"Wit has truth in it; wiscracking is simply calisthenics with words." Dorothy Parker

"The more intelligent a man is, the more originality he discovers in men. Ordinary people see no difference between men." Blaise Pascal

"Our most important thoughts are those which contradict our emotions." Paul Valery

Today's image: untitled by R.E.M. 2. Great shooting. Thanks for sharing.

A Tribute to Amazing: Lili Keller is one of the most amazing people I have the good fortune to know. She's retiring after 28 years with Bonneville.

She took time to take my call today and we laughed, we remembered the wonderful times we had working together at 101.9, what is now one of the most successful radio stations in the nation, WTMX in Chicago. Truth be known I owe the success I enjoyed at Bonneville to the incredible people that were on staff including the amazing and gifted Lili Keller. It's vogue to say you're good at keeping it real but Lili is the world-class champion, a master of that particular meme. The woman has a hardwired BS detector the likes of which are not only exceedingly rare but totally refreshing, it's the stuff of pure unadulterated candor. When I want the unvarnished reality Lili always serves it up straight, no chaser and without reservation. That's how she rolls. She's a rock star that works behind the scenes and makes things happen.

Lili reminded me of something I used to say all those many years ago to wit:

"This is not a life saving hospital, we are not looking for a cure for cancer, this is only a radio station."

Perspective as Gary Hamel reminds is worth ten IQ points.

Too many managers take their jobs so seriously that they are guilty of killing the possible, they beat the life out of the creative process, making it difficult and boring work. Art is a very fragile thing that requires imagination, spirit, encouragement, tireless dedication and love. Greatness demands that you go to work ready and enthusiastic about achieving the impossible. There is a significant difference between being serious about your craft and taking your job (and yourself) too seriously. It's a matter of compassion vs compliance. It's about respecting, honoring, supporting the people that come to play.

Until you are able to have fun on the job nothing exceptional is going to happen.

Until you are able to create the environment that brings out the best in others nothing remarkable is going to happen.

Until you dial the fun up to eleven and have people truly excited about coming to work nothing great is going to happen.

Until you live, breath, sleep and dream the show, the show will have no chance of being a hit.

Until you understand that hits start with attitude and bold decisive action nothing amazing is going to happen. Going for greatness demands sacrifice and pays rewards in tangible and important intangible ways. There is a very special magic in audacity.

Until you dare to put your heart and soul into it nothing even close to breathtaking is going to happen. Nourish the spark, feed the flame.

Until you care about the results and care not at all about who gets the credit nothing memorable is going to happen.

Happy people, people that deeply love their jobs, consistently do the best work. Time does fly when you're having fun. You look up and you've run out of daylight, you're pressing into the night and lovin every minute. When you work harder than you have ever worked, your food tastes better, sleep is refreshing and you deliver killer results. In my experience, working 12 hours a day dramatically improves your luck. The best pressure is the custom pressure that only you can create.

I learned a bunch from Lili Keller. Most importantly, I learned that no one ever really worked for me (especially those said to be "direct reports"). The simple facts are - I worked for them. For me it remains an honor and a privilege to serve the stars of the show. I'm reminded of the legendary maestro Ben Zander who said "The conductor of an orchestra does not make a sound."

Thanks for the great memories and the fun, Lili. Thanks, more than anything, for being Lili. All the best to you and Bob.

Want to read more on leadership? Month after month, the most popular post on this blog is from 2004 and it's all about leadership. Check it out here.

Refresh: Derek Sivers wrote something in 2005 that is making its way around again. If you click on only one link today you should check out Merlin Mann here. Thank me later.

Mel is so, money: Mel is at it again. A man reborn, making good copy and ready to rumble. About his newly super sized pay radio dodge he tells the New York Post "We're going to be the most successful company in radio." We are perhaps witness to the final act of this once close but no cigar mogul. Looks like Mel is all in on this deal. He appears close to owning yet another distinction, being the media underdog people love to hate. His boys downtown don't seem to be liking the dog food. Check out what Goldman had to say, ouch! Coming next the $400 mil in cost savings and knocking at the backstage door those pesky billions in debt. We've got a great seat to watch the media miracle of modern times or the best paid failure since the big three auto makers. Either way, book it for a case study and stay tuned. The Post article here. [FD: On this blog, I called the odds 6 to 5 against the merger. Once upon a time or two I worked for Mel and consider him, warts and all, to be brilliant and consistently over paid]

Congrats & cheers: Radio programming ace Tony Coles named VP programming and operations Clear Channel, Chicago. Uber-mensch and radio legend Dennis Constantine honored by R&R with their Laura Ellen Hopper Visionary Award and a Erica Farber Publisher's Profile here. When I hear Laura's name good things come to mind. I commend R&R for naming an award after Laura and for their wisdom in honoring Dennis. Laura was one of radio's most gifted. Laura was the runaway teen who drifted into KDNA, the bright young woman who went on to work with Jeremy Landsman and Lorenzo Milam. She lived the words of Larry Yurdin "Pose a threat to the normal way things are done." Laura Ellen Hopper made a difference.

Did you not take my suggestion and check out that Merlin Mann link? Here's the take away. The words of Derek Sivers. Please think about it...

"To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed.
They are just a multiplier.
Execution is worth millions."

"Service to others is the rent you pay for your room here on earth." Muhammad Ali

"Without tradition, art is a flock of sheep without a shepherd. Without innovation, it is a corpse." Winston Churchill

"Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts." Albert Einstein

Today's image: Torn by michelleBlack. Amazing. Thank you very much for sharing.

Finished reading the Clay Shirky book, Here Comes Everybody. Highly recommended (Amazon info). Over the next few weeks I'll share some lessons learned. Today from Shirky, Chapter 10, Failure For Free. He shares a great quote by Sun Microsystems founder Bill Joy "No matter who you are, most of the smart people work for someone else."

In a presentation on open source (e.g., Linux, SourceForge) and the power of failure Shirky writes...

"Open source is a profound threat, not because the open source ecosystem is outsucceeding commercial efforts but because it is outfailing them. Because the open source ecosystem, and by extension open social systems generally, rely on peer production, the work on those systems can be considerably more experimental, at considerably less cost, than any firm can afford. Why? The most important reasons are that open systems lower the cost of failure, they do not create biases in favor of predictable but substandard outcomes, and they make it simpler to integrate the contributions of people who contribute only a single idea.

The overall effect of failure is its likelihood times its cost. Most organizations attempt to reduce the effect of failure by reducing its likelihood. Imagine that you are spearheading an effort for a firm that wants to become more innovative. You are given a list of promising but speculative ideas, and you have to choose some subset of them for investment. You thus have to guess the likelihood of success or failure for each project. The obvious problem is that no one knows for certain what will succeed and what will fail. A less obvious but potentially more significant problem is that the possible value of various projects is unconnected to anything their designers say about them. In these circumstances, you will inevitably green-light failures and pass on potential successes. Worst still, more people will remember you saying yes to a failure than saying no to a radical but promising idea. Given this asymmetry, you will be pushed to make safe choices, thus systematically undermining the rationale for trying to be more innovative in the first place.

The open source movement makes neither kind of mistake, because it doesn't have employees, it doesn't make investments, it doesn't even make decisions. It is not an organization, it is an ecosystem, and one that is remarkably tolerant of failure. Open source doesn't reduce the likelihood of failure, it reduces the cost of failure; it essentially gets failure for free. This reversal, where the cost of deciding what to try is higher than the cost of actually trying them, is true of open systems generally. As with the mass amateurization of media, open source relies on the 'publish-then-filter' pattern."

First tribe of wireless rings register in the city: 2007 top ten radio billers in millions (BIA). WLTW 62.8, WINS 57.7, WCBS-AM 53.7, WHTZ 52.3, WFAN 37.5, WPLJ 35.8, WSKQ 35.3, WAXQ 34.4, WBLS 33.2, WQHT 32.3.

Bonus: Cluuz

The Pierre & Tom Show: Arbitron and Edison Media Research present topline from their annual study "The Infinite Dial: Radio's Digital Platforms" via webcast tomorrow at 2pm eastern. You'll need to register here.

Disappearing act: The sideman as solo star. I really enjoy reading Mel Phillips' blog, it's one of my guilty pleasures over morning coffee, a unique pop culture mashup. Mel remembers "Music Memories" as part of his format. Which brought to mind, the sideman. Are we witness to the end of days for the sideman turned solo star? Back in the day the instrumental hit song, while rare, was still possible but is that true today? Kenny G plays on but is confined to one format (Smooth Jazz/NAC). I guess you could make the case he is also played occasionally by some soft AC stations. Will today's CHR, AC and Hot AC play an instrumental? This is apropos of nothing, or is it? Radio programming and branding ace Michael Fischer weighs in via comments. Thanks, Michael! Your thoughts are also welcome, please opine via comments. Is the instrumental hit dead? (Perhaps all we need do is await the next blessing of Steve Jobs, the tech CEO turned modern day music director and hitmaker).

Congrats & cheers: Drew Horowitz, Greg Solk and team Bonneville launches 100.3 fm, The Sound, World Class Rock for Southern California. The Webby Noms including: Kurt Hanson's AccuTunes and KEXP (Radio), Ning and Flock (Social Networking), TED and The Onion (Podcasts), Dwell (Magazine), Epicurious (Lifestyle), I Can Has Cheezburger (Humor), American RadioWorks (Education), StumbleUpon (Community), Indexed (Blog - Culture/Personal).

"Zeal without knowledge is like fire without a grate to contain it; like a sword without a hilt to wield it by; like a high-bred horse without a bridle to guide him. It speaks without thinking, acts without planning, seeks to accomplish a good end without the adoption of becoming means." Julius Bate

"Experience is the universal mother of sciences." Miguel de Cervantes

"The use of a thing is only a part of its significance. To know anything thoroughly, to have the full command of it in all its appliances, we must study it on its own account, independently of any special application." Goethe

Brilliant on the basics: CBS Radio's Mark Edwards pulled one out of the Gordon McLendon playbook yesterday. A totally unexpected stunt. His KEZK "Christmas in July" food drive generated big word of mouth, created awareness for the St Louis area foodbank, encouraged online foodbank donations and generated earned media. KMOV (CBS), KTVI (Fox) both sent shooters to the station and ran packages in their 10 shows. Kudos to Mark & crew. Ryan Farmer also gets a nod, the KEZK marketing maven came up with the idea. Bravo Ryan.

Holding a clinic on great radio: Jerry Schnacke is doing an outstanding job leading the Bonneville Chicago stations. WTMX and WDRV are two of the best stations in the nation. WTMX creator Barry James continues to build the groups third property, Love FM (WILV). The Bonneville Chicago team deserves high marks for doing things right.

Irrational exuberance redux: R.H. Donnelley buys business.com domain name for $345Mil.

Congrats & cheers: Doug Podell, the Doc of Rock, and his WRIF team on another great book. Eric & Kathy, WTMX, continuing to set the gold standard in Chicago morning radio. Johnny B getting it done for Emmis in Chicago and delivering an excellent book. Steve Mitgang named chief executive of Veoh Networks.