"You know you've got a good piece of software when people use it for purposes for which the designers never intended or designed for." Clay Shirky

"Doing anything worthwhile takes forever. Ninety percent of what separates successful people and failed people is time, effort and stamina." Hugh MacLeod

"Don't tell people how to do things, tell them what to do and let them surprise you with their results." George S. Patton, Jr.

Today's image: The Passage of Time by ToniVC. Amazing shot. Thanks for sharing.

Three tenets of new media for broadcasters: Your assets must be digital, discoverable and ready to share.

Today, more on ready to share.

The great broadcast pioneer Gordon McLendon famously said to his managers "Get people to talk about your radio station." Few in media have understood and employed the power of "word of mouth" marketing more effectively than did McLendon. Moreover, he developed and practiced the radio stunt as performance art. I learned a bunch about McLendon thanks to the legendary Texas radio man Dickie Rosenfeld. Dickie once worked for The Old Scotchman as a seller, sales manager and general manager at KILT in Houston. As Dickie told me "Everything we did was designed to get people talking about KILT. Our goal was to be the talk of the town."

"Content isn't king. If I sent you to a desert island and gave you the choice of taking your friends or your movies, you'd choose your friends -- if you chose the movies, we'd call you a sociopath. Conversation is king. Content is just something to talk about." Cory Doctorow

The italics above are mine. Cory's observation is spot on. Getting into (and staying a credible part of) the conversation is the ball game. This is what McLendon and his managers had down cold.

Today we have the advantages of the web to help us spread the news, get the word out. As Hugh MacLeod writes...

..."Great Content" is only half the story. The other half is just as important, though a little more subtle. And what is that?

Short Answer: "Sociality".

It's not just that Boing Boing's content is fun to READ. It is. It's also that Boing Boing's content is fun to SHARE...Boing Boing has a lot of "Sociality" baked-in, i.e. its content makes for great "Social Objects" i.e. their blog posts are great "Sharing Devices". We are primates. We are social creatures. We like to socialize. And we socialize around objects. Boing Boing cranks out "social objects" by the ton, that we can effortlessly pass along to our friends.

Read Hugh's entire post, Boing Boing and baked-in sociality etc, here. Bravos to Hugh. He well makes this very important point.

Get into the conversation, ensure that your content is ready (and easy) to share. Think export.

Bonus: The (Not So) Final Word by Doug Zanger. Doug offers his take on the state of broadcast radio and the creative business, here. The Advertising Life podcast hosted by Doug Zanger...he invited me to guest on Episode 5, the audio is here. My thanks to Doug. It was fun getting to play on his stage.

A DJ speaks out: Guest Commentary: An Open Letter to Radio Programmers By Tara Dublin via Oregon Media Central, here

Today's big buzz is Facebook buying FriendFeed. More by Jason Kincaid via TechCrunch, here. I <3 FriendFeed.

"You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete." R. Buckminster Fuller

"Good ideas have lonely childhoods." Hugh MacLeod

"When we let go and just realize we really don't know everything, new opportunity presents itself." Doug Zanger

Today's image: Take me to your Herder! by jonbradbury. Great shot. Thanks for sharing.

The amazing power of NEW
(and the advantages of abandonment)

The future success of an organization depends upon its embrace of the new and its courage to abandon that which is no longer effective. What new things are getting attention in your shop? What things are you continuing to do that are, for whatever reason, failing to produce the results of the past or the expectations of the present?

The trap, the path to almost certain failure, is to focus the team and resources on getting better. The solution set will most often be found in getting different.

Stop wasting precious time on the numerator. Change the denominator.

The story of Andy Grove and Intel comes to mind. In 1985 Grove famously said to Gordon Moore “If we got kicked out and the board brought in a new CEO, what do you think he would do?”..."Why shouldn’t you and I walk out the door, come back, and do it ourselves?" (Read more. The Art of Andy Grove via Harvard Business, here)

If you were kicked out and someone was brought in to replace you, what do you think they would do? Why not get to work and do it.

Bravos: It was wonderful to experience another Conclave last week, if only for one day of the latest run. It's truly an exceptional gathering. Year after year it proves to be the little meeting that could. My sense is, again this year, there are four individuals that have - so far - failed to get even close to the credit or recognition they properly deserve. Tom Kay, the Conclave's executive director and keeper of the flame. Jane Dyson, Conclave's MVP, the tie breaking closer that gets things done on the fly no matter the challenge at hand. Joel Denver, the Conclave's patron saint who cares enough to put to work not only his money but the force of his incredible personality and the unmatched ongoing support of his very respected All Access enterprise. Art Vuolo Jr., Radio's Best Friend, the guy who pulls the Clave TV rabbit out of his hat (with a good thirty seconds or so to spare) year after year. He also continues to serve as the video historian of a largely thankless tribe. Kay, Dyson, Denver, Vuolo. There simply ain't no clave'n without these guys . Take a moment this week and give them a call, send them an email, chat them up and say thanks. Since they will not be expecting this to happen, you're certain to make their day a bit brighter. Go ahead, do it. Please and thank you. [FD: In the previous century I served as chair of the Conclave board and recently made application to again serve that institution as a director]

Congrats & cheers: Steven Goldstein, Saga Communications' EVP, on his well deserved 2009 Rockwell Award. Steve is an exceptionally gifted executive. His straight forward style is as refreshing as it is rare. Kudos to longtime Goldstein friend and collaborator Fred Jacobs who did a simply wonderful job introducing Steve at last week's 2009 Conclave awards luncheon.

Good reads: The Demonization of the Contest Pig. The ever insightful Tom Webster of Edison Research weighs in on station gaming, here. Transparency is the new objectivity. Dr Dave Weinberger makes another interesting argument worth your bandwidth, here. Jay's Media Page is the new blog of cool kid, measurement maven and ROI Media Solutions partner Jay Guyther, here. The Three Hardest Words to Say by Doug Zanger A well done writing on developing and leading the hard work of creativity via Ad Age, here.

Summer read: Ripped. How the Wired Generation Revolutionized Music by Greg Kot (Amzn info) Highly recommended.

Bonus: Sign up for Hugh MacLeod's Crazy, Deranged Fools Newsletter, here. Thank me later.

"You never go farther than when you no longer know where you are going." Goethe

"If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite." Blake

"Always go to other people's funerals; otherwise they won't go to yours." Yogi Berra

Image: Passeggiata by massfell. Beautiful. Thanks for sharing.

Leave it to some that blog to tell you that James Cramer trashed radio, the business, when, in fact, Cramer was talking down radio, the Wall Street investment. His talk was titled "It's over for Radio Stocks" - my emphasis. With all due respect, I disagree with the comments of those blogging Cramer as having delivered news of radio's death. Those bloggers are missing JC's bigger point, they're plainly wrong, it's radio equities that suck not radio. Owning broadcast and cable assets, bought right, remains a very good business.

You will run into some that would have you believe otherwise - they may say radio is dead or at least well on the path to last rites; they have lots of suggestions for how to run things in the end of days. My suggestion is you ask these so-called experts (via comments) 1) what groups have you run? 2) what groups have you owned (your name being on an FCC ownership report) ? 3) what groups have you worked at during an IPO? Ten to one odds, answers in the affirmative will be one or none and being on the payroll during an IPO without being an officer or principal don't really count. Case closed. Bloggers pretending to have the skills required to run a group are just that, pretenders, wannabes if you prefer, nothing more.

It reminds me of talent second guessing management and ownership over beers, everybody is an expert, everyone a genius with the solutions, everyone excepting the guys charged with minding the store, the guys responsible for making the payroll that buy those beers, the guys on the hook to pay down the debt. Yeah, it looks easy, trust me, it ain't. (Catch the JC video here)

Longtime readers know I'm a big JC fan boy, much respect here for Ski Daddy. Those same folk know I've been down on radio stocks for years now. Radio stocks, cable stocks, big media stocks are all out of favor with the street. It's a growth thing, no growth = no respect. Growth being the bitch goddess of Wall Street.

So, no matter what some have said, Cramer is not down on the radio business, he's down on you putting your money into any of the traded radio securities. He's right.

The first tribe of wireless is faced with a great many challenges this year. The traded firms are in an especially bad position. Imagine being asked to change a flat while continuing to maintain course at 55 mph. It's never been done before. The odds are not in your favor. This is the trap of being focused on changing the numerator. The more effective solution set would seem to be one focused on changing the denominator.

Related: Fred Jacobs on the JC video and the state of radio affairs, read Fred's take here.

What gets missed in some of these discussions is perspective.

Radio, as a business, is much more than just the traded outfits. The traded companies get the ink, most of it negative, the hard working and often successful privately held firms, public broadcasters, and community stations get little if any attention or recognition for doing things right. Exhibits abound...Bonneville, Greater Media, Midwest Family, Jerry Lee, etc. The radio trade pubs need to change it up, get into the ongoing business of celebrating folks doing the right things rather than the continuing and too often one dimensional, obsessive focus on the crisis, the ugly meltdowns at the traded companies.

From AdAge - As Giant Retailers Reel, Marketers Gird for Worst...

"Marketers are doing the one thing that they should not be doing right now," said Zain Raj, global practice leader-retail brands at Euro RSCG. "They are out there trying to promote and discount their way to growth. When you have a consumer-confidence issue, it's not about spending less money, it's about spending any money. Marketers need to say 'Here's why you need these things.'"

"You've got to play offense. Now is the time to be aggressive and go out and get market share," said Mike Boylson, exec VP-chief marketing officer, J.C. Penney. The retailer remains committed to the biggest launch in its history later this month, an exclusive brand created in partnership with Polo Ralph Lauren called American Living that will be supported with a splashy campaign debuting during the Academy Awards.

Others are trying to do more with less. ""People are going to have less disposable income, so that's going to change the way we do advertising," said Jose Docabo, senior advertising manager for Home Depot. "We're also going to have to get more creative with less budget."

"Retailers need to take part of their budget and block and take part of it and experiment," said Ric West, exec VP-marketing promotion and production at Sears Holdings.

Read and entire article here.

Going mobile: Next generation of Microsoft innovation focuses on mobile consumer. Release here. Smart, very smart.

Bonus: Kelly O'Keefe

RAB 2008, Atlanta: Doug Zanger Blog, Audio stream

Congrats & cheers: Eric Straus on the agreement to sell his startup RegionalHelpWanted.com to OnTargetJobs.com info here.