Photo by Ron Fell. Wonderful shot. Thank you very much!

"The power of imagination makes us infinite." John Muir

"Facts are the most important thing in business. Study facts and do more than is expected of you." Frederick Ecker

"An executive is a man who decides; sometimes he decides right, but always he decides." John H. Patterson

What can broadcast do today that no one else can? Make people special. Make heroes happen.

Recognition. Local. Forget name dropping Paris, again. People in your DMA have cause to celebrate, take notice, spread the word!

Those of us working in the trade forget how very, very cool it is to hear our name on the radio, see and hear our name on the screen.

The best part - it's not the person we mention that hears or sees it in real time, it's all of their friends, their family, the people important in their lives who tell them about it.

Names make news! Local, local, local!

Bonus: Tom Asacker - this is one you do not want to miss. Highly recommended. Bravo Tom!

Bonus 2: Leave it to ace programmer Lee Arnold to share stuff we need to be reading, here and here. Suggested with every pixel at my command. Each a good read - thank you very much, Lee.

Countdown to the sweeps: Want an edge in the sweeps? Invite an outsider in, a person without an agenda, someone who is not dialed-in to your situation. The professional who will ask the obvious questions, the questions you are no longer sensitive enough to note because you are too close to the action - too involved in the work to notice. It's about perspective.

If I owned, managed or programmed a rock radio station of any flavor, no matter how well positioned, without respect to how right we were for the upcoming sweep I would invite Lee Arnold in for a day. If you're #1 he could help you create a greater lead, if you're #2 he could help you to reach or close on #1, and if you're not #1 or #2 then you really need to get him into your discussions now. Reach him via his blog here.

One million dollars: That's how much Coca-Cola paid to have their logo on the MySpace home page for one day (8/17).

Buzz: Hearing a good deal of chatter about HeyNielsen. Stay tuned. It will probably go public this fall. In the meantime check out their blog here (do sign up for the beta).

"Culture is more important than technology"
"Transparency is viral... it's really fundamental"

Video: Google chief Eric Schmidt on net neutrality, free speech, universal access, advertising, ip and more via YouTube here. Related story by Timothy Karr via HP here. Eric says "Keep it free and open" and he is spot-on. Eric, thank you very much for getting out in front of these issues!

Video: Process Enacted by Jordan C. Greenhalgh. Amazing. Bravos! Watch Jordan's short here.

Video: CitizeNews - Michael Rosenblum has the back story here. Congrats & cheers Michael! What is so very cool about the work that Michael does is the work that Michael does. He's not just talking about doing something, he's out there making something happen. If you are not following his blog you are not watching the future happen and the future is happening right before our eyes. We are fortunate Michael favors us by sharing. Join the future, already in progress, just jump over to his blog here.

Please make a note of it: Doc is now blogging at Harvard. "Same old blog, brand new place" here.

Might as well start up a new blog: All about Arbitron's Portable People Meter (PPM). Day one of beta, your comments, suggestions and contributions invited. PPM News & Comment

Then you get the bill: iJustine gets her first iPhone bill from AT&T, in a box.

Photo: Fall From Grace by Thomas Hawk. Another amazing shot. Bravo & Thank you!

"Luck, chance, and catastrophe affect business as they do all human endeavors. But luck never built a business. Prosperity and growth come only to the business that systematically finds and exploits its potential." Peter Drucker

Drucker went on to suggest three questions that will bring out the hidden potential of a business:

• What are the restraints and limitations that make the business vulnerable?
• What are the imbalances of the business?
• What are we afraid of, what do we see as a threat to this business - and how can we use it as an opportunity?

Writing this past weekend on development issues. Came across some excellent points made by the great David Oglivy. His "five characteristics which suggest...a person has the potential for rapid promotion:

1. He is ambitious.
2. He works harder than his peers - and enjoys it.
3. He has a brilliant brain - inventive and unorthodox.
4. He has an engaging personality.
5. He demonstrates respect for the creative function.

If you fail to recognize, promote and reward young people of exceptional promise, they will leave you; the loss of an exceptional man can be as damaging as the loss of an account."

Too much for too little: Now comes word the eBay cable net exchange was to charge 2% per transaction. Also hearing the platform feature set did not allow for any value added. Some cable folks are saying the exchange was just too expensive at 2%.

Best music in the history of TV: Little Steven says it doesn't get better than the music on The Sopranos. Read the Reuters/Billboard story via WaPo here.

100 million - the number of iPods Apple says it has sold. According to Nick Wingfield writing is this morning's Wall Street Journal Apple grabbed a 73.7% share of the MP3 market (US retail) in February. SanDisk was second with a 9.0% share; Microsoft picked up 2.3% of the February retail market. (data: NPD Group). Read A New Wireless Player Hopes to Challenge iPod via WSJ here (sub req).

Wired: Eric Schmidt interviewed by Fred Vogelstein via Wired here.

"How should we think about Google today?

Think of it first as an advertising system. Then as an end-user system - Google Apps. A third way to think of Google is as a giant supercomputer. And a fourth way is to think of it as a social phenomenon involving the company, the people, the brand, the mission, the values - all that kind of stuff."

"Google’s revenue and employee head count have tripled in the last two years. How do you keep from becoming too bureaucratic or too chaotic?

It’s a constant problem. We analyze this every day, and our conclusion is that the best model is still small teams running as fast as they can and tolerating a certain lack of cohesion. Attempting to provide too much order dries out the creativity. What’s needed in a properly functioning corporation is a balance between creativity and order.

But we’ve reined in certain things. For example, we don’t tolerate the kind of “Hey, I want to have my own database and have a good time” behavior that was effective for us in the past."

Bravo Eric! Well done Fred.

Congrats & cheers: Roger Ogden, Gannett Broadcasting CEO, named B&C's Broadcaster of the Year. “Good ideas can come from any level of the organization, from any source. We can’t sit back and hope and expect that’s going to happen naturally or automatically. So we’ve developed a culture in which we encourage people to participate.” Read B&C item here. Ellen Weiss named VP of News for NPR. Well deserved!

Google Maps - create your own personalized, annotated maps - very cool.