retweet. Let me also say I love to blog and will continue to use this space to share thoughts that require more space and time. This blog isn't dead, yet. It has simply become only one of the places where I'm living out loud. Humblebrag: I'm told my smiling clown Twitter account ranks 107,373 out of the 10,999,157 scored by grader.com so I'm closing in on breaking into the exclusive five figures club.

While I'm not able to comment on the veracity of such rankings or grades, it's interesting to note Grader's Top 100 Twitter Elite includes only three American media outlets. Fox News at #14. Huffington Post Washington bureau at #18. New York Times at #76. The list is dominated by individuals. This seems to hold true across DMA after DMA. Media, broadcasters especially, should be doing a much better job. Congrats to Thomas Clifford, my Twitter pal from Appleton, Wisconsin. He's ranked #9 and lives by the motto "Find out what sucks and don't do that."

Want to gain solid insight into the emergent metrics of social? In my experience, the go-to-guy on social media data is the aforementioned Tom Webster. You may find his blog, brandsavant, here.

Doing business in 2011 without having some kind of personal digital presence (e.g., Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, blog) is equivalent to trying to do business in 1990 without a telephone number or fax machine or claiming you're competitive in business ten years ago without having an email account. Table stakes. What's changing is not only the cost of doing business but the resources required to be and stay competitive in business. New devices are also changing consumer behaviors. Example: Amazon is offering a tablet which, it may be argued, is a personalized point of sale device. The prospective impacts of social commerce are magnitudes of net force larger than the changes brought about so far by today's nascent social networks.

Identity is being redefined

Who are you on the web? Used to be having email was enough. Now, Facebook, Google, Twitter and players to be named, are in a battle to own the so-called identity space. Twitter, being asymmetrical, gained an early edge over symmetrical Facebook but Zuck changed it up adding the asymmetric feature "Subscribe." It's the Wild West, no standards yet for "social authentication." It's an important issue. Stay tuned.

It's the dawn of this digital disruption. The best is yet to come. My suggestion is we'll look back on 2011 someday soon and laugh about how lame, crude all of these early platforms really were. But in the meantime, in between time, the conversation is happening with or without you so it's important to get into the game. Now more than ever, your assets must be digital, discoverable and ready to share. Be yourself. Have fun. Share.

Another example of being in more than one place. This is a must-read not shared here last month but via my posterous. Speaking at Social Media Week - Chicago, the great media critic Robert Feder said...

"...It's about engaging the reader and that's one aspect of it but it's an important part of the new media and the world that we're in and that didn't happen in old media, that didn't happen at the Sun-Times. We wrote our piece, we went home, that was it. It was a monologue delivered and that was the end of the process...people, younger people in particular, are engaged in all media they consume and that includes news and journalism and they want to be able to react, they want to be able to use it in different ways, and that's what we're affording them the opportunity to do. I'm just setting the table, I'm starting the conversation every day and what happens out there is up to the people who read it."

Emphasis above (bold) mine. Robert speaks of a fundamental change. From delivering a monologue to starting a conversation. The difference is engagement. Once upon a time print writers heard from readers when readers had taken the time to call or write a letter to them or the editor. Letters, delivered a day or so after, may or may not have been edited and published. We didn't get to read the mail of the newspaper writer. Today we do and find it odd if the ability to comment fails to follow an online writing.

Robert offered many interesting and important points during his talk, here's another:

To me, you should never take your eye off the quality of the content, that's what matters

The play's the thing. It was ever thus. Read more excerpts from Robert's thought-provoking appearance, here.

Refresh: The People Formerly Known as the Audience, written by Jay Rosen in the summer of 2006, deserves a fresh reading, here.

Cool, new, on: findings  chime.in  Pinterest

Bonus: Patrick LaForge on the new "Generation Gap" via Google+, here

Video: "Studies show that sketching and doodling improve our comprehension - and our creative thinking. Sunni Brown makes the case for unlocking your brain via pad and pen." I highly recommend her book, Gamestorming: A Playbook for Innovators, Rulebreakers, and Changemakers [Amazon info]

 "It's part of the mythology surrounding the music business that spending huge amounts of marketing monies will ensure commercial success. This simply isn't so. If the music isn't compelling from the audience's perspective, no amount of spending will make it a hit." Al Teller

"The thing most people want is genuine understanding. If you can understand the feelings and moods of another person, you have something fine to offer." Paul Brock

"The only things that evolve by themselves in an organization are disorder, friction and malperformance." Peter Drucker

Today's image: da rieslings by Fred Winston. Wonderful. Thank you for sharing.

A great interview with Al Teller. Al talks about the past, present and future of the music business. Teller started in the record industry as an assistant to the legendary Clive Davis. He went on to head labels including UA, Columbia, CBS and MCA. My thanks to Ian Rogers, host of This Week in Music, for sharing the video.

"Amateurs hope; professionals work." Garson Kanin

"Winning isn't everything, but wanting to win is." Vince Lombardi

"Before it can be solved, a problem must be clearly stated and defined." William Feather

Today's image: The Open Road by Trey Ratcliff. Beautiful shot. Thanks for sharing.

A video and a good read.




The new Geoffrey Moore, Escape Velocity: Free Your Company's Future from the Pull of the Past, is topical and a great follow-on to his earlier writings. [Amazon info]

"What the customer buys and considers value is never a product. It is always utility - that is, what a product does for him." Peter Drucker

"Life is pretty simple. You do some stuff. Most fails. Some works. You do more of what works. If it works big, others quickly copy it. Then you do something else. The trick is in doing something else." - Tom Peters

"If you are not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold." - Andrew Lewis

Today's image: Hey! by Fred Winston. Great shot. Thanks for sharing.

Welcome to September.

As we begin both the last frenetic drive to make our numbers before the 2011 clock runs out and the ritual dance that is the annual budget process, some loose ends for your consideration. As always, your thoughts are welcome.

Start playing the game thinking ahead
two moves or more

Critical thinking and serious listening continue to provide exceptional yields. Paul Drew often said planning afforded the best possible ROI. He was spot-on. Putting scenario planning and game theory to work are but two solid options. Let's begin by asking the important question...

What if?

What if transactional business died?

Spots and dots represent the single most important revenue engine of the broadcast trade but what if, without notice, transactional revenues precipitously declined?

We must ask such prescient questions.

I'm reminded of that famous speech at the 1975 NARM, The Day Radio Died delivered by the gifted Stan Cornyn, then a senior Warner Brothers executive. As it happened, Stan had asked exactly the right question at precisely the wrong time (the record industry, being in high cotton, dismissed his provocative thought experiment).

It's critical that we play ahead.

Here's a practical example deserving discussion: How are we going to optimize political in 2012 and what's our strategy for beating those numbers in 2013 without that cyclical gift? Importantly, what if political allocated to broadcast is reduced or doesn't come back at all in the 2014 midterm or the 2016 federal? Isn't this a perfect time to entertain the notion that an RAB/TvB led task force be established to work these cycles? From K Street to every campaign headquarters, PAC and all of the political consulting firms there are stories to be told, value propositions to evangelize and champion.

On the day job we were criticized some years ago for daring to ask "What if?" Specifically, when the automotive category went south we initiated conversations grounded in the brutal candor of fresh circumstance. We began asking "What if it doesn't come back? What if it does come back and the dollars are shifted, less broadcast and more other including interactive? How then do we compete?" The situation was indeed tragic. Some long established car stores, the majority perennial broadcast clients, closed forever. Time spent in scenario planning paid off. Our clients paced ahead the next two years having developed strategies to replace 60% or more of their local, zone and national auto spend (i.e., dealer, association, factory dollars). Moreover, we developed new strategies and tactics for auto to more effectively employ broadcast and in that process totally reimagined and rebooted the category.

What if your transactional business died? What exactly is your strategy for staying in business? The exercise is important. Rather than wasting time in a hypothetical "losing it all next year" discussion let's first imagine 2012 as the year transactional is off by 12%, your attrition rate doubles, your DSO adds 10 more days and you lose both your top seller and your DOS. What's your plan to deliver your numbers? Ask "What would have to happen?" for us to make our numbers given a set of specific conditions (ninjas of finance call such probabilistic conditions "assumptions"). Using worst-case scenarios can be productive if they are not simply possible but also credible.

We must embrace the simple reality that transactional is, in essence, a commodity business. As such, this segment of media spend is more likely than not to move away from personal selling and into the more efficient realm of machine trading. The strategic issue here is how do we optimize participation in this commodity trading process and at the same time develop a separate sales organization focused on selling solutions rather than numbers? How do we move from responding to an avail to working with clients in a creative collaboration to produce results? We have an urgent need to do both.

Sidebar: During my time with CBS Mel Karmazin asked me to consider putting Howard Stern on one of our Dallas stations. Howard was not cleared in the market at the time. One of my first thoughts was "What happens if the airplane goes down?" Experience had taught me that the best time to look for talent was before you needed them. Fast forward. Howard announces he's leaving and suddenly at risk are ratings at a bunch of stations and what has been estimated to be about 100 million in CBS billing. It became clear there had been no serious succession planning prior to Howard's announcement. History records this as a fire drill where people were sent into the burning buildings.

As the proverb says: The best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago. The second best time is today. Mind the wise counsel of Tom Peters "The trick is in doing something else." Let's get to work.

The major advances in civilization are processes
that all but wreck the societies in which they occur
Alfred North Whitehead

Bonus: Erik Sass provides an interesting overview of what's happening and not happening in American advertising. Winners and Losers: The Changing Media Ad Landscape, 1980 -2011, here.

Flashback: The challenges faced by music radio today simply demand the aggressive employment of innovation and creativity. N=1, August, 2004.